Alright then Mr. BLOG, I'm back for another round in the ring! I've had my training, been saying my prayers and eating my vitamins... I've also been injecting a great percentage of horticultural steroids, if for no other reason than to say that I have. On the plus side, I'm healthier and more absorbant than ever before. Unfortunately though, I think I'm rapidly turning into a snapdragon. The first snapdragon of the season, as 'twer.
So I'm fresh off my post-Blackrock shenanigans (a whole week off, because I'm lazy and smell funny), and might I say, what an experience to have gone through. My big stage debut has come and gone, six nights of solid performances on behalf of my cast and my sweet self. Overall, I think it went off without a hitch.
...What is the definition of hitch, incidentally? Says dictionary.com, 'An impediment or a delay' ...Says hillbillydictionary.com, 'When your cousin says I do'.
Alas, there were no cousins being wed at Blackrock (and if there was then I wasn't invited, consarnit!) but on further reflection there were most certainly a couple hitches of the former variety...
Who here likes Macbeth? I do! Mostly because my sister studied it in year 11, so I got to read about 'shag-haired villains' and the most gripping insult ever, when one character declared another to be an egg. That's right. ...You EGG!
Just soak in that impact for a minute, if you will. Because despite your credentials, your resume and your history of success, if you're an egg, you're nothing. You're less than nothing; you're YOLK, HONKY.
For ye uninformed, it has been a popular actor superstition that the play Macbeth is, in a word, cursed. They reflect upon the history of bad luck surrounding 'the Scottish play', to the point where this eerie voodoo has broken free from its production of origin, to run rampant about the theatre and totally mess up any foo' game enough to boldly state the title of this play.
Seriously, I guess William Shakespeare can rest easy knowing the things he did for the world; he brought us Romeo & Juliet and a subsequent John Leguizamo representation of Tibalt, he brought us kickass names like Othello, Yorrick and Hamlet (if he didn't make them then I don't care who did, incidentally) and he brought us a reason to fear for our lives whenever we hear one word, in a way not unlike other cursed phrases like 'bloody Mary' or 'Paris Hilton'.
If you couldn't tell where I was going from that lengthy history lesson, then your cataracts are blinding you dear kindelah. The inevitable horror struck, tragically, on opening night.
Obviously I wasn't the grizzled six-show veteran that I am now, so as I stood there backstage in the dressing room some twenty minutes before we were to begin, I was feeling cocky, rebellious... curse envoking.
I wasn't stupid; I knew that if anyone heard me so much as mutter the offending word I would be reprimanded like the knave of hearts or Barry Bonds. I didn't want that slap on the wrist, no sirree! I had to be clever, and say it to myself, so as not to attract attention.
So I stood near the coat-hanger containing my wardrobe, took a deep, shaky breath, and whispered...
'Macbeth'.
HOLY CRAP I AM TEH EVIL!!! And did the theatre explode? No! Did a machete-wielding maniac burst in with murderous intentions? No! Did my worst fears come to fruition, and my nose fall off right there and then? No!
It seemed as though I had dispelled this whole Macbeth thing as just a foofarah, another fabrication of much foolish flippant flamboyant...
It wasn't too long before our beloved director Vlad stormed into the dressing room, declaring that the lighting panel had had a memory wipe, he had to reprogram it in roughly five minutes, and all the lighting we had gotten used to was to be forgotten entirely.
...Wow, that was a pretty big coincidence, eh? Silly me.
I knew not to press my luck by this point; it would've just been plain old rude to want to envoke any more pain upon my Blackrock brethren. Why, I even confessed my sins to da man big Rory, saying in no fewer words that 'that lighting thing was my fault, I guess. I actually said Macbeth-'
I don't figure Rory to be the superstitious type, but even his eyes widened as though a gathering of ghouls had just come streaming out of my gob. Wicked, Scottish ghosts wielding swords, quoting Shakespeare and declaring war upon the humble set of Blackrock.
Would they be game enough to strike?
Did they really exist at all?
And did I actually just say 'gob'?
The news was prompt; there would be a slight delay in the show, due to ambulance-related issues. Now call me kooky, but I didn't think that ambulances were generally associated with theatre productions, eh? Usually they aren't, but apparently when a woman standing in the lobby chooses to have a stroke, there's some ambulance involvement.
To be blunt, she was smuggled from the building without much fanfare, allowing us to start the production as planned. That is, if by 'as planned' I mean that we got to fight against the horrors of the new lighting, then yeah, 'as planned' it was. Always nice to have my big stage debut in the dark, where from the neck-up I mysteriously disappear from the audience's view. Perhaps it was symbolic; Stewart had cursed the play, it was only right that he should go on BEHEADED.
...In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if soon after posting this blog, the police burst in through the window and hauled me off to the stony lonesome for 'reckless use of the Scottish play'.
On the plus side, subsequent nights went a lot better. There weren't many mistakes involved (and none by myself of course, other than poor acting and post-Macbeth stigma), though a delightful little variation on the dialogue thanks to old Will did provide an interesting change of pace. Evidently, by Wednesday he had grown sick of the line 'Shame, Blackrock, shame'. And who hadn't? Why, we had all grown sick of some of our lines by then, lord knows that I would've preferred to have just told Toby to pipe down or I'd give him a backhand by night two.
Actually in all honesty, Will just had a mental lapse and declared to the world 'Blam, Shamrock... BLAM'.
Upon saying this, there was an almighty cheer. For though my foolish mistake had been malicious in its nature, Will became a hero to all for giving us a good story to tell to our children and our children's children for years to come.
...I mean honestly, after Elise heard about my horrible Macbething she never looked at me quite the same ever again. FACT.
Thank you for reading. The preceding blog was dedicated to that little Andy Milonakis punk. Purely because he is the most annoying, castrated, condemned thing in the world, and I look forward to his future in the exciting field of unemployment.
Don't knock my Superbowl, BIYOTCH.
