Letters from Boston #5January 14th 2008 |
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From Julieanne Pogue
“Boston Marriage”, January 13, 2008
Oh RATS! Jack gave us the week-end off so we could rest and be off-book for ACT ONE in the run-through tomorrow night. I went home after rehearsal Friday and promptly became ill. I thought Saturday would see me through Whatever-It-Was, but this morning I awoke with no voice, chills, fever, nausea, and a sinking feeling that told me This was IT! The dread sinus-throat-bronchial infection thingy I got when we first read through the play and were engaged in table work.
Appalled and terrified, I called my doctor and then Jack. The doctor on call for the practice prescribed big-time antibiotics, but heaven only knows what will transpire when I go in to the office tomorrow. I’ve told Jack that I am willing to do a “whisper-through” if it’s thought I’m not contagious and can be out and about. My spirits are high, but last week’s rehearsal just wrung the juices right out of me. I came home each night elated and exhausted. Too many nights of that no doubt prepped me for Anything That Came Down the Pike.
So, here I sit, up at 12 o’clock, trying to organize my thoughts and do a bit more work on the end of Act One. I was so envious that Gina was having her friend (and my old classmate from U.K.), Steve Currens, come over to run lines with her over the week-end. Charles, bless his heart, just irritates me to death when he runs cues with me, so I resort to my tapes and rote repetition. Rick has let us appropriate Becky for chunks of time to run the lines and it’s been helpful, but I need to know whether I am putting anyone at risk working in close quarters with me. RATS!!!
The technical crew is supposed to attend tomorrow’s rehearsal to check on the movement patterns and begin to etch out a light plan. I don’t want to cancel. I’m feeling small and burdensome and not at all in a Good Place. And, on the other hand, I am just beginning to have such fun with Anna. With no script to hinder me, I’m better able to use the stage, to play with and off Gina and Laura.
Laura jokes that she wonders if there’ll ever be a day when she’s not required to bend over and show her pert little bottom as part of quite specific stage direction. I countered that we should start a “Walk of Fame” outside of the theatre and have her sit in the cement, rather than stand in it, to immortalize her appropriately. Ah, we are such blithe little wits!
We’ve come to realize that Laura is the real star of this play. We are there merely to set up the situation. She then enters and gets all the laughs. With MANY fewer lines. I ask you, is life unfair, or what? There is no one I would rather set up for a laugh than her. She is funny just blinking her eyes!
I am going to say a prayer, a rosary, burn incense and chant, paint myself blue and dance around a rowan tree, and sacrifice something-or-other to invoke ALL the Powers That May or May Not Be to intercede and give me back my voice!!!
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