Click on flyer to see a much larger version

So here's the story of "One Act Wonders."

 

High off the success of "Arsenic and Old Lace," Bryn, Tina, Laura and Yours Truly commit to doing a play at Paul Revere Park.  You see, Laura's gotta do plays as part of her job so when she said some thing like: "Hey, why don't just the four of us do a play together." we all said "Thas coo." 

 

And it should have been.

 

but it was not.

 

Our troubles began when choosing a play.  The Park District of Chicago (Laura's employer) frowns on swearing.  And sexy stuff.  And anything that could be considered offensive.  Hmm.

 

So we had to scrounge around for something interesting that had all the interesting stuff removed.  A difficult proposition.  We decided on "The Marriage Proposal" by Chekov, "The Case of the Crushed Petunias" by Tennessee Williams, and "Kissing Sweet" by John Guare.   

 

I'd tell you something about these plays but that would be pointless, because Bryn dropped out of the production after the first rehearsal.  Apparently his wife missed him and thought that they should spend some time together occasionally.  

 

So, we now had to find another play or series of short plays that had one man and two women in their 20s/30s and weren't about sex.  Think about it.

 

So, lots of rehearsal time was devoted to hanging out in bookstores looking for plays.  Then we stumbled upon "No Exit" by Sartre. 

 

Now you already know that we didn't do "No Exit" because of the flyer at the top of this page, but pretend you don't and imagine that you read Sartre's angry little play as a youngster and had always wanted to do it but had forgotten about this gem until on a walk with your parents when your dad suggested it and, suddenly, it all fit.  One man, two women.  No bad words.  No sex scenes.  And yet, powerful ideas and emotions.  Now imagine not being able to do this play.

 

Why?  Laura felt the lesbianism and the discussed baby-killing in the play was too much for the Park (she's probably right).  She also refused to play someone who had killed a child.  

 

So we still had a play to do, but no script.  Weeks went by as we looked for something.

 

Meanwhile, at school, things were getting rough.  I had danced my way through one semester of teaching all day and acting all night, but things were starting to catch up with me.  I had promised to help re-write the Physics Accelerated textbook, but had done nothing on this project.  I had also committed to a similar thing with the Physics 2 book, with similar follow through.  Oh, and I had carved out time to teach a new unit (that I would have write) on Modern/Particle Physics.  

 

Revising old units -- hard work.  Creating 20 days of totally new content in an area of physics most high school teachers (wisely) avoid because it's notoriously difficult to teach -- punishingly, gruelingly, hard work.

 

By the time we chose the plays we actually performed, I was starting to panic.  

 

Here's what we chose:

"Canker Sores and Other Distractions" by Christopher Durang -- An previously married couple meets at a restaurant to attempt a reconciliation but are thwarted by themselves and a brassy waitress.

"Naomi in the Living Room" by Christopher Durang -- Foul mouthed maniacal mother intimidates young couple.  Son (me) cross-dresses for laughs.

"Funeral Parlor" by Christopher Durang -- Wacky guy harasses grieving widow at wake/funeral, but he helps her in a completely implausible but somewhat funny way.

"DMV Tyrant" by Christopher Durang -- DMV lady angers man by being unhelpful and mean.

"The Red Coat" by John Patrick Shanley -- High school boy talks to high school girl outside of party.  They profess love for one another and kiss a lot.

 

I can't say that I was too crazy about any of these plays.  Yes, they had their moments, but at the time we were rehearsing them I was under a lot of pressure and spending my nights practicing shtick seemed, well, silly.    

 

Now this sucked because I really like Laura (duh, she's my girlfriend) and Tina, but I was beginning to dread rehearsal because I was angry at the plays we were forced to choose.  

 

I became an angry man. 

 

Angy because of the plays.

Angry because I didn't know my lines.

Angry because I didn't want to devote time to learning such stupid lines when I had stuff to do.

Angry at the Park for interrupting our rehearsal time constantly. 

 

The Park always interrupts rehearsal.  Now, for all you non-actors out there, this is more serious than it sounds.  Imagine trying to commit to something very serious or do something very silly if a janitor keeps sticking his head in the door.  Or people show up to check election equipment.  Or Tae Kwon Do always gets out 10 minutes late and kids hang around right outside the door making a ruckus and trying to look through the window.  Or, in the middle of an intimate scene that isn't going too well because you haven't learned your damn lines because you've been struggling to be not an excellent or even good but merely mediocre teacher with the limited amount of time you have available (and it's killing you because you never wanted to be a C+ teacher, you had dreams of being the best but where are those dreams now?), a pimply-faced teenager props open the door and begins to move floor hockey equipment into the room over your objections.  More pimply-faces appear and they are taking their time moving crap and so you snap and start yelling and pushing stuff around because talking to people at the Park never did any good you just keep yelling until you realize you're about to start yelling at your girlfriend's boss, which is bad, and so you stalk off and you've scared Laura.  Laura, who puts up with so much of your crap and is the nicest person on Earth, is now scared of you.  And Tina's probably pissed.

 

Things got better after that.  They pretty much had to.  I apologized to those who deserved apologies and worked hard on my lines.  Eventually I came to some sort of peace with these plays.

 

Now, after everything's done, I don't feel so much anger.  I certainly did have fun on performance nights.    

 

Strange days. 

 

Anyway, here's some pictures Michelle (Bryn's wife) took of us:  

 

Click on the damn pics to make um bigger

Backstage

The wig's still on

Coping with a cranker sore

Freaks!

Spooky man and goofy wife

Hide me from the bad lady

More yelling

Confrontation

Naughtiness on the couch

Poor girl

yep, 50lbs overweight and in a dress

Freaks part two

Dios mio!

Love that hat

She yells at me, cause I'm annoying

Really annoying

Making widows cry is funny, funny stuff

'the hell?

Dig the chains, man

I'm the sexiest man I know

Aww, yeaaah

Who can resist my charms?

Waiting for my true love

She arrives

I pour out my heart

She buys it!

More soul searching, but it's all gravy now

She can't keep her hands off me

Her secrets are told

Yeaaa, aawwww

Get off the stage!

 

 

Yep, I was probably too hard on "One Act Wonders."  It sure does photograph well.  I did, however, leave out lots of drama about getting microphones at the last minute and having them emitting random reverb and ear-splitting static. 

 

That was pretty bad.

 

But let's go out on a positive note.  Here's a pic of Tina with a fuzzy worm.