A Few Rehearsals

Chapter 17.

Whoever You Are

I was in a theatrical play a good while ago. It was titled DON QUIXOTE...based on Dale Wasserman's "Man of Le Mancha". It went...well. It was a musical so about half a year ago when I auditioned, I asked if we would be using playback vocals. We weren't. And as far as memory served, I hadn't seen anything like that having been done here before...so...to anyone who knows me well...that was reason enough. You know, show people how it's DONE. We were to perform it at the Arts Council Karachi.


The people I met through the experience were a strange lot. Such good people and so confused as to how a man like me can actually be so loveable yet often behave the way I do. Everyone was wondering if I'll ever even keep in touch. Guess they've heard things about my loner lifestyle.

Anyhow, the show got subjected to reviews. Not PEOPLE reviews. CRITIC reviews. Which seems inevitable though it's never the reason anyone should actually DO something. But I suppose it IS something of a job to give opinions. There were good reviews and bad ones. Particularly from some dude who didn't quite understand why he was being made to cover a play for DAWN that day when he had so much ass out there to chase and never get his hands on. So many parties to attend that he never got invited to. Plus I think the AC went off for a while the night he reviewed. Plus he has a seventeen year old girl's job which perhaps doesn't meet up to all the levels of that wierd trianglular diagram showing different degrees of job satisfaction that they made you memorise in Business Management class for A levels.


Along with myself, one fellow performer, who played the nervous but happy go lucky sidekick Sancho Panza, had the honour of being tested like lab rats for the opening scene where a 30 foot ladder is brought down from the centre of the stage to have US climb down FROM it. I remember telling him, "Dude, if you slip, fall and break your neck, don't worry, I'll improvise.". And despite the whole BREAK A LEG culture, we actually made it down that ladder safe and sound each night. Now the only problem I saw left was that I was on stage in front of complete strangers, and I was wearing a shirt with frills, and lowers that only reached down to my calves, and the entire outfit was made of velvet.


BLUE velvet.


I understood a thing or two about make up as well. Apparently, no matter how talented you are, or no matter how much make up school might have attempted to give your life, often enough you WILL resort to Cherry Blossom's white shoe polish to make people look old. Our incredibly hard working and superbly gifted make up artists, however, didn't want to put that polish on MY hair for some reason...so, naturally, they started slandering huge amounts of the same beige coloured TV STICK make up they applied on my face just minutes before, straight onto my head. I say naturally, because it seemed like they knew exactly what effect they were going for. I tried not to laugh about this. Which was relatively easy when I reminded myself about the clothes I was wearing. It's always funnier on someone else.

There was a line in the play where my character speaks his full name with such pride and conviction, that the higher authority among the prison riff raff is indeed FORCED to reply, "OOOHHHHH...a GENTLEMAN!"

I wanted to say, "Well, more GENTLE than MAN as you can see from my pants.", and then move onto my ACTUAL line...but I didn't. I didn't want to confuse anyone on the very first night.


By the fourth night, my voice was gone. Which is deathly for a person who has to sing about 5 songs during the performance. And reach the back row CLEARLY over the sound of AMPED accoustic guitars and a friggin DHOLAK and some tambourines and clackers. Or clappers, I'm not sure, but if I spend any more time trying to remember what that little thing was called I might turn into a nerd and shoot myself. But it all worked out for the best. After every performance, though I hate the whole MEETING people afterward thing that everyone does, all I could ask any ONE of those many people who came and shook my hand, or patted my back afterward if they were reasonably older than I am, was whether or not the volume of my voice was high enough to reach clearly, whether or not the lyrics were fully understandable, and most of all - whether they were any sort of authority ON this or not - if my singing was any good.


All comments pointed to yes, which was exhilarating, but I can't help but think if it was just that no one really wants to get you down after a performance by raising their palm, tilting it from side to side and saying, "Eeeeeehhhh...there WAS this ONE part....". And if everyone was just in such a fun mood after the thing that they didn't really feel anything was missing. But I trusted them. I'm usually my own worst critic. I downright hate my work...from my writing to my drawing to my acting to my singing. So this time, I just trusted THEM.


The show eventually had a CLOSING night. Not having to go for it's rehearsals or the actual performance the few days after wasn't wierd tho. It was actually VERY relieving. Once that curtain went up each of those five nights...the only thing I had keeping me from passing out was looking into the eyes of people playing characters I had grown to love. Those eyes kept me from losing my balance. From mistrusting the good in this world. From turning into a man called Alonso Quijana. Now...a month I don't meet them...and that's EXACTLY what happens.


I don't do things for the same reasons someone else would do that very thing, you know? When I close my eyes...sometimes...I don't even see black. I don't make money off my art not because I think it corrupts the process, but moreover because I just don't know how. I don't know how to put a price on something you did, since I've only ever done I actually just felt like doing for no reason other than my own spiritual ones. And money never makes it to that VERY exclusive list.


But I'm trying to fix myself. Even if I have to keep coming back to this stupid senseless page to remind myself to CONTINUE fixing myself, I'll do it. But I'm losing too much too fast in my life. And my greatest fear is soon becoming that after a while, I won't really mind losing every single thing I ever had. Because THAT'S what I'll remember my life as BEING. I wonder if we really ever find what we look for in life, or just change what we're looking for so often that we eventually end up telling ourselves we have everything we might ever have wanted.


I'm in another play now. Don't want to jinx it by saying too much. But I will say this. I like acting. It's an escape that cannot be matched by any walk in a forest or even helping a stranger push his car when it stalls. And as of recent, because of something that I intend to explain and post soon, not for you, whoever you are, but so I can find words to describe this madness inside of me, I feel acting is something that just helps me forget who I am. Because the more years of my life that pass, the more I dislike what I'm becoming. I prefer being someone else. Even if it IS for a short while, a number of performances, a few rehearsals.