When the time came, I never suspected it would be as awkward as I imagined.
I was in a play, and in a scene with Gladys Jones when she forgot her lines.
It was opening night. The theatre was packed. There had been great hype about the play, you could cut the audiences expectations with a knife.
But in the scene where Gladys’s character, Isabelle was to hold me in grief over my child being missing in the war, Gladys froze.
The look on her face was terrifying for me, as I knew immediately what it meant. I wasn’t able to save her as my lines fed off hers.
For a minute we froze, looking at each other, me mouthing her lines in the vain hope she would remember. We’d never had this happen in rehearsal, so I was as surprised as she was.
I wasn’t prepared for this, so I jumped ten lines to where Isabelle holds me. With my around her, I whispered in her ear the next line. She looked at me in bewilderment, backed away and fled the stage.
The audience I sense suspected something, as there was as much an awkward silence from them as there was upon the stage.
Somehow I found myself centre stage, staring into the audience, my mind going a hundred miles an hour thinking, “How do I get out of this?”
To save myself, Gladys and the entire production I combined the last two lines of the scene and gracefully exited the stage.
Everyone in attendance from the actors to the audience and crew squirmed in the awkwardness of the moment.
Written for: https://rachelpoli.com/2018/03/16/time-to-write-awkward-creative-writing-prompt/
Good one Michael. I remember that in drama class from late elementary until high school, the fear of every person was forgetting their lines, and like you write, it happens just like that, just as awkwardly as well. Fortunately I think parents are more forgiving, but maybe the audience was good and the main character could escape with just a few laughs.
sounds so real that it might be personal experience, well penned!
Thanks Kate once or twice I was a better director than actor
lol never tried it myself … I’d imagine I’d get stage fright also lol 🙂
Horror of horrors! Please, what were the last two lines? (“It was her, not me”?) (Maybe good to always have a couple of hilarious lines you keep in your pocket for just such mishaps?
Sadly its something of nightmares you hope never happens. In one play I was in we simulated a fight using strobe lights. Unfortunately, I got too close to another actor, we were all swinging our arms so in the light it looked like a fight, when a fist hit me in the nose and I was in the next scene, I had about 30 seconds to stop the bleeding and go on.
I’m cracking up here, but I know it was not funny at the time! 😁
Somehow I stopped the blood flow and as you know, the show must go on…..the next scene required me to sit on the lap of this very big butch woman and attempt to kiss her….needless to say it was all very theatrical
This is getting better all the time 😂
I’m sure you are wanting to know how many awards I won, well, the answer is nONE….hard to believe I know….it was one of the few shows my mother came to see me in…
I’m sure your mother was proud of you. Maybe sad that you never received well deserved awards, lol.
Well I think mum was more taken aback by the content, after all we were college students at the time, loud and callous in some ways. The lack of awards has more to do with the lack of talent I think…
Oh, college age. No mother should subject herself to what her child is up to then, lol.
I never could get her to articulate her reactions…but there was a lot of stunned silence…lol
Silence says it all!
Mum was good at that 😀
Interesting take on the prompt! This was a great read and I was feeling embarrassed for all of them, lol.
Thanks so much Rachel.
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