The roar of the greasepaint and the smell of the crowd
Today was school play day.
*sigh*
It reminded me of the time when I first took to the boards.
When I was a nipper, I was condemned for a year to Ring College, which is a Gulag in Waterford where they speak nothing but Irish.
At the end of October, they had a tradition where the parents were invited down for a sort of open day. This was grand for us because for one day at least we didnât have to wear chains, and we actually got fed. Part of this open day was a play put on by the inmates pupils.
I got a call a couple of weeks before the open day to go to the commandant’s headmasterâs office. I knocked and entered and the commandant headmaster says to me âSay this: what is the way to Dungarvanâ [in Irish, of course]. I was a bit surprised by this, because I knew he was a local and should know the way to the local town, but I didnât fancy another week in solitary, so I told him. He got very irate and demanded that I try again. What he never bothered telling me was that this was an audition, and that I was supposed to ask with great drama, what the way to Dungarvan was. Having told him the route in great detail, several times, he finally threw me out.
With a logic that defies all explanation, I was cast in the lead role.
Of course I had a mountain of script to learn. I was never the best when it came to learning stuff off by heart, and this was compounded by the fact that it was all in a foreign language, as at that stage, my knowledge of Irish was barely sufficient to ask if I could go to the toilet.
The night of the play was a fiasco.
The hall was crowded and my time came to enter [stage left]. Naturally my mind went a complete and utter blank. I frantically whispered for some hints, but the others were as clueless as I, and I found myself wordless and clueless on a spotlit stage in front of a large hall packed with parents.
I improvised.
Improvisation is easy enough, unless you are doing it in a foreign language in which case it is next to fucking impossible.
The evening passed without incident. The parents hadnât a clue what was going on anyway, as they couldnât speak Irish either, so I survived. Whatâs more, I only got three weeks in solitary, with bread and water and it could have been a lot worse.
It was a long fucking time before I took to the boards again.
When I was a nipper I had a stutter. So this evil bastard teacher would always put me in the play for “comical relief.” When I was 16 he met with a fatal accident. I have often pondered on him and if he was the reason I turned out this way.
TT – Only sixteen, and you were arranging ‘fatal accidents’? As you lot would say – Respect! I think you fete was sealed when you were dropped on your head as a baby.
I remember when I was 8 we were made put on a play in school called “An Lolipop Draoichta”. I still have no idea what it was about. Â Or why the seven dwarves were involved.
Lollypop draoichta hmm. Was it a cannabis flavoured lollypop with fake stuff supplied by Gaeltacht fly-by-nights? You were had by the creepy sioga. May have turned you against the compulsory teanga forever.
Jennikyooky – Maybe something got lost in the translation? I don’t remember a thing about mine execpt that I had to tell a king his horse was dead, without being killed for my troubles!!
Hey, I didn’t say I arranged the accident. I said he met with an accident. Happens all the time n’est-ce pas ?
You could have entitled the post ‘Unable to say focail’!
TT – Don’t spoil a good reputation – espesially if it’s yours.
Ian – I could have but people might have thought I was being rude. We can’t have that now, can we?
Ha, reminds me of being forced to audition solo for the school choir. It wasn’t X Factor material! We were up on that stage doing the Hallelujah Chorus just because we were able to open our mouths!
Somehow we didn’t sound that bad in a group so never quite worked out what the music teacher knew that we didn’t?