Strange Pasttimes

So, am living in a small vortex of nerves today. I normally get nervous before performing but there's nothing quite like having no safety net to keep the adrenaline going way in advance of the event. With Dude (an improvisational comedy night along the lines of Whose Line Is It Anyway, in case I haven't mentioned it before), my brain has established a quite remarkable feat which is to suppress any anticipation or knowledge of the event even happening until the day before, ensuring many nights of sleeping where there should be sleeplessness and fear. Unfortunately brain is not performing a similar task at the moment. With our current foray into a local amateur drama festival, we have reprised a piece that I am surprised I said yes to, given the inordinate amount of fear it inspires. I can only justify the decision by saying that I think I forgot how fricking terrifying it is to prepare and perform due to the rose-tinted specs of time and other people saying how much they wanted to see it again. As an actress who loves scripts and generally shouldn't be allowed to talk in real life without an edit function (a recent party where I talked a huge pile of crap really loudly is still making me shudder in recall, particularly where I insisted that meeting me was the highlight of everybody's life and then wouldn't let it go. It was one of those dreadful times when my ego had shouting privileges), I have a certain terror of being script-less. In this sense, scripts are the safety-net whose absence is making me sweat (ooh, it rhymes!) We (Mrs Funny Whistler, Big Sis and I) are embarking on a mostly wordless piece, devised by ourselves about four years ago about two women who piss each other off in the office and then have a bit of a boogie with the cleaner. I suppose I am fairly confident about it - I've been talking myself through it every night before going to sleep, which turns in to a shopping list:

MFW enters, wait for her to shred and type
In (hair in hat*)
Coat
Sit
Bag
Bra
Toys
Hair
Fidget
Magic Piece of Paper
Punch
Windows
Apple
Phone
"Hello. Oh, hi Rob. Yes, I know, I know. Oh yeah. Mmhmm, uh-uh"
SHREDDER
Sneeze
Fan
Filing Cabinet
Text Message
Tape
Revel in Desk Size
Tape War
Dance of the Chairs

*new idea from Big Sis so deserving of parentheses

But, if it isn't funny, what happens then? We had a technical rehearsal on Sunday where we did the Dance of the Chairs and not a smile was cracked, even by friends to make us feel better. Admittedly, the dance works because it comes after a gradual escalation of silliness and doesn't really work on its own but it was a huge blow to our confidence. Dad came to watch our subsequent panic-fuelled run-throughs to give us tips and his main piece of advice, which I am clutching, is that it isn't that funny. I had been playing it like a loon and he said that this gave the wrong impression and that, by toning it down, it would be more quaintly humourous than side-splitting. Oh, the relief. Now, I can quiet it all down, adding pauses and fun rather than clownish expressions and a manic pace. Finally, in our last run-through, we got the tone and pace right - clocking in at the twenty minutes required for the festival's rules. Now, it's just about whether I remember this as we fail to get any laughs tomorrow night. And whether Apple comes after Punch. And I cannot stop worrying.

I guess it has hit me so strongly as tonight I get to see the festival in action for the first time ever. I am nervous for our group who are performing and nervous because it is a reminder of what we have to go through tomorrow. That said, I am really looking forward to tonight because the tantalising glimpses of song, movement, music with wine glasses and the appropriate use of a cast member's hair have whetted my appetite. Let's hope I will be able to concentrate without my mantra of bra, toys, hair...