So Much to say, Part IV

Saturday, I looked forward to regaining some of my confidence, and being able again to work with Kim at full-throttle. We had achieved some real chemistry and connection in our scenes together, and as the show was rolling on, we each continued to refine our moments and to add to them. That kind of performing is really fun -- knowing that the things you feel when a show is running will be reflected in your performance, and that your counterpart will pick up on, react to, and enhance them. It's the biggest joy of performance.

I arrived at the theatre feeling reasonably confident again, feeling reasonably capable of doing it.

Where I was met by Kim, who couldn't even croak. On Friday, her singing voice had been gone. By Saturday, she couldn't make a sound. No music, no lines. No nothin'.

I was startin' to feel pretty lost and beleagured by that point.

Show must go on, they say....but jeeze.

So. We took an actress (a different actress than the one who sang the songs on Friday (which was inexplicable to me, but wasn't my call)), and gave her 6 hours to learn this monumental and difficult part. The potential upside -- in theory -- was that, in rehearsing for so many weeks, most of us had (pretty much) learned everyone else's part. Certainly, at the very least, we all knew how the arc of the show went, how the arcs of the specific scenes went; so we should have, one way or another, been able to take each scene from some sort of beginning to some sort of ending.

That was the theory.

Where theory t-boned reality was here: the one actress that the director placed in the role did not understand the show or the character or the arc of the show itself, much less each individual scene. I will grant you, the task we asked her to do was virtually impossible, but she made a train wreck of it, and it shouldn't have gone that way. I could (oh, believe me, I could) go on and on and, um, on about her and her kiss-flinging princessiosity and her scene-stealing mugging and and and....suffice it to say, impossible task or not, I find what she did to the show overall was unforgiveable, and I resent her for it. I also resent the director for utilizing her in the role. The Saturday performance was truly not "Man of La Mancha" at all.

Sunday was a little better -- perhaps a lot better -- but still was not "Man of La Mancha", and her unfettered ego didn't come close to being checked. In fact, during curtain call (after really having gutted the two most crucial scenes in the play with her raw incompetence and ego), she stepped in front of me while I was taking my bow -- while the Man of La Mancha was bowing after performing "Man of La Mancha" -- so she could throw one last kiss to the audience.

I know I am kvetching like a fishwife, but the disappointment in the final two performances was (and very much still is) palpable. Like a constantly picked scab.