The final dress rehearsal. No stops, no breaks, just one cross-your-fingers moment after another while the final kinks are ironed out on the fly. Which as you can imagine is a terribly dangerous way to press anything and is a fine example of why metaphors should be carefully separated. However, in this instance the resultant imagery is actually fitting.
Julian was all bedecked in oily stage makeup and 19th century poor-girl fashion. She waited on stage left ready for the Bishop of Digne to hand off one of the school's six wireless mics. She was also moderately amused by Walt's floating head since his body, like all of the techs, was completely covered in black. His limbs had completely disappeared into the curtains and dim-lit corridor of backstage.
Julian had one quick but doable scene to receive the microphone pack from Daniel, the bishop. She then need to snake the pack up the back of her skirt and plug in the cord connected to the pick up (which was taped to her forehead and hidden underneath her hair). Then, she would clip the pack onto the belt clasped around her slip, and finally, find her place before the lights came up on her mid-fight with another worker in Valjean's fictional factory. Julian was ready to spring into action.
But this readiness was wasted when Daniel exited his scene on the wrong side of the stage. Lindsey, one of the techs, flew behind the backdrop, a dismembered head and hands racing to retrieve the wayward vicar's acoustic transducer. Moments before Julian was supposed to walk on stage, the tech returned. Julian lifted her skirt and grabbed the cord. The lights went down cuing Julian's entrance. Walt whispered into his headset to hold off on the spotlights. Lindsey plugged in the cord, but between four fumbling hands the pack landed on the floor with an ominous thud next to Walt's feet. He grabbed the pack, and lunged over to Julian throwing up her skirt. He caught the pendulous pick-up cord, deftly inserted it into the jack, and running his hand up the outside of Julian's hip found the belt and clipped it on. Julian ran on stage as Walt cued the lights.
Julian's nervous system was beside itself trying to deal with the remnant heat of Walt's giant, man hand on her hip. One neuron was sending out freaked-out fight-or-flight signals, while a whole gaggle of glial cells descended into giggly histeria, and the dendrites of her frontal lobe responsible for sending out her memorized lines were arguing rather severely among themselves "if it might not be better to spend some time processing this unprecedented sensation on Julian's lower right side."
Julian managed to stiffly execute her lines with almost hundred-percent accuracy but without any real acting. By some miracle when the music started for "I Dreamed a Dream" her throat was loose enough to sing but just barely. The crux of a musical's success, the careful suspension of reality that is the internal dialogue of a character put to song was utterly lost, like a house key dropped into a port-a-john.
Julian essentially hid in the bathroom for the next hour and twenty minutes between Fantine's death and the end of the play. Mr. Todd quickly dictated the order of bows--which was ran through twice and then he called for the cast and crew to have a seat upstage for notes.
Mr. Todd paced back and forth in front of the footlights reading from a legal pad a list of things to improve scene by scene.
"Daniel, why did the Bishop leave with the police?" said Mr. Todd. "And Walt, I could've taken a bath in the time it took to strike the bishop's house. What happened?"
"Daniel uses the same mic as Julian, sir. We had to grab it from the other side of the stage."
"Okay, don't do that again, Daniel." Mr. Todd took a deep, exasperated breath before continuing. "Julian, what was that? It was like day one, three months ago. This isn't about your excellent voice. The scene isn't just a vehicle for your song. It's not Julian singing, it's Fantine. There was no emotion there." Only Mr. Todd could compliment and chastise with the same statement. "Your homework for tonight is to think of the saddest, disappointing, most unjust thing you can every imagine happening to you. I want you to think about only that until you are about to cry. And, tomorrow I want to see your heart break when you sing that song. Do you understand?"
Julian was making good headway towards tears right at that very moment and wanted desperately to hide. "Yes, sir."
---------------------------------------------------
After being removed and reapplied no less than five times, the lipstick was deemed more "Guy Noir, Private Eye" red , than "Rahab, lady of the night" red, and was allowed to stay on Kate's mouth.
Her dad gave her his most enthusiastic compliment, which in reality was a slightly more than non-committal, "You look good, hon."
And she did. A knee-length black sheath showed off some impressive calves, and her glass-emerald bracelet set off the green sheen of The Hat's feathers. If she looked mildly funereal, she was a good-looking mourner--like the Black Widow of some 1950's film.
The Hat had completely changed Kate's outlook on the past week. She had arranged to join Rachel's group for dinner and pictures, and she was genuinely excited for the evening. When she heard the knock at the door, she even jumped off the couch. As Chris walked through her door, Kate couldn't suppress the amused grin that spread across her face. It looked like he had rented his suit from one of the groomsmen from Fiddler on the Roof . His jacket extended to his knees, and he was wearing a bolo tie with a malachite slide. He was like a klezmer cowboy. Goofy, but Kate had to admit that somehow it worked for him.The agony of photographed boutonniere pinning commenced. She carefully avoided stabbing Chris but drew her own blood. After an eternity, somehow the two stems of "Bells of Ireland" were attached to his lapel. Chris opened his little plastic clamshell box. It was a really classy corsage--One floret from a green cymbidium orchid free of extraneous, ugly, plastic ribbon. But, it was also the only pin-on corsage Kate had ever seen intended for a woman under 45. Instantly the horrifying realization that Chris would have to put one hand underneath the shoulder of her dress to attach the thing stormed through Kate's mind like a nightmare. Why Chris, WHY?
Like Indiana Jones running from a boulder, Kate's mind was frantically working for a way to escape. Then as Chris was coming at her with the instrument of torture disguised as a flower she latched on to the only hope she could find: "WAIT! ..uh, how about you just hold it up to my shoulder and act like your pinning it on for the picture. And then I'll... just step into the bathroom and pin it on myself. You know, avoid any more grievous wounds?"
Chris looked almost as relieved as Kate felt, which made Kate feel better that his bizarre choice to pass up the wristlet wasn't anything creepy. Not that Kate really thought that Chris was a perv, but he did have the generally intense and socially awkward personality that didn't rule it out either. Finally, fully accoutered, Chris opened the door of his ancient Ford Taurus station wagon for Kate to ungracefully fall into her seat, and they made their way to the Queen's Elms subdivision where one of the richer kids in their group was hosting dinner.
The Hat received many compliments from the female attendees, both camera-bedecked mothers and their dolled-up daughters. Kate was feeling rather elegant, and so rare a feeling that Kate hardly registered it, attractive. However, the night had barely started...
New to JA? Welcome! If your feeling a bit lost, you should start from the beginning. Or if you want more general information, read What the heck is this?
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