July 15, 2003
First, a big shout out to Kristin, who was the only one to correctly answer the Harry Potter trivia question from last entry, identifying Ali Bashir as the culprit arrested for smuggling illegal flying carpets into Britain. Next time I'm Hermione, I'm bringing Kristin with me.
So, I love working with my theater company, but often I feel like I've inadvertently walked into an insane asylum. (Incidentally, "Asylum" was one of the frontrunners for the company's name back in the day. I'm thinking it would have been appropriate.)
I sit in rehearsal and I feel like the Yankee when he wakes up in King Arthur's Court and thinks that he's smack in the middle of a looney bin. (Or for those of you less literary and more cartoony: Bugs Bunny.).
I swear, we start working on a show and it's like falling down the rabbit hole: Suddenly, I'm in Wonderland, surrounded by lunatic (if loveable) characters that pull me into their strange games. (Nothing like mixing literary metaphors. Mark Twain, Lewis Carroll. Whatever. At least the 30K I dropped on that MA is coming in handy. Actually, not so much, since I read both of those books way before grad school.) And now with Sabrina and Sammy living at Scott's house, everything's turned upside down. It's become a total immersion in lunacy.
I spent Sunday night sewing yards of upholstery trim (in the form of dangling blackberries) onto the bustles on Sammy's witch dress. (Actually, Sammy used a very French term for the bustles, something like "Pan-Yays," but I'm fucked if I know how to spell that word. All I know is that I spent three hours stitching berries onto a dress.) I haven't yet had to do anything to his big, Victorian hat (think the racing scene from My Fair Lady), but I have a feeling I'll be attaching stuffed bats or something to it before long.
Sammy's playing the witch in our bizarre, musical version of "Hansel and Gretal." (If you're in Philly on Wednesday, July 30th, or Saturday and Sunday August 23 and 24, or Stamford, CT on September 21 come see it! Bring the kids. If you don't have kids, come see it anyway!) Anyway, Sammy's playing "Auntie Hystamine" and he's going all out with this HUGE black dress and alligator bag and gigantic feathered hat and a boa. But, you know, he's actually not that out of the ordinary in the neighborhood where we're working because we're working with kids from a summer camp that's run by Mummers. (And really, when your dad and your older brother spend all fall practicing dance routines and then spend New Year's Day in feathers, sequins, and sparkly makeup, how unusual is a guy from New York in a big black dress and feather boa, singing Marlene Dietrich songs?)
We're even trying to get the Mummers to loan us a costume for Peter, who's playing Auntie Hystamine's henchman, the former Vegas magician, Helmut.
So it's Mummers and magic for me, this summer. Actually, considering I already spend a lot of my time helping put Sammy in drag and doing fake magic shows, it's really not all that out of the ordinary. Hmmmm. What does that say about my life?
Last night, I spent five hours at Scott's dining room table constructing a necklace for Sammy out of jet, plastic bones, and fishing line. Sammy sat across from me gluing witch noses onto to rhinestone sunglasses. It was like a Satanic Santa's Workshop.
And unlike the upholstery trim, I just couldn't seem to get the damn bones spaced quite right. Now if I had been sewing jingle bells for the dancing boys like I did ad infinitum during Witch, I would have just said, "Fuck it" and sewn them on any which way. (Well, at least that's what I did until one of Theseus' jingle bells came flying off and hit an audience member in the head.) But Sammy is very exact and if the spacing between those bones looked off, I knew I'd end up having to cut all the fishing line and start over again.
Luckily, Scott was avoiding working on his novel and was there to help:
"See, Kate, it's easy. We just have to do some simple algebra."
"Uh, yeah, maybe algebra's simple in your world."
"No, really. It is. Let's see. We have six bones on either side of the big bone in the center and how many spaces on the jet?"
"Huh?"
"Count the spaces. Like this. One, two, three...okay, we've got thirty spaces on the jet. So the big bone should be at fifteen."
"If you say so."
"And let's see, right now you have it tied at one, two, three...ten...twelve...fourteen. Fourteen."
"Crap! I have to move it and it took me an million years to tie it on there."
"No, you don't have to move it because if you move it to fifteen it's only going to moving it a hair's breadth. Leave it."
"But you said...."
"Forget what I said. It's perfect where it is."
"That doesn't seem very mathematical."
"Kate, you're tying plastic bones onto a necklace for Chrissake. How mathematical is it going to be?"
"But the algebra...."
"What?"
"The algebra. You said...."
"Oh yeah, right. The algebra. Well, you can still use the algebra. See the big bone is more or less at 15 so you've got 15 spaces on either side of the center and you have six bones on each side, so you want them at every how many spaces?"
"Don't look at me. You're the mathematician."
"Okay, so 6 into 15 goes twice and then you get 3 left over so six into 30 is five. So every 2.5 spaces. So like this...."
And then he laid the bones out for me exactly where they needed to be.
Of course I didn't tell him that his lovely, exact, algebraic placement was thrown totally to the wind when I started trying to tie the damn things on with the fishing line.
Meanwhile, I'm trying to tie these tiny pieces of translucent fishing line while sitting in the midst of barking dogs, screaming children, Sabrina and Sammy arguing about whether every kid should be given a line or just the ones that are actually passable actors ("Sabrina, you can't have it both ways. You can't be a socialist and still have good acting." "So says the choreographer who wants to take Lauren off the ladder to give Cailin something to do."), and Scott and Tracey squabbling because he burnt the corn that they were barbequing six hours before and she made a rude comment about it ("You know, Tracey, you could have been nicer about the corn. I made it for you" "It was burnt!" "Yeah, well, I still made it for you.")
And most of my other nights are no calmer. Usually, I'm sitting in a Mummers' social club, sewing that damn dress and watching Sammy and Sabrina drill Peter and Tracey (yes, Scott's wife) on their choreography and acting:
"No, no, no, no, NO! Peter, what are you doing? It's grapevine to the refrigerator and hopping run when you and Tracey bring it back downstage."
"Are you sure? I don't recollect having set that. Do you recollect that Tracey?"
"Yes, Tracey, what do you recollect? Peter's version or mine?"
"Well, I hate to break up the team, Pete, I really do, but we've been doing it that way since the beginning."
"Really?"
"Really."
"Really?"
"REALLY!"
"Oh, okay. So what's my motivation for the grapevine? Why would Helmut dance to the refrigerator? Why wouldn't he walk?"
"Because it's a musical number, Peter!"
"Oh, yeah, right."
At our last rehearsal it was this:
"No, Peter, no! Helmut can juggle! Stop juggling like Frankenstein!"
"Bwahahahaha! Frankenstein!"
"Why are you laughing? Sammy, why is Kate laughing?"
"Because I said not to juggle like Frankenstein."
"So?"
"C'mon, Peter, you know how we call you Frankenstein."
"Um, Sammy...."
"You call me Frankenstein?"
"SAMMY!"
"Yeah, you know....Wait, you don't know."
"No, he doesn't know."
"No, I don't."
"Oh man. Well, it was that day that Louise had the baby with her and you were chasing him around and you were so tall and he was so little and it was like that scene in the movie when the monster throws the little girl in the water to see if she'll float like the flower and well, you were like Frankenstein and Kate...."
"Hold on, don't involve me in this!"
"But you did. You said he was like Frankenstein with Edmund. Like Peter was all like 'Friend?' and 'Dancing, bad!'"
"Fuck! Thanks a million, Sammy."
"Kate, you've been calling me Frankenstein behind my back?"
"Yes, Peter, but only in the best possible way."
"Truly, Peter. We mean it with only the utmost affection. We just wish you didn't juggle like Frankenstein."
"Oh, okay. So what's my motivation for juggling the food?"
You know, come to think of it, an asylum would be saner.
7 Deadly Sins and Other, Less Fatal Diversions
Pride:
Envy:
Wrath:
Sloth:
Avarice:
Gluttony:
Lust:
Book:
Tune:
I will come back with the elephants roost in the trees.
Task at Hand:
Quest for Publication:
Total Submissions: 51
My student evaluations for my Witchcraft in Lit class are through the roof! Go me!
Sometimes, when I have been sewing that damn dress for hours, I do envy Tracey; she gets to be the one up on stage in the spotlight while I'm sitting in the corner like the Little Match Girl. Then again, she also has to play Ginger Rogers to Peter's Frankenstein.
There's a gang of twelve-year-old boys in the neighborhood where we rehearse and they've started interrupting rehearsals because we wouldn't let them watch. So most nights, we rehearse to the sound of obscenities being screamed at us and rocks bouncing off the front door of the camp center. It's lovely. And do you think Frankenstein's been of any use? I mean, he's the only one who could possibly scare the kids into submission -- Peter is a BIG man -- meanwhile, it's Sammy and Sabrina who are the ones telling the kids to go away.
The house is going to condemned because I'm spending all of my time sewing and constructing post-modern arts and crafts.
One day, Rose Theater will have a professional costumer. Oh yes we will. Even if I have to sell a kidney to pay for one.
Pirate's Booty
Still Penn. No matter how many snide comments Peter makes: "Oh yeah, he's a looker, Kate." "That's funny, Peter, because I've always thought he looks a little like you."
Book 5 for a second time. It's amazing how much you miss the first time.
Marlene Dietrich, "I Will Come Back"
I will come back when the birds make love to the bees.
I will come back with the sun refuses to shine.
And Frankie Sinatra is a cousin of mine.
Sewing. And I'm not a good seamstress.
It's been pretty quiet on this front. I guess I should step up my efforts.
Rejections: 26
Acceptances: 1
Withdrawals: 7