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Notice
Due to a an unscheduled leave of absence for a certain cast
member, the part of the “Assistant Duke” will be played by rotating personnel from the cleaning crew for the remaining performances of the production.
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Fresh from my triumph
treading the boards as the “Dumb Waiter” in the Metro-West Chamber of Commerce
presentation of Quadruple Entendre…And Then Some!, I stumbled into a supporting
role in the office production of The
Duke, the Duchess, and the Dope.
I was tasked with
interpreting afresh the vital character of the Assistant Duke, often played too broadly or too narrowly, or sometimes, too hot, or too cold, instead of just right. I rose to the challenge of giving life to a fictitious being so often given short shrift, and to do so in the company of lackluster colleagues, many new to the world of the thespian arts. As luck would have it,
my boss was cast as the Duchess. Some lackey from marketing played the Dope,
and various no-name types from accounts receivable rounded out the dramatis personae as
townsfolk and miscellaneous lepers.
We had rehearsed for weeks
wherever we could find space: the copy
room, or the adjacent half-kitchen -- squeezed in amongst the carcinogenic
sweeteners adorning the countertops and the “tree” of exotic coffees compressed
into little testosterone-killing plastic tubs a penny toss from the microwave. Lost
in our concentration, we would block scene after scene for who-knows-how-long
without a soul pausing to dip into the over-sized bowl of stale pretzels.
After previewing the show for the cleaning
crew and other denizens of the sub-basement, and after cutting a few of the
draggier musical numbers, like “I’m as Corny as Alfalfa,” we were ready for the
big time, to wit: the freshly re-carpeted auditorium of the Abraham Lincoln Middle
School.
The first two performances nearly
filled the 110-seat hall to capacity. No surprise. The reviews from the Rotarian
newsletter -- overlooking the foibles of the lesser players in our midst -- were outstanding: “This show is a harmless way to kill two hours and
the tickets are cheap” was just one of the many glowing superlatives that found
its way to print.
By the third night, we could
be forgiven for feeling entitled to reap the harvest of accolades cascading from the Fourth Estate.
Could this mean box office gold? Even the make-up lady’s penchant for
overly-liberal appliques of rouge (making
the players all look like Raggedy Annes and Raggedy Andys on steroids) could
not dampen our esprit de corps.
But something that had
happened at the office earlier on the morning after the second night’s
performance had been distracting me all day: I had asked Walter to replenish
the staples in my stapler, and he just snapped like a man consumed with hatred
of mechanical wire fasteners, screaming at me, “Do I look like a stapler replenisher
to you!? Well, do I!?”
Everyone has
their hair trigger; this was his.
Before I had the chance to
reply, “Well, kinda, yes,” he was out the door and down the hall, smashing the
water cooler angrily with his two good hands and muttering expletives.
Though Walter did not exactly
report to me, or even work in the same department, or on the same floor, he
was, technically, my junior, given that he had been at the company three weeks
fewer than had I, and his office was smaller by 1 and 1/8 square feet. I was,
therefore, stunned by his rogue display of insubordination. In fact, I began to obsess over it.
I was still obsessing over it
later that night prior to the next performance of the “Duke,” and then, all
throughout vocal warm-ups backstage, and continuing through the overture pulsating from the
electric piano in the orchestra “pit.” (In actuality, this consisted of a few seats roped off in
the front row reserved for the part-time organist from the minor league ball park. So skilled was our
concertmaster with his electric “ensemble” that he could cause it to mimic 27 different
musical instruments and to make metallic-sounding voices that were supposed to
put one in mind of the Vienna Boys Choir, but mostly sounded like car alarms
whose batteries were dying in dulcet tones).
I was still obsessing over it all throughout
Act I, even at the moment when the entire cast was supposed to effect a goofy
grin, slap their foreheads in unison and shout “Oy Vey!” (always a riotous crowd
pleaser).
Indeed, so shaken had I become by
Walter’s crude bent towards usurpation of the workplace hierarchy that I was now
fully in the grips of fixation. My
cast mates, deaf to my inner turmoil, ploughed on unawares. They were to be forgiven. After all, how could they feel my pain? They
had not witnessed the whole sordid stapler affair and knew nothing of the revenge
fantasies playing out in my head.
By now it was the second
scene of Act II during my boss’ character’s big solo – a mini operetta in which
she was to sing to the character of the Dope with the memorable refrain: “You are such a Dope!” I wasn’t supposed to
be out of the wings until after the conclusion of the number, immediately
following the Dope’s line, “Begging pardon, Majesty, I was born that way!”
But still lost in my trance, I wandered onto center stage just as my boss as the Duchess was belting out the lyric:
“I am sick of your amateurism/ You will give me an aneurysm!” (one of the
show’s many thrilling denouements!).
As soon as my boss saw me straying from the script and invading the mise en scene, wearing a
vacant stare like a pair of familiar fleece undergarments, she stopped singing. Cold. Right in the middle
of the song. There was a kind of hush all over the room that night.
In fact, there was so much
silence that one could hear the patrons fiddling with candy wrappers, discussing their children's prowess on the soccer field, and
texting – sounds typically drowned out by the actors’ dialogue. My boss gave me a look. I had seen it in every other community theatrical
production in which I had ever participated. I knew that look. It was the look that said: “Idiot! What are you doing on the stage!? Get
off! Get Off! You’re not even in costume! You’re ruining
everything! Get Off, now!”
Relying on some primordial
dramatist’s instinct, summoned, perhaps, from a past-life stint as a journeyman
in an ancient Greek chorus, I did what I had always done in these situations; I
improvised a few lines.
“What seems to be the fuss
here, M’lady?”
I delivered this line with a
stage wink, hoping against hope that my boss would pick up on my subtle cue. She was cueless.
She continued to glower at
me. I turned to the hapless junior executive from sales playing the part of the Dope.
“I heard yelling. What gives, Imbecile?”
He just froze like a je ne sais qois caught in the headlights. He simply didn’t have the acumen
to think on his feet. I turned back to
my boss (a/k/a the “Duchess”):
“Who’s hungry? How ‘bout a sandwich?”
Nothing.
She walked up to me and whispered in my ear:
“Are you out of your mind!? Get off the
stage! Stop being a jerk! You’re ruining
the whole show!”
I sized up the situation
quickly, and thought: ‘Hmmm. You may be
my boss in the office, but here on this stage, I am the Assistant Duke and you
are just the Duchess. In this show, you are not the boss of me! I
am the boss of you! Or, if not the boss of you, then at least, assistant
to the boss of you!’”
Just as I was about to speak
my latest improvisation: “You are not the boss
of me!” some klutz in the lighting booth tripped, and the entire theater was
plunged into darkness. Then I heard a loudmouth coughing into a microphone about waiting for the lights to come up before heading for the doors. But the exodus was already well in progress.
I was asked to leave the show
that night. The vote was unanimous.
The scuttlebutt on the street
is that the rank amateurs who stayed on with the production and forced me out are
so blinded by self-adulation, so enamored with their own mediocre talent, that they haven’t even noticed the precipitous drop in quality since my
departure. It would not surprise me one whit were the show to close before
completing its scheduled nine-performance run, and its backers to suffer a loss. Outrageous, indeed, are the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. But, that's life; you're riding high in April, shot down in May.
Me? I’m planning to audition
for the upcoming extravaganza: Flummoxed, the Musical. Maybe
this time, we can assemble a team of real professionals, class acts who take their craft seriously, who can roll with the punches, and who know the appropriate response to the call of their
muse or an improvised line now and again.
Heaven knows, the community
deserves it.
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