This morning, ten days after I trimmed my beard, one of the regulars I see at breakfast pretty much every week day suddenly noticed and asked, across the room, what in the world that was I had on my face.
Once again, The Chops provided me with an excuse to invite someone else to come see SC Shakespeare Company’s production of “Pride and Prejudice.”
It opens tomorrow night — that’s Wednesday night — at Finlay Park, at 7:30.
Last night (see picture above, at dusk, shortly before we ran the show), was our first time testing the lights and using the full set that we didn’t have at Saluda Shoals last week — winding staircases to descend, etc. (Which is a bit of an adventure when you’re turned delivering a line to another character, and bright lights are in your eyes, and you’re having inner-ear problems.) Tonight we’ll test sound for the first time in this venue.
And tomorrow we open. Hope to see you there.
Related Posts
I didn’t know that “Pride and Prejudice” was actually written by Shakespeare.
Maybe next summer you’ll perform some of Shakespeare’s other lesser known works, like Beowulf, Battlefield Earth or his Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám.
Ha-ha. Yes, the company is deliberately operating beyond the… idiom… implied in its name. I believe it’s done so before.
But you will see many of the actors who have appeared in previous productions of plays by the Bard.
I hope the members of the SC Jane Austen Company don’t decide to come by and disrupt your performance. They’ve been known to get a little rowdy.
Personally, I prefer Steve Austin to Jane Austen. In either the $6,000,000 or the Stone Cold variety.
I can see the face-off with the Austen Company now. Jazz-walking toward each other, snapping fingers in unison, a la “West Side Story.” (The corniest thing I have EVER seen on film.)
Actually, we’re more likely to be disrupted by the homeless in the park. So far, they’ve only sat around and watched and called out the odd comment or two. I understand they sometimes walk onstage during performances. A true “public” park is a different experience from Saluda Shoals, where you need a car to get there, and you have to pay to get in.
I almost headlined this post, “Come see what all the homeless guys are raving about!” But I decided some might take such a double entendre amiss.
Of course, I still might use that headline tomorrow, as opening approaches…
“(Which is a bit of an adventure when you’re turned delivering a line to another character, and you’re having inner-ear problems.)”
As they say in show business, “Break a leg”.
I might. I just might.
Wow, if you think the Sharks and the Jets was the corniest thing you’ve ever seen in a movie, you haven’t seem many musicals. I think it’s cool.
Break an eardrum!
You’re a brave man performing on stage with possible Menieres. Maybe Break a Neck would be the appropriate rejoinder. Good Luck!
Brad – You forgot that when you’re a Jet you’re a Jet all the way. From your first cigarette to your last dying day.
Don’t diss the Jets.
If one street gang arrived for a rumble jazz-walking in a crouch and snapping their fingers in unison, it would be highly effective, because the rival street gang would all die laughing.
Of course, most depictions of violence in dance are pretty ridiculous. I’ve seen a lot of them, with a daughter who’s a dancer. It’s usually painfully unconvincing.
Which is odd, in a way. Throughout human history, violence has often been ritualized, with neither party meaning to kill the other. In movies, we see very convincing depictions of violence in which no one is hurt. Of course, film allows you to fake things more easily than live performance.
I’ve only tried to depict violence once. Before my 30-year hiatus from the stage, I was in a production of “Cabaret.” I played the bad guy (who doesn’t appear in the film version), a Nazi named Ernst Ludwig. At a point when I revealed my full nature to the protagonist, he punched me and knocked me down. I played it big, falling back and knocking over a chair as I fell. At the moment of impact of the fist, someone on the other side of a curtain clapped his hands loudly. I don’t know how convincing it was.
Then I pulled myself up, rubbing my cheek, and told the Storm Troopers: “Get him!” When you’re a cowardly Nazi, it’s helpful to have Storm Troopers around.
How about that? I just Googled “Ernst Ludwig Cabaret” to make sure I had that character name right, and found this depiction of that very moment I just described, apparently during a rehearsal of the play.
Only it looked better when we did it, as we were in full period costume, in a cabaret setting…
I can see it now, a Kung Fu style musical –
“Ahh, grasshopper, you have trained in the arts, but unfortunatery your Martha Graham style is no match for my Fosse style!”
Well, I always prepare for a night out by singing “Tonight, Tonight,” and then get ready for bed afterwards by singing “I Cld Have Danced All Night,” as one does.
Kathryn – when I meet a cute girl I go around singing her name and then singing to anyone in earshot that I just met a girl by said name.
Especially if she is of Latin heritage.
Yup, that’s the way they do — een Ah-mary-ca…
I have often walked down this street before…
toi, toi, toi!
Kathryn appears to be stuck in a Mayfair flower market, so let’s get our zip guns and go rescue her.
The zip guns are OK, but I’m not doing the finger-snapping thing…
Well, I was stuck on My Favorite Things until Doug put me in mind of WKRP in Cincinnati. I have a sound track to my life….
I’m living on the air in Cincinnati