One of them falls in love with the local romeo and it looks like she might escape her mother's clutches, but then Bernarda decides that he must marry her oldest daughter, (who's no spring chicken) instead, and all hell breaks loose. I auditioned late and got stuck with the part of the maid, which meant coming on and saying lines like "Don Alfonso's here!" and going off again.
We really, really enjoyed doing the play, but for a heavy tragedy it veered very close to comedy during rehearsals. One of the daughters is meant to have a hump back and Bernarda, the mother, uses a cane - at one point she has to chase her daughter across the stage and it was starting to look like a Benny Hill sketch. But we pulled it together for the first night.
I took this photo off-stage, about to run in with the crucial information about Don Alfonso.
On opening night, in the last tragic scene when everything is kicking off, Bernarda's daughter takes her cane, the symbol of her tyranny; in a moment fraught with high drama, she throws it to the ground and breaks it. At that moment, I come on in my guise of maid to say "Don Pepe's here!" or something similar.
But it is timed beautifully with Sophie throwing down the cane, which doesn't break. Instead it bounces. In a fluke that I couldn't have achieved if I'd tried, I rush in, don't see it, step on it, and surf, no, ski on it halfway across the stage. I can hear the front row sniggering all the way through the final lines of the scene.
Thus endeth my acting career.
9 comments:
A loss to the acting profession I think.
I was in that play too, even though I didn't go to your school! A lady in mourning, as I recall. But why?
Yes, I remember that Alba mama, she was one heckuva dictator. I don't remember what happened in the end, but I hated her all the way through that play.
Do you like acting? I like being backstage, doing the props and so on.
Emma, ha! I'd forgotten. I think we smuggled you in for a laugh.
GG, I like the whole thing, props and costumes and being onstage.
G, you were brave to take drama. I'm a total show-off but only when there's lines to learn, could never do improvisation *shudder* Don't know how stand-up comedians do it.
Benny Hill would be proud :)
Viking, I wish we could have used the theme music in the play, it would have livened it up no end ;-)
I much prefer making the magic happen in the background to actually standing on the stage, I must say. But that's because I like wires and noise and dirt and gaffer-tape and sweat and darkness. And every so often, getting electrocuted. :-)
ha ha ha! Freak.
Seriously, what a fab job.
I was in a play once where I had to spend the bulk of one scene in a deckchair with my back to the audience. All the other actors had to come in and say hello to me in passing. At the end of the scene it was revealed that I was dead - murdered. The question was... who'd killed me?
Slight hitch - in the middle of rehearsals, I got pneumonia. Thanks to multiple medications, I made it to showtime, but was still feeling a bit rough. When I was sitting in the deckchair, I sneezed, and massive gobs of greeny-yellow mucus exploded from my nose and mouth, coating most of my face and my dashing fake moustache.
All the actors came past me, did their schtick and nearly threw up at the goopy mess. The thing was, because I was facing backwards, nobody in the audience could see what had happened, or understand why the other actors were alternating between uncontrollable giggles and rising nausea.
As one of my fellow actors put it afterwards: "Never mind. At least you didn't shit yourself."
Tim - ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha!
I doff my cap to you, sir.
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