Ten-Finger Exercises

rainbows and other things

I haven't long to blog tonight, because Bill is waiting for me to practice his lines with him. He's the Admiral in Gilbert and Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore, which will be starting in two short weeks. He knows all the singing parts, but the lines are still alluding him. That's why I've never wanted to be in a play either: memorization is hard. His lines are particularly difficult: too many similarities between one response and the next, and the ones in the following scene, but not quite the same.

The main difficulty is that the man playing the captain has missed so many practices. Bill called one night last week and begged me to come and read lines to him while he waited for his part. I was slightly annoyed at first, since I was trying to do my on-line Word lesson. Of course I was caught up in the production and the off-stage drama as soon as I got there, and didn't mind at all.

The man playing the character Ralph (pronounced Rafe) (Do the English still say it that way?) was a late comer. They'd had a hard time finding someone, a tenor, willing to do the part. (This is a very amateur production, done as a benefit for the new library we have in our little town, to help pay the bills.)

The director is a wonderful woman, a friend of mine, in her 70's, with lots of energy and experience. Nevertheless, she is wringing her hands and tearing out her hair at the difficulty of pulling this thing together. It will be held in the high school auditorium in just two weeks. The sets are good, the costumes coming along well, but the main parts are iffy, due to lack of attendance. Buttercup couldn't be there last week due to a family emergency, but we never heard the Captain's excuse.

Ralph is played by a man who doesn't appear to be the brightest bulb in the marquis. His father is a principal or superintendent of one of the schools, and he is a janitor. He has a bit of a speech impediment, and a shaved head. Nevertheless, he has a good, strong tenor voice and few lines. At the practice I attended, the director told him to take a step forward with one line, and another step forward with the next. Since he is standing stage left, she told him to lead off with his right foot. He balked at that, saying he had had several years in the military and knew better. When she tried to override his complaint, he stormed out, saying he didn't have to take that kind of treatment and that he had to "go pray about it."

Darn these Christians. Don't they know that doesn't make points with anyone? The whole cast stood around for a few minutes waiting for him to come back, until the director had them practice something else. It never occurred to him that he was interfering with other people's work, that he should suck it up and get on with it.

We have a hat to make tonight as well. Can you picture the officers' hats from 1885? They're pointy, front and back, with a fancy button on top. Bill borrowed a real one from a friend, to take a look at it. Because there are none around to rent, the next best thing is to make his own. He got a cowboy hat, and, with instructions from a costumer, soaked it in water. Then we rolled the sides of the brim up so that they come to almost points front and back, and stuffed the crown with a bag of beans to round it out. His first hat, just for effect, had one of those shower scrubbers made of net that pouf out into a ball on top. It was surprisingly okay.

Well, this entry didn't go where I aimed it at all, not a single rainbow in it. I think it's long enough though; will get back to rainbows another night. Bill has been occupied working on a flight plan to Florida, but he needs to stop that play and practice lines. So, since he's now contemplating making it from Little Rock to Brigham City, he must be on his way back. I'd better go find the script.