Playing and Pretending

When I was in high school, I loved being in Drama Club. We did a few typical high school productions and I was also in a community theater production of Our Town. I played Emily and it was, quite literally, a high point of my life when a tough guy I knew came to see the play and told me afterwards I'd made him cry. I felt like I'd won an Oscar, an Emmy, and a Tony Award, all in one night.
I never had any delusions of grandeur about acting, but I always planned to do maybe a little community production here and there.
But as things turned out, I got busy with life and didn't even test the waters until last year when my youngest daughter and I, just for giggles, decided to audition for a play in Monticello. We both got roles (everyone who auditions for plays in Monticello gets roles) and we had a grand time with the play. We had rehearsals three nights a week for 2 months and I thought I'd end up being sick and tired of the whole thing by the time it was over, but I wasn't. I enjoyed every minute of it.
And so this year, when I read they were doing a production of Casablanca at the Monticello Opera House, I went and read and again, got a part. My daughter was too busy and has just started college, so it's just been me making that three-times a week trek to Monticello and I miss her company and her humor and our little gossip sessions but I've had a lot of fun.
Anyone who's seen the movie of Casablanca surely knows there are not a whole lot of roles for women in the play. There's Ilsa, the Ingrid Bergman role, and Monticello's resident "real" actress quite reasonably scored that one. There's the part of Annina, who is a Bulgarian girl who goes to Rick for advice on how to avoid having to sleep with the Prefect of Police in order to get exit visas for her and her new husband, and there are a few random cafe-goers who are women and then there's Yvonne, a French woman who has the hots for Rick but who is terribly misused by him in the most callous way.
Can you tell from my complete empathy for the woman that this is the role I got?
I have all of nine lines and when I say "lines" I mean perhaps one-or two word lines. And that's it. I sit at the bar a lot and I have to sing the Marseillaise and that's about it.
But goodness gracious, I am enjoying it so much.
It's quite odd to be in a play with so many men. Community theater is usually at least eighty-percent women to men, but in this production, the ratio is reversed. And I have to say that being in a production with so many guys is just a real hoot. They're like...little boys.
And of course, that's the great, great thing about being in a play. We're pretending. Do you remember pretending? That's what we did as children. "Let's pretend you're Tarzan and I'm Jane." Or, "Let's pretend we got caught in a snowstorm." Or "You pretend you fell off a cliff and broke your leg, and..."
We went from there. It was great. But then, around the age of eleven or so, we quit pretending. Well, at least on that so-literal and honest level. I think we all pretend, every day. We pretend we know what we're doing. We pretend we know what we're talking about. We pretend we're not afraid. Basically, I think we pretend we're all grown-ups.
Which is why it's so much fun to have the opportunity to pretend again so openly and whole-heartedly as an adult. We're dressing up and pretending to be someone quite different from the people we truly are. For example- I get to pretend I'm someone who would wear a black, beaded dress and who would tell a bartender to "shut-up" when he tells her he loves her. How fun is that for a usually polite woman who's been married to the same man for over twenty years and who mostly lives in cargo shorts?
A lot of fun, is what I say.
And the opportunity to hang out in the old opera house is just a joy. It was built in 1890, and has been a part of this community for so many years and I can't help but think of all the performers who have literally trod its boards. The dressing room where we tug our costumes on and off, share make-up and zip each other up- how many people have done the same in that small space? There may or may not be ghosts in the Opera House but there surely are spirits.
We open on Friday night, but there's a preview performance on Thursday. I like performing just fine, but what I really love the most is the creation of the whole thing. The part of the process where the pretending starts and proceeds to the point where we can slip out of our real selves for just a few hours, as easily as we slip into our uniforms and beaded gowns. The part where we're doing it for ourselves and for the joy of it.
For the joy of pretending. We're grown-ups but for these few hours, we get to play.
And the play is the thing.