2007-11-14 - 9:42 p.m.
I sliced open my finger onstage on saturday night. (man, i'm getting good at these grabber-intros. now if only i could learn to follow it up with something.)
in my scene as bertha bumiller, I do a monologue that does what we in the business call "character development" and you not in the business call "character development"
Bertha talks about her fucked up family- psychotic children, insane number of dogs, and her cheatin' husband. this is the authors way of making bertha into a sympathetic character, at least a little bit, by showing her as a woman who's going through some emotional pain and genuinely loves her family and is trying to hold them together, rather than simply allowing us to see her as a dumb fat redneck racist bitch like you'd see without this monologue. Bertha discusses her cheating husband while chopping (pretend) vegetables on (real) cutting board, with a (real) knife.
now, see, i'm a method actor. and by "method" i mean "stupid" I do dumb crap for the sake of the show all the time. In 1940's radio hour, i had to learn to move like an old man instead of the spry 21 year old i was at the time. ken suggested i wrap my limbs in saran wrap to restrict them enough to make it seem like i was old and arthritic. he meant to do so a couple times in rehearsal to train myself. I went ahead and did it every night cause it worked so well. that wasn't particularly harmful, although it did make me sweat a lot, moreso than i normally do (like when I eat) to prepare for my role as Jimmy in ALmost,Maine and the scene where he tries to get back together with his ex only to learn she's getting married the next day, i had a bunch of my ex's get married. that's teh kind of extreme i'll go to.
so naturally, during an emotionally charged speech punctuated by the chopping of a knife against a cutting board...i start to really poundthat knife. we're talking chips of wood flying up off the board with each hammer-like blow from my mighty spaghetti arm. then, after one final bash, on "I wish that man would have a STROKE! I SWEAR I DO!" Bertha drops the knife to beg forgiveness for wishing something so awful on someone "I didn't mean that...God forgive me I didn't mean that,"
now, in both producations of Tuna, people have expressed concern that i was going to accidentally lop off a finger with the pounding of the knife, and those people are probably going "Aha! I told him he was going to hurt himself with that chopping if he wasn't careful. I knew it!"
and they would be wrong. the chopping went fine. it was the dropping that killed me. after the final chop, i was a little too sloppy in my movement of dropping the knife and bringing my hands together in a prayer clasp. the knife bounced, handle first, off the board, and the blade swung back up in the air right as my hand was passing over it, and my hand decided to stop long enough to get gouged, because it's not like i was in the middle of a scene or something.
it's almost more like a stab wound then a cut, becauseit's not that long but it's deep and wide. the palm side of my left pinky, right at teh second joint down, in that little part that's all creased and lined cause that's where it folds when you bend your finger. only about half an inch long, but deep enough to expose tendon quite clearly (as paul has pointed out, often when people are cut they believe because they can see white that they are cut to the bone. this is usually not the case. most of the time what you're seeing is tendon. not that that makes it any less of a "Holy shit that's quite a gash" moment, but you don't wanna be the boy who cried wolf on being cut to the bone.) and of course the skin in that area is pretty taut, so when it split it split wide, (it healed most of the depth almost overnight, but the two sides are going to take a long time to reconnect)
the best part was that i had another few minutes of scene to do before i could even get off stage to put a towel or something on it, so i'm here trying to be funny and do comedy while i'm squeezing my fist as hard as i can to keep the blood from oozing out (this thing bled an obscene amount for its size) then i got to run off, quickly slap a paper towel on it, change costumes, and get back out there for another scene. i didn't have a chance to properly wash and bandage it till intermission, at which point i sent a text to a few people telling them that i had cut myself onstage. the reactions were mostly sympathetic, which is the wrong answer. only nathan got the right answer
me- I cut myself on stage just now
Nathan- did you break character?
me- hell no
Nathan- good man. break a leg.
see, that's teh kind of coaching i need.
show must go on and all that. For those keepign score, this is the second time i've slashed myself accidentally with a knife during a performance, the first being the "some asshole didn't close the window bench" scene from arsenic and old lace in '02. one of these days people will stop giving me things with blades on them.
I'd like to thank everyone who's come out to see it so far- because of the large contingent of people there to see me, the first two nights were way fuller than usual, which bodes well for the second weekend, as most shows do much better in the second week (although we were sold out on saturday night, so i dunno how we're going to manage it if many more people show up that night) people are laughing, i'm in a nightgown, and i'm actually able to hold down the chalupa every night, even though a cold chalupa purchased from taco bell 3 hours earlier is, in fact, the foulest thing you can put in your body that's legal to sell in this country. and that is not a matter of debate. i'd rather eat a fish sandwich from mcdonalds. taco bell does not age well.
hmmm...let's go with something different this time, maybe somehting not by the gin blossoms or hank...
Ken
You took me up to heaven
When you took me in your arms
I was dazzled by your kisses
Blinded by your charms
I was lost, in a Fool's Paradise
Good and lost, in a Fool's Paradise
When you told me that you loved me
I gave my heart to you
And I wondered if there could be
Any truth in love so new
I was lost, in a Fool's Paradise
Good and lost, in a Fool's Paradise
The whole world was my kingdom
And your love the gem in my crown
Then I saw you glance at a new romance
And my love came tumbling down
Though you treat me kind-a coolish
And may never let me know
That you think I'm being foolish
Because I love you so
I'll still get lost, in a Fool's Paradise
Lost with you, in a Fool's Paradise
Though you treat me kind-a coolish
And may never let me know
That you think I'm being foo-oo-oo-lish
Because I love you so
I'll still get lost, in a Fool's Paradise
Lost with you, in a Fool's Paradise
Lost with you, in a Fool's Paradise
�
