From tree to annoying prostitute, my parts in JFS School productions have always been true to life. This year JFS attempted to put on the musical Little Shop Of Horrors... only mirroring the script because it was quite literally was horrific.
Maybe the fact I was cast a small, relatively insignificant role that went from being intended from 3 girls to 8, making my initial 30-40 lines become more like 3-4 that made this play bitter at the start. I can't sing either and that prompted a tad of my cynicism, the first time I attempted 'downtown' it resembled something similar to Mongolian throat singing. Then there's the company, only paralleled to Glee in the fact that we're at the bottom of the school's social heap, with a token gay guy stuck in there somewhere.
We had the crazy drama teacher and the short, fat music director, the immature youngsters and the bitchy singing teacher... but then there was the costume lady. A mystery to me, I believe that she escaped from her tragic Czechoslovakian drunken husband to have a better life... 'in charge' of costumes at JFS. Although she does not make the costumes and can't actually sow, she can tell which colour is which and find pictures of items of clothing she wishes the company to wear from the internet and assemble them into a vapid power point. The most disturbing thing is when she gets stressed out she says "now that's over - where's my Prozac?". I mean, is she joking? And if not, can I get in on this?
The best part of this show may have been the waking up at 8am on Sundays to practice the bows for a few hours. I loved lining up, marching forward - step. bow, left, bow, right, bow, front, bow, bow again, wave. The voice of a hundred grumpy children still haunts my nightmares. If we dare bow a millisecond too early our drama teacher had no problem making a spectacle of us, she prides herself on the ability to make children cry.
When the night of the performance came I wondered if there was a stage below Amateur, like Primary or Infant, even Baby would have sufficed. But the show went on, only half audible though - of course the microphones would fail on three consecutive nights, only working when the company went off-stage so the audience where subject to the occasional "shit" on my behalf. Make-up was tragic as I was painted like a Satsuma that had molded round the eyes, and dressed like the office whore rather than a cheap prostitute but the line in that case wasn't particularly distinguished.
What we gained as a company from this experience wasn't skill or talent, but perhaps a mild sense of community and 'friendship' only established due to the excessive sharing of similar experiences and a large amount of time exposed to one another.
The actual production was perhaps acceptable, and the after party at mine a drunken blur. The real icing on the cake however was when I went to Habs school play the night after my last performance - why the fuck did I waste 8 months of my life?
And that's the god-damned truth.
No comments:
Post a Comment