Down the Rabbit Hole

Last Tuesday, at 7pm, Blair students (including myself, Ravyn, Natalie, and Conor) presented "Down the Rabbit Hole", a collection of one-act plays directed by Maya Davis and Clare Lefebure. The evening was a rousing success, and lots of fun for both the actors and the audience.

I was in a one-act called "Variations on the Death of Trotsky", which was comprised of eight short scenes on how Trotsky's death might have gone. According to the one-act (and verified by Wikipedia), on August 20, 1940, a Spanish communist named Ramon Mercader smashed a mountain-climber's axe into Trotsky's skull in Coyoacan, a suburb of Mexico City. Trotsky died the next day. The eight scenes showed Trotsky's discovery of the axe in his head (aided by his long-suffering wife) and subsequent acceptance of his death. Since there were eight variations, and each required Trotsky to die at the end, the directors decided to split the stage, and have two Trotskys and two Mrs. Trotskys each do four variations. Variations 1, 3, 5, and 7 were performed by Nick Byron as Trotsky and me as Mrs. Trotsky, and 2, 4, 6, and 8 were performed by Ben Lickerman as Trotsky and Ravyn as Mrs. Trotsky. Conor, as Ramon Mercader, walked between the two couples as needed.

This was my first experience in the one-acts, as well as my first experience on the Blair stage, and it was very enjoyable. I've been seeing Maya and Clare in shows since I was in 5th grade, and I admire them both very much, so it was extremely cool getting to work with them on the one-acts. My next Blair theatre project is "Taming of the Shrew/The Tamer Tamed", for which rehearsals started last Wednesday, and which will be performed at the end of January/beginning of February. I'm playing Hortensio, which is going to be a challenge in several ways. First, I have a fair number of lines, which is both terribly exciting and somewhat frightening, as learning lines--especially Shakespeare--isn't easy. Second, I'm playing a man: I used to play men a lot when I was younger, but haven't played one in about a year and a half, and have certainly never played a man whose characterization mattered this much, and I anticipate the physicality requiring some amount of work on my part. However, since I'm really excited about this show and determined to do well in it, I am choosing to see these challenges as opportunities.

Sorry. Got a little off-track there. More about the one-acts! We had tech for the week prior to the performance, but, following the informality associated with the one-acts, it was not particularly intense. On the one hand, that was pretty nice; on the other, I would've liked to have had a little more preparation with costumes, props, lighting, etc--we didn't get costumes until the day before the show, we got several props the day of, and we didn't rehearse the proper lighting until the actual show. The audience didn't really notice, and it didn't present much of a problem, but it gave me more anxiety than I think was absolutely necessary. I bought knee-high nylons for my costume an hour before the show, practiced flipping open the hand-held makeup mirror with one hand for the first time right before we went on, and did not realize how absolutely pitch-black the audience was until I was actually saying lines out to the audience. It is like looking into a black hole. Also, the Trotskys had never practiced with the "axe-heads" (headbands with plastic knives attached to them, to look like they had weapons in their skulls) or with the classic Trotsky beard and mustache, and both lost their mustaches and axeheads at least once if not several times.

Nevertheless, the one-acts were terrific. Brief overview:

"Bedtime": about two little girls discussing God, "forever", death, and the apocalypse at bedtime. Performed by Mikayla Cleary and Sarah Wilson.

"Laundry and Bourbon": a hilarious and sad one-act featuring a couple of Southern women folding laundry, drinking bourbon, watching TV, and gossiping, in the heat of a summer afternoon. Performed by Natalie Behrends, Mia Massimino, and Anabel Milton.

"Funeral Parlor": an eccentric man comforts a grieving widow at the reception following a funeral. Performed by Peter McNally and Laura Kennedy-Long.

"Ron Bobby Had Too Big a Heart": when prom doesn't go as planned, two girls get revenge. Performed by Emma Bergman and Meg Lebow.

"Variations on the Death of Trotsky": variations...on the death of Trotsky. Performed by Nick Byron, Ben Lickerman, Zoe Johnson, Ravyn Malatesta, and Conor James.

"The Boy Who Ate the Moon": a boy comes to a doctor's office with a rather unusual problem: he has eaten the moon. Performed by Sam Dembling and Calley Mayer-Marks.

"The Philadelphia": a man is stuck in a state of being called a 'Philadelphia' where he can get anything except what he wants. Hey, we're all got to be somewhere. Performed by Aaron Posner, Alex Michell, and Dana Cook.