Today was ridiculous. By ridiculous, I don't mean ironic or strangely amusing. I mean it was downright ridiculously annoying, frustrating and an absolute waste of time. I suppose it was absurd. I'm not a happy girl.
It's funny how when you're on stage, it is possibly one of the most glamorous things ever. You're dripping in red lipstick, sparkling like a diamond and singing your heart out. Today was not glamorous. My legs and feet are killing me from teetering on stilettos ALL day. I'm covered in red marks from being poked and prodded and accidentally impaled on safety pins. I feel under-appreciated and exploited.. and it's just about to get a whole lot worse.
Today we had the costume call, makeup workshop and citzprobe for Anything Goes. Some definitions are in order:
Costume Call - putting on your various costumes in order of scenes and then standing in a long line. One at a time you are asked to step forward, do a twirl and then stand there for five minutes while the directors loudly scrutinize you. "No, it's too tight around her bust. That colour makes him look like he has jaundice. Can we find something that doesn't make her look like an elephant?" are commonly heard comments, along with being yelled at for pairing a white hat with a cream belt, black shoes with navy gloves, not wearing your pants on your waist, etc. Imagine doing that for 3 and a half hours, whilst starving, sleepy and freezing cold. Seeing so many other girls naked made me feel like a concentration camp inmate.
Makeup Workshop - being told what I already know. Sure, it's valuable for the newbies and for the dancers, but do I really need to sit on a cold, hard wooden floor for hours watching someone put on makeup and contradicting themselves whenever they are asked a question about style and the 1930's?
Citzprobe - this one isn't actually so bad; usually it's one of my favourite parts of the rehearsal period. Basically, it's a sit down and sing with the orchestra... which is usually enjoyable. Not so enjoyable when you have a gaggle of male tappers sitting behind you banging their feet on the floor whilst sitting down. I glared at them and told them off, which has now confirmed my 'bitch' status in the cast. I know it's amateur theatre, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't behave professionally. Then Regina turned up. She's generally considered the Queen Bitch of theatre in my town, and she's not even in the show - she just came along to be a brat, smoke, drink coffee and annoy people. Grr!
So all in all, the 7 hours spent today achieved very little. My costumes are.. let's not even talk about that. The Nazi costume designers jumped on everything and now I have a completely new wardrobe for the show. My evening wear looks like an ugly mauve (least favourite colour EVER) curtain from the '70s, and the costume ladies had the gall to take my hat (one that actually belongs to me) and plonk it on somebody elses' head. It seems like they're on a mission to make me as look as ugly as possible. Oh well, I actually own a beautiful original 1930's black dress that I'm going to wear for the evening scenes, whether they like it or not.
Here is the moment where I take a deep breath. And continue!
Things were winding up when some scuffle erupted outside the sound studio - I'm not even sure what happened as I was inside talking to Annie-Mae (the girl I'm understudying), but it involved Ross running up behind Lucien and punching him in the head. Lucien swiftly brought Ross to the ground (not injuring him, but just 'apprehending' him), to which Regina said, "Well done Ross, who hasn't wanted to punch him?". It was surreal - these theatre people have previously been like a family of great friends to me. Now suddenly civil war was breaking out among the ranks.
We left quickly and I decided, spur of the moment, to go on a mini-adventure with Benjamin and Drake (Lucien couldn't come - he was too furious, so he went home). It started out alright - shooting down the highway in a cool British car with sports car suspension, listening to extremely bad quality AM radio, Drake smoking and yelling at other drivers in his carefully cultivated quasi-English queer accent, Benjamin spitting out innuendo about me and all the dancers in our itty-bitty costumes. We were following a car that had two of the tappers from the show in it; they promised us some kind of fun, so we chased the opportunity. We got to our destination and managed to sneak past the ticket desk, avoiding paying a $6 (ha!) ticket price, and I found myself at the dancing section of an Eisteddfod. Eek.
We sat through an hour and a half of amateur ballerinas doing nothing of consequence in pretty tutus. It was possibly the most boring thing on a stage that I have willingly put myself through. Don't get me wrong, I adore going to the ballet, but this was just boring. These girls had fabulous technique and they smiled a lot, and hell, they even kept dancing in time when their cds skipped, but it was just boring. Dancing isn't just about being able to do it, it's also about creating engaging choreography that tells a story and being able to act it convincingly. These were just pretty young women jumping about, occasionally pirouetting, do lots of relevés and smiling so much that their faces hurt.
The interesting part came when the tapping troupe section came on. There were two groups from the dance school which is 'home base' for a lot of the dancers in Anything Goes. I suppose that by supporting them I was at least trying to be amiable and friendly. We watched, and finally, there was some diversity and passion. We saw girls in black and white with tilted hats, scarlet showgirls, what looked like the cast of a Gap commercial, black and silver showgirls, purple showgirls, golden showgirls. Etc. You get the idea - the average female costume consisted of a leotard with several kilos of sequins, fishnet stockings, tap shoes and some sort of hat or feathery thing in their hair.
In the end it was quite good - I think the tappers thought a lot more about their choreography than the ballerinas did. I enjoyed it, but *sigh* - the rest of the day seems like the ultimate waste of time, energy, emotions. Not a happy girl.
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