It was a show fraught with problems from the very beginning. I played Maggie, a woman whose husband was dying. She was visiting with their son, and in a state of denial. The third vignette involved an old lady who was being tended by her daughter while she waited for her other daughter who was never going to come.
The actor playing my husband has gone on to be extremely successful in Austin theater circles but at the time I think he lived in his car. No, really. He had green teeth, filthy hair and musty-smelling clothes. Actually, the smell of the clothing was the best odour about him. He was also cadaverous, and completely believable as a dying man. All of that would have been bearable, except that I had to hug and kiss him. I resorted to arriving for rehearsals and performances liberally doused with patchouli oil. I figured that, if I had to be enveloped in a cloud of funk, it would be funk of my choosing.
The director decided to take a cutting of the play to a one-act play festival in San Antonio. The logical way to do that would have been to take the one vignette with Robbi and two excellent actors. It would have been within the time limits and stood on its own very well. I may have even suggested it. However, the director wanted to take everyone--the theater group was supposedly going to pay for the trip. So she hacked the hell out of all three stories. One, at least, even totally lost its resolution.
A couple of days before the competition, we found out that we had to come up with half the expense on our own. I was a struggling single mother. No way could I do that. One of the other actors ponied up my share (remind me to repay that--thanks, Grisham). Of course our lousy cutting and incompetent production finished last in the contest.
Who knew that seven glasses of Zinfandel and a water-tumbler full of Scotch would render me totally sloppy-drunk? Not a pretty picture.
Ah...the memories!
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