Bullied

Woe is me, kids. Mrs Drunken Accomplice is a bully. She totally keeps having a go at me for not posting enough and several other things as well. She interrogates me with direct eye contact - "have you done ... yet?" Inevitably the answer is no, at which point she continues to stare in a slightly frostier way before she flings her eyes heavenward and says something scathing about how rubbish I am. Of course, she normally hasn't done something as well so will chime in with an example of her own rubbishness. Then we get drunk to the point of stupidness, have very long discussions about extremely important things that neither of us remember the next day, although we're sure that it involved monogamy at our get-together last night, before I stagger home. Last night this was literally the case. Anybody following me would have had cause for much mirth as I really must have looked odd. I was listening to the iPod and singing along, which I do anyway to be honest, but at one point decided to check that I wasn't being followed, turned around then swayed like the drunk fool I am and nearly fell. I also decided to run for parts of the way home and, due to recent weight loss, had to keep clutching the waistband of my jeans to keep them from falling down. Good times, good times. But yes, recently I have been sent to the doctor, been forced to watch Michael McIntyre (which I haven't done yet, ssh, she'll banish me), I have to carry a capo with me at all times, contact various people, organise my 30th birthday party and post on my blog. With Big Sis as my diary and Mrs DA as my to-do list, I don't have to organise myself at all, which is probably a good thing. She's right, I am rubbish.

The Blue Room happened and was much fun. It was extremely exciting getting to work with entirely new people in a different theatre. I found both the play and the approach challenging but fun. It was quite an intense process with precious little rehearsal time and space and I didn't actually meet everybody until five days before the performance, at which point I realised that I wasn't the only one quaking in fear. I've never seen a group of actors so thoroughly cowed as we all were at the beginning of that rehearsal. The actual day was surprisingly chilled, for me at least. I was in a maelstrom of panic in the morning until the point at which I reached the theatre and got myself set up. From then on I was probably the most calm - years of doing Dude, Where's My Script having taught me what real terror is. We had a day of extremely hard work - a walk-through of the changes between scenes, then a run through and then a dress rehearsal. We finished the dress rehearsal with 51 minutes before the show itself started and that was the point when the nerves hit. A horrible, endless, not-quite hour of make-up touch-ups, mirror checks, toilet visits (I introduced the new company to the term "Theatre Bum", which is the most typical effect of nerves on digestive system. It generally disappears once stepping onstage but I do live in fear that it will manifest as a a noisy fart during a play - hasn't happened yet, touch wood), pacing and jigging. One particularly surreal moment had all four ladies not presently onstage (The Girl had the unenviable task of going onstage 15 minutes before everyone else and getting into a fake bed while clad only in bra and knickers) dancing and giggling in order to try and control the little fits of energy from excessive adrenalin. Anyone who saw the grace and poise of The Actress in her scenes would have been tickled by the vision of her bouncing in the green room to imaginary music. The performance itself went well, I think. I had a bit of a fright in my first pass across the stage when I wobbled coming down the steps and then again just walking. On flat shoes. On a flat surface. There's me trying to be all elegant. Fail. Anyway, I had the first scene to regain my composure and then was flung into my scenes, which passed by incredibly quickly. I did worry about both my French accent and the fact that my second scene primarily consisted of my walking seductively from side-to-side of this quite long stage. No more wobbles, although the chairs upon which I was "doing it" with The Student threatened to fall as they had in the first runthough. I was so relieved when we got up from them without incident. And Big Sis and Big Blue paid me the huge compliment that I seemed to glide in my scene. I'd spent quite a lot of time walking a longer way home to practise my walk and had even set up a mirror in the living room for a couple of hours to observe my feet and leg position while walking and standing so felt that the work was repaid. The only annoying thing is that my standing position is affected by the fact that I lose my balance so easily when nervous and had to take a less attractive but steadier position when onstage to counteract the fact that I wobble so much. But I loved the challenges of the show - watching everyone else's scenes while remaining onstage (and boy, were those chairs uncomfortable), moving props and furniture while retaining the mood of the piece and having to walk around the entire stage to sing during the Actress and Playwright's scene, my favourite as it was by far the funniest and the actors had, being rather underdressed, decided to fight for the duvet and ended up making themselves corpse. Fortunately, we had been told that we could react while watching so I didn't feel too guilty about giggling along. But, all in all, a very rewarding experience. I'm really hoping to work with them again as I enjoyed it so much and will pester as much as I can bear to - one of the main reasons I could never do this acting thing professionally is my unwillingness to be a pain.

But, yeah... so... monkeys! I started writing that and it looked a little bit Eddie Izzard so I pushed it that extra way by adding monkeys. Because there is no mood that cannot be lifted by the simple adding of a monkey - either real or imaginary. I want a monkey. Anyway, I'm off to be cultural tonight and support Big Sis in her theatrical endeavours this evening, which should be fun. Apparently she gets beaten up so maybe I should try and save her like the little boy in Parenthood - "They're hurting my sister!" ("he's ruining the play, he's ruining the whole play!")