There's a small anxiety about starting up again. Standing backstage, waiting to heed a cue, my mind thinks no time has passed from last weekend, but my muscles know it's been a while. My little habits and ticks are off. Right before the play starts, the director tells us to insert a pause right before Mae and Gooper leave Act III. This kind of note doesn't bother me, as it demands such a small change. Now if he told us to drop a line, we'd be in trouble.
All the kids are back, and the return of the younger boy means Talky Boy has been cranked to 11. Maybe it's the hiatus, but he's especially annoying tonight. The returning girl seems like she's running in a low gear. the reverend asks if I see him and Gooper's asides as a comedy shtick like Abbott and Costello. I handle this question carefully, because his question suggests where he wants those characters to go, and I don't wanna try that as we start our second weekend of shows. What I say instead is that I think the reverend speaks so often of memorial gifts to local churches because he thinks Daddy's death will be a boon to his. He seems satisfied with that.
I have a lot of trouble with a contact lens, and take in so much saline solution in my system that my stomach falls out. I miss the first part of warm-ups because of this. Also, the damn shoes have apparently shrunk back to their crippling shapes. I'm starving backstage, but I avoid the giant bowl of candy lest I take the stage with a green tongue. My reversion to a pre-run schedule, even a brief one, has ruined my theatre diet, and I'm starving.
It's a sizable crowd out there, and they take forever to get back to their seats after intermission. The reverend and I hover on stage-right waiting for them. I just read earlier tonight the depiction of Alan Shepard's 15-minute flight into space and how it began with a four-hour delay. And once they sit, they aren't in the show. Even the kids' singing fails to entertain. Big Daddy has to work to win them over. He seems to have some trouble getting started, and he later tells us he was distracted by the sign-language provider near the front of the stage. I didn't notice ther person at all. I knew we were offering audio transcription for the seeing impaired this weekend, but I didn't know we had a signer too. I wonder how they did with "euremia" and, of course, "poontang." I imagine this poor, unprepared female signer suddenly busting out a DX crotch chop.
Previous entries:
Day One: Reading It Through
Day Two: Act Two
Day Three: Reading Act Two
Day Four: Talking It Through
Day Five: Blocking Act Two
Day Six: Act Two Redux
Day Seven: Reading Act Three
Day Eight: The Da Gooper Code
Day Nine: The Laying On of Hands
Day Ten: Pictures and Pages
Day Eleven: Onstage
Day Twelve: Memory
Day Thirteen: The Quickie
Day Fourteen: The Lines
Day Fifteen: Act III Anxiety
Day Sixteen: Let's Just Get It Right
Day Seventeen: Molding the Gooper
Day Eighteen: Goopercalypse
Day Nineteen: There Is Not A Doctor In The House
Day Twenty: Back to Words
Day Twenty-One: Getting Technical
Day Twenty-Two: We're Ready When You Are
Day Twenty-Three: Socks
Day Twenty-Four: Our First Audience
Day Twenty-Five: Calamity
Day Twenty-Six: Opening Night
Day Twenty-Seven: Second Night
Day Twenty-Eight: The Show You Saw
Day Twenty-Nine: Brush-Up
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