How I Screwed The Pooch And Became Humbled

Okay. So the preview night on Thursday went well. Probably too well. The Altrusa's were wined up (that is not a typo- there was a lot of wine involved) and happy. I was barely nervous. The rest of the cast was mellow too. We were all ready and raring to go and go we did.
Things went fairly smoothly, no one did anything crazy and I felt comfortable and natural on the stage. When it was over, I jumped up and down and said, "We did it!" and we had. We got lots of praise and I went and washed the prop dishes to try and relieve some of the swelling of my head.

That was Thursday night.

Last night, Friday night, was a different story. Almost my whole family was there. Sitting there at a table watching me. The mama. The wife. And I just could not forget that fact.

My first character, the lady most like me, came on and I did fine with her. Just fine.

And then I left the stage and that's where things started going downhill for me. I have to change, in the space of about a page and a half of dialogue, from a woman about my age to an older Jewish lady with a completely different costume AND a wig and hat. And purse. I could not get the wig to sit right and stay on. I didn't have time to get my funky big bracelet on. I hit the stage a few beats late and the very, very worst thing happened: I couldn't do my accent.

I completely lost my accent. The accent which in the initial audition for the play I already had nailed. The easiest, the funniest in the context of character, the one I have always felt most comfortable doing. It was gone.

And so there I was, all over the geographical United States, trying this one out and that one, having an out-of-body panic attack while the people behind me on stage were probably peeing their pants while sitting in stunned silence and I was dropping lines and all I could think of was, "Where am I? Who am I? What am I doing? Am I having a flashback? Am I going insane, right here, right now, in front of my family and half of Monticello? " And I could feel the directors' stupefied wonder at how their very dependable Mary had completely lost her shit.

Somehow, I stumbled back to where I was supposed to be. My old-lady character told me in a fierce threatening whisper to, "Back off, stupid bitch and let me talk!"

And I did.

It ended up okay, but I was humiliated, embarrassed and felt as if I'd let down the whole cast and my directors.

My second character went fine, but still- things were off. And the tone of the whole evening was set. It was like a slipping bike chain. One minute you're peddling along fine and then bang! click-click-click, no power, no traction, no forward motion.

I was late in entrances. I dropped lines. I forgot to take a vital prop onstage. I almost went onstage barefoot.

Oh my honeys, it was not fun. It was not good. It was not what you'd call a stellar night.
After it was all over, instead of wanting to go out and mingle with the crowd, I simply wanted someone to bring me a bottle of rotgut vodka and let me sit in the dark corner and drink until I passed out.

Well. Not really. But you know what I mean.

But no, I had to go out and try to laugh it all off, which I did because hey- it's all Fake Believe, right?

Kathleen, who is the stage manager and the person who is backstage helping me get out of one costume and into another, kept reassuring me and telling me that it was fine, all was well, the audience would never know, everyone was screwing up, etc., etc., etc.
She's so sweet. As were the directors. And my family. And the rest of the cast.
But I knew and we all knew, quite frankly, that I had let everyone down.

Oh. The night had its high points. I got a lot of laughs. One man told me that he had had NO IDEA that there hadn't been five different women playing those parts. His wife said she'd not realized it either. Of course, their combined ages was something like three hundred and twelve, so there you go.

And tonight's another night.

I swear. If I fuck up tonight like I did last night, I am going to calmly ask the audience if they would mind if we started over. Because really- I can do MUCH better.
In fact, I did much better on the first read-through back in December.

And I could blame the wigs and I could blame the fact that my family was there and I couldn't forget that fact and let go and become my characters. And I could blame my inexperience. Whatever. But really, I'm going to simply say that well, it wasn't a great night and tonight will be better.

And if it's not, there's always rotgut vodka.

Thank-you all for coming. Ask for your refund at the door as you leave.