6-5-01 - 8:39 p.m.
Evil is easy. Comedy is hard.
Why is being evil so easy for me? And no, I don't just mean in theatre, but that's the context I'll discuss this in for simplicity's sake.
The show went down this weekend, and I was phenomenal.
Sure of yourself much, Ken?
You have to be to survive in the Performaning Arts, Ken. If you need someone else to tell you you're good, then you don't have the confidence to go anywhere.
Is that why so many successful actors are so damn egotistical, Ken?
You're damn skippy, Ken.
So, give us a day-by=day breakdown of the play, will you, Ken?
Sure.
Wednesday- Last dress rehearsal. We also have an audience, as President Ranslow and about half the admissions staff are on hand. Show goes smooth like a lake.
(HOLY #$@! I JUST NOTICED THE DATE ON the date bar at the top of this page. Whack. Extremely whack. It is not september 20, 2000, is it?)
AHEM!!!
Sorry, Ken. WOn't happen again. Please continue.
Okay then. I'm my usual sinister self, and they eat it up. No hitches, except in the third act, when Eric (Officer O'Hare) hits me over the head with a fake blackjack and I fall unconscious. At least, that's what's supposed to happen. In reality, Eric misses with the BJ, but does succeed in punching me really hard in the back of the head. I don't fall unconscious, but I am seeing stars and wishing I WAS out as I'm cursing in three languages. Eric's a minister, by the way. Which leads me to my first tangent-
I've gotten to do some really unusual things as the result of being an actor. The first time I kissed a girl, it was a stage kiss for a play. The first time I kissed a man, it was a stage kiss for a play. I've gotten to wear a cowsuit and moo my way to a standing ovation as I jump over a rope and break my hip. I've gotten to walk around barefoot on lava rocks while wearing nothing but a toga (a bolt of cloth wrapped around my naughty bits) I've kissed one of my best friends, who happened to be the girlfriend of another good friend of mine, while he was watching jealously. (And she slipped me the tongue) I've gotten flashed twice. And once was on purpose. I've gotten knocked goofy by a minister. I've discovered the joys of Bryllcreme. I've gotten drunk onstage. I got to bitchslap a teacher. I got to have a wrestling match. (okay, that was a video, but it still counts) My life onstage has been far more interesting than my life offstage. And I'm still very young.
Anyway, Thursday was a casual run-through. And it sucked @$$. Like few plays in the history of mankind have sucked @$$. IT was right up there with Superman the Musical (really exists!) People were dropping lines all over the place (I even misplaced one or two) Eric blew two entrances back to back, with Michelle (Aunt Martha) dropping one in between the two. After one blown entrance, David (Mortimer) and I wind up improvising about 3 minutes worth of dialogue so good you'd have to know the play to know we were making it up. It's to no avail, though, as Eric fails to turn up. We're about to turn it into an improvised fistfight when Ken stops us and sends someone to fetch Eric.
The incident does raise my opinion of David as an actor a few notches, though. The man can't do a double-take to save his life, but he knew his lines (eventually), never missed an entrance, and knew how to handle himself when a fuck-up occured (and damn but there were plenty), and that's more than I can say for some of the people in the cast who do this more often than he does.
Eric also misses me entirely with the BJ, but I compensate by almost breaking my left kneecap and my left elbow on the way down.
Friday, we open, and everyone is excited. All the mistakes of the night before have been reflected on and mentally corrected, and the show goes off without any major hitches. Eric even hits me properly with the soft part of the BJ, and I fall smoothly. I have some difficulties in the part where I'm supposed to tie David up, but it all works out. People come up to me after the show (including cast members) and tell me they were genuinely afraid of me during the show. Somewhere between Thursday and Friday, I've unknowingly turned it up a notch.
Saturday- Make that several notches, as close friends and women I'm trying to get to go out with confess they feared/hated me. I feel like one of the X-Men, especially when Michelle tells me her daughter almost started crying in fear at the sight of me towards the end. I feel bad. She's only seven. What the hell has happened to me? I've been going out there, and I haven't even been doing anything different, and yet, somehow, the intensity level has gone up without my even trying very hard. Being bad has never been this easy. I almost wish Darlene hadn't come up to see the show (Thanks Dar!), as I'm showing the truth in every bad thing she's ever said about me. She was right all along.
Eric hits me with the wooden stick part of the BJ, but at least I'm able to impress friends/hopeful girlfriends with how tough I am. I don't make a whimper as I lie motionless on the stage.
Sunday- I wake up feeling a bit sick, plus the entire left side of my body (which I fall on) and the right side of my head (which gets hit) are a large mass of ache. I pop more painkillers than usual this morning (at least the knees are ok), and Tammy's parents take me to breakfast. (Thanks Tammy! Thanks Mr. and Mrs. Tammy's Parents!)
The crowd is dead, and it throws everybody offstride a bit, but we muddle through. I make my one memorable mistake of the run, when I juxtapose a couple words in a throwaway line to craft the sentence, "Dr. Einstein and I are bringing the house up behind the car...." COuld have been worse. David asked John, "Do you want to get married!?!" We determined that David could marry John if he could succeed in moving the house behind the car.
Eric belts me solidly with the soft part of the BJ. Too bad it's directly on my right ear. The crowd pops (goes "OW!") collectively as I hit the floor, which is good, cause it covers the popping noise I hear in my elbow when I hit.
Thank God this is over. Oh, wait, I was wrong. Strike lasts 3.5 hours, and as one of the young studs in the cast, I get to do a lot of the lifting and hauling of flats to put back into storage. I don't let on that I think I may have broken something. (I felt better the next day, anyway)
It is universally agreed that I can be one scary, evil bad@$$ when given a chance. And that I am pretty good at playing those roles, too.
It was kind of scary, in a way. I was able to be so intense and nasty, and it didn't even feel like I was trying very hard. It just felt...normal. What does that say about me? I'd long ago resigned myself to the fact that I'm good at these types of roles, and that I can make a career out of them (a la Christopher Walken or Gary Oldman) But it shouldn't be this easy. As my high school English teacher put it when he found out about this play, "Ken(ny), when are you going to get a role that requires acting?"
I don't know what to make of this. I'm still trying to process it. Am I really evil? I think I'm in the process of what the Greeks would call "Catharsis" Does this mean my life is a Greek tragedy? If so, then I've found my fatal flaw, and for once it's not hubris- I believe I may be fundamentally evil. Otherwise, I'm perfect, like all tragic heroes. And, that being said, I'm ready for my tragic climax. Kill me now.
Ken
"YOu can trust me not to think/And not to sleep around/and if you don't expect too much from me/You might not be let down/Cause all I really want's to be with you/And feel like I matter, too.
�
