Moving through the last show of the run,
it was hard to contain my happiness.
Through the first four acts I felt downright
giddy. It was difficult to suppress the smiles
and there was a kind of laughter inside,
too flattering sweet to be substantial.
I was happy the run was near an end but
simultaneously I felt a deep gratitude
for this great gift of an experience.
And I was having a great show,
my best performance to date, I thought.
But, lo, behold, in the last scene when
the Capulets and the Montagues all
descend on the crypt where the bodies
of Paris, Romeo, and Juliet lie, I knelt
down by my dead daughter, and then,
taking in the carnage and picking up
a cue, I was to deliver my penultimate
speech in the play:
“O heavens, O wife, look how our daughter bleeds.
This dagger hath mista’en, for lo, his house
is empty on the back of Montague and
is mis-sheathed in my daughter’s bosom.”
But, lo, alack the day, I was silent.
No words came from my mouth,
nor was I even aware that words
should be coming from my mouth.
I was aware, though, of a strange silence
on stage. I looked up at the actor playing
the Prince, and I thought, dude, say your
flipping line! But then my wife, dear
Lady Capulet, delivered the lines that
come immediately after mine and in that
moment I knew. So it was especially
difficult then, in the last 10 minutes of
the show, to stay out of my head and
connected to the scene. Consequently,
after having had the best show thus far,
it ended for me in the worst way possible.
I know that’s not really true.
I know it could have been worse, and
that this Actor nightmare is nowhere
close to being the scariest.
The great boon, here, though, I realize,
is that very few people were aware of it.
A few cast members, perhaps, and not
a single audience member. Even if there
were people out there who knew the play
well enough to track the missing four lines,
they might have just chalked it up to a cut that
had been made pre-production, on purpose,
like. Nevertheless, the audience response
to the last show was overwhelmingly positive,
and afterwards, most of us found our way
to a cast party where the kids behaved
like happy puppies, the adults sipped
wine in the kitchen, and the Italian food
to celebrate the Bard’s birthday was abundant.
michael jarmer 