Oh my… what a day today. This is a long one, but worth reading. It is written with an exasperated tone, where I want to laugh, but am too flabbergasted to get one out.
The morning was spent packing. We had to pack our biggest/heaviest luggage for the truck which wouldn’t arrive in Wuhan until Wednesday night, but we were told not to pack anything we might need within the next week in our airport luggage. U-huh… So packing became an odd adventure.
We began early afternoon with the understudy rehearsal. I was instructed that I would be switching between Liesl and Louisa, so both Maddy and Vivian were instructed to come.
Now, unlike the other two child swings, I have never done the blocking with all 7 children, just with B and E when they felt like getting up and practicing back in Chengdu. So it had been two-three weeks since I’d done any blocking or any singing at all, and I’d never done the full out version. So it was an experience.
We ran through everything once, so I only got pushed around by the kids and pointed at by Vivian from the stage lip, but nothing was repeated, so I didn’t actually learn anything.
In general, I was amazed by how much I knew. I knew the lines and the general blocking and choreography, so that was good, but I was also amazed by how much I really didn’t know either. I had no idea where I fit in the “pictures”, and some of the general blocking in scenes.
But I didn’t get to do Liesl, which is what I’d began concentrating on learning from the wings the last few days, so I didn’t quite remember the Louisa stuff. I felt bad b/c Vivian ended up sitting there for the 3 hours, when she could have been doing things, but then again, I needed her there to guide me around.
Anyway, it went ok. Then we had lunch/dinner (pizza hut again), and everyone else was bused to the theatre early so we could take a group picture with the locals for the presenter. It was at this point that I learned that James was going on for Captain tonight! So James did Von Trapp, which meant J Tomaselli was filling in for James, and Chris was filling in for Tomaselli, and then Radar filled in during the wedding (I didn’t know he’d do that!).
But the show… ugh, this was definitely a bad night for me, but it was so bad, that I couldn’t help but laugh- I really wanted to cry, but it was just so weird and ridiculous, I couldn‘t help but laugh. I guess it was good to have a bad night, we all have them, and I know I wasn’t the only one tonight. I was definitely not in my brain tonight.
It began in the first nun scene when we kneel, normally I’m good about habit dress placement for standing up, but for some reason it was different tonight, and as I was standing, I definitely stepped on the front. I tripped just barely, so I doubt anyone really noticed. But it was the quick change from my nun to my maid that really began the chain of events.
During the dinner break and as we were preparing for the photos, I had noticed my dresser was paying extra special attention to my maid costume, and it was making me nervous, and I made the comment to a few cast members that she was too up close and personal with my maid dress. And I found out why.
When it was time for my quick change, I came back and got out of the nun costume, but as I was trying to get into the maid costume, I got stuck. I’ll try to explain this- there are snaps on the bottom (like wher eyou‘d find a zipper on jeans), then a clasp at the waist, then a zipper that connects the bodice, then a flap that hides the zipper and snaps on the other side. (it’s not as complicated as it sounds, but it’s a lot of pieces). Anyway, somehow, a few of the lower snaps, the clasp, and a part of the flap had all been badly sewn together. Yes, my friends, sewn together. By hand. And I couldn’t get my costume on. I started panicking and looking around and saying “OMG does anyone have scissors?” forgetting that everyone backstage at that point is a local Chinese speaker. My dresser sees me fumbling, but I have no time, and I just rip the sewing job out so I can put on my costume for my scene. As I am snapping the flap, Justin (the head of costumes and hair) comes running over, but I’m late now, so I run to do my thing.
I’m so flabbergasted and upset that my costume had been sewn shut that I go directly to Radar and am like, “Radar, I was sewn OUT of my costume” and explained seeing my dresser paying too much attention to my dress earlier and how I was nearly late for my entrance because I couldn’t get IN my costume!
I had told him that my dresser is very rough with me (they all are, more in this later) and that she has been so rough with me that she has literally ripped my costume apart. We have a wardrobe malfunction board where cast members can write a problem with their costume to have it fixed. I’d been writing about this same rip on the board since we opened in Chongqing and my dresser ripped my dress at that first performance. Every day, I come in and it’s crossed off the board as though it had been fixed, and yet I am still staring at the same rip that is only growing increasingly worse as my dresser continues to manhandle me.
Radar said there was probably a miscommunication issue as sometimes the dressers are hired to fix some of the wardrobe issues and they speak mandarin Chinese here which is slightly different from Justin’s Chinese dialect, but I asked him honestly, under what circumstances would it make sense to sew the costume so one couldn’t get into it? He kinda laughed, but said I should talk to Justin and he would too.
I did end up speaking with Justin who said that HE had sewn the costume shut (WHAT?) and that the dressers had “forced” him. Um, you are their boss, say NO.
Anyway, so I’d had my camera in hand to take pictures of James backstage as the captain, but after speaking with Radar, I was running behind for my next entrance, so I brought it backstage with me to keep an eye on it, and saw james on stage and thought, “hey I should get a picture for him.” yea, bad idea. In the middle of taking it, I realized, “oh yea, taking pictures backstage is against the rules” and pulled away (the picture is black because I covered the camera before it took the pic), but couldn’t cover it before Donovan saw the small red light from across the stage, and two crew guys gave me a hard time saying I was “busted”. Donovan had said over the headset (so everyone could hear which only made it that much better) that he had seen me. Ugh… I felt AWFUL, it was totally my fault, I wasn’t thinking at all, and went and put the camera away immediately.
During the party scene, because all of the males were playing someone else, I lost track of my champagne glasses, and at one point had an empty tray when I should have had 3 glasses, and at another point had 4 glasses when I should have only had one… it was complicated, but I did what I needed to and got off stage for my change into the new postulant.
I change my outfit, then go to Hair and get my maid hat taken off and the hairnet taken off, but it’s the same wig. The local hair lady who was assisting our hair dresser (Anika) is just as crazy as the dressers. Yesterday, she attacked me in a football block kind of way backstage so she could get my trio wig, and it made everyone laugh out of sheer confusion. Today, as she saw me coming for this maid to new postulant hair change, Justin was sitting in the hair chair, and she apparently she yelled at him to get up. Through the translator, the woman tells Anika that he was in the way and she is not going to listen to him or something or other. And Anika was like, “um, you have to listen to me, and I have to listen to him, he’s the head of the department.” (Anika tells the story better) and she kind of freaks out. Yea, crazy lady, you yelled at the boss!
Intermission is when I get official talking-to about the camera, which I fully admitted was my fault and apologized, I really did forget and felt terrible! I was probably supposed to get a warning or be punished, but I think he could see that I was upset enough. Lord, if only he knew what was coming!
Act 2 begins. I stand in the same place I make ALL of my entrances from, which is in wing 3 so it appears I am coming from within the house. There also happens to be a bunch of lights at just about my head level. For some reason, today is the day that I am informed by one of my crew friends that I am “blocking the lighting” for the house. I was like, dude, I ALWAYS stand here, and he goes into this long speech about how I am short but not that short but if I were in different shoes, yadda yadda (he was making fun of me for being short and yet still blocking the light)-
And caused me to miss my cue to open the doors for Maria when she comes back from the nunnery.
I do make it on for my next entrance immediately after. That was good.
Then I change into my nun outfit for the wedding. My dresser is again accosting me and pushing me around to get my clothes on. I finally have to walk away so she’d keep her hands off of me and end up changing in some dark area next to the stage.
The wedding is next. It’s time for the quick change back into the nun. I get out of the maid outfit, give it to the dresser, take my nun costume, and walk away (in bra and tights) so I can get dressed in peace. This is a fairly quick change, and I had to get my prop veil for the wedding.
Only somehow, there is a big candy wrapper stuck in it! I have no clue how a candy wrapper could get in the veil. I pick it up out of the prop box in a ball seconds before I enter, and as I walk to the wing to enter, I fluff it so I can dance with it on stage, I pass it to someone else, then it comes off, it is given to a member of the stage crew no idea who, I never see this happen) and is put right back into a ball and put back in the prop box. So how did a candy wrapper get stuck in it? Almost made me late for my entrance trying to get it out- AGAIN!
But Anissa asked me to take a picture of her and Radar in the wedding finery (which I promise to do only completely out of the stage and backstage area- one camera issue a day is enough). So I’m about a minute later to my costume change for the festival trio than normal.
I begin walking to my station. My station is about the exact middle of the stage and changing area. I’m barely halfway there when she comes running over to me and starts ripping my nun costume off me. I kept saying NO NO NO and pushing her off of me, when she starts grabbing for my belt, NO NO NO (in Chinese this time)! And I’m physically pushing her off me, physically pushing her off, almost hard enough that she fell to the floor, but she would not get off and she was hurting me. I turned to Analisa and asked her to tell the crazy lady in Chinese that “I have lots of time” and yet she still manhandles me. To forcibly remove the costume from my physical being. I finally AGAIN have to walk away, and come back in my bra and tights.
She has my next costume ready for me and nearly pushes me over trying to get me in it. So I have to grab it from her (this is a forcible grab) and get in it myself, and now she’s grabbing at the snaps and I have to push her away again. Understand, I have about 15 minutes to make this 30 second costume change.
My new wig gets put on without issue (though I have to repin it) and I go sit for a while in the dressing room to wait for the next cue.
The festival goes well. It only lasts 4 seconds.
Then is another fairly quick change back into nun. I can’t remember what happened here, another dresser thing, but I end up having to run from my changing station to the other side of the stage where I lead on the nuns in the final scene and we make it on.
Curtain call.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I’m busy laughing now. But I didn’t have a moment to cry, or I might have, but it would have been a “can this REALLY be happening? Like, really?” cry, not an “I’m really upset” cry.
I am SOOO glad to be leaving Chongqing, a sentiment that pretty much everyone is feeling. The city didn’t give us mush to see or do. And the show… I don’t think anyone was happy with their dressers. The kids are small, so when their dressers manhandled them, they FELL OVER, yes, onto the floor, where, rather than helping them up, the dressers would continue to try to dress them from the floor! And the adults had either extreme- a dresser that was beating them up (though I think I am the only one who had costumes ruined by their dresser) or a dresser that did absolutely nothing.
It makes me sad that I could think anything ill about my Chengdu dresser. Looking back, I would love to have her again. Oh she was just heaven on earth compared to this nonsense. She just wanted to help and quickly learned her place and when her help was needed. These Chongqing ladies didn’t care. Hell or high water, they were going to do what they wanted to do, regardless of who got killed in the process.
Personally, I don’t need a dresser. I only need help getting in and out of my new postulant outfit because it is a zipper up to the waist, then snaps the rest of the way up, so I can’t get those myself. Otherwise I don’t want help. And while the dressers can make for exciting blogs like this one, I am not willing to have my costumes destroyed or to get a black eye so that a dresser can be hired for me. I can do it myself. I am 27 years old. If my next dresser is just as bad, I am going to tell Justin that I don’t want a dresser, that I just need him to assign someone to help me with the postulant dress, that otherwise, I don’t want anyone helping me ever again. But this is thinking pessimistically. We’ll see what happens first J
-----------------------------------
So I have some information about Wuhan. We don’t have free internet, but it’s a bit more affordable (40Yuan a day, which is about $6, and shared among roomies, not too bad) so we may buy internet, or see if there is a free starbucks around. Or just find Michael and Priscilla’s room and use their wireless.
I hope when we get there, I’ll be able to be online long enough to send emails.
We have to get up around 6am in order to shower, eat breakfast, and check out of our room by 730am, so we can leave at 815am for the airport.
And it’s nearly 1am now. Yay!
No comments:
Post a Comment