have i ever mentioned that i sometimes have that actor nightmare, where you’re in a play but you don’t know your lines or what you’re supposed to be doing, and you have no time to prepare? it’s a pretty common dream.
but tonight it was kind of a reality. except in a ballet.
which is funny, anyway, that i’m IN a ballet. but in the first act, after the “garland dance,” kevin and i have to strut onstage and circle around and then sleeping beauty herself appears, for the very first time (as an adult, as opposed to in the prologue when she’s a plastic baby).
we haven’t rehearsed this very much, not really, and each time either julie, the head of the ballet company, has told us when to come on, or we’ve been very late.
tonight we were early. very very early. the garland dancers were onstage, as were a bunch of other dancers, i think they’re the girlfriends of sleeping beauty, and we thought they’d completely stopped dancing. they did stop, BUT NOT COMPLETELY.
so we started strutting out, and all of a sudden they were STILL DANCING and we were right in the middle of them and they looked a little confused and of course we realized we were much too early but there was nothing we could do, we couldn’t run back behind the curtain, so we kept walking and it wasn’t pretty. at all.
and the thing is that there are only TWO MORE REHEARSALS till the real deal. really only one rehearsal, because on friday night there will be an audience and it would be quite mortifying to cause yet another ballerina traffic jam in front of people who are there to watch the show.
the ballet dancers, they have to WORK throughout the ballet, dancing dancing dancing. and like i’ve written, all we have to do is parade around and sit down. and we can’t screw it up!
in the third act we have to enter and we’ve only done that about two times, but luckily there are a bunch of little girls who follow us on, and they know exactly where it’s all supposed to happen. so one of them says “GO!” and we parade out. last night one of them said GO but it wasn’t reallly time, but i think they figured it out amongst themselves, relieving us of any of the burden.
but that first act, i hope we do it right. we don’t want to leave the dancers standing there onstage with nothing going on, but i just couldn’t bear going on and having all the dancers suddenly trying to walk exactly where we’re walking.
tonight it was even more clear just how hard they work. they have three guests artists for the show, all guys, and one of the guys did a dance with one of the ballerinas and it looked so beautiful and effortless and good. but then he came offstage and was crouched in the wings and i watched him as he panted and panted and sweated and sweated.
very very hard work.
all we have to do is keep our smiles going through the third act. this is a very long act, and tonight since the guest artists were there we saw the actual act and it lasts about four years. we have to sit there smiling and chatting a little, and my mouth got so very very tired of smiling and i started to feel like it couldn’t possibly look like a smile anymore, surely it must be a weird grimace. and my lips got chapped.
but gil, he has to stand up for the whole thing, plus he has nobody to interact with, so really, we have it easy. plus of course we don’t have to dance.
tomorrow, costumes.
ok then,
grace attempting to stop looking up plane fares all day long.