Frankenstein's monster roared with anger, throwing a rope around my neck -- choking my very life away. As my consciousness began to slip, I fell to one knee and then...ooh, fuzzy bunnies!
Strange what goes through one's mind as everything around him ceases to exist. This event happened during one of our last rehearsals for the play Frankenstein. In this scene, the Creature (good friend Greg Murray) was supposed to choke me to death using a chain found in Victor Frankenstein's laboratory. However, for rehearsal, we simply used a rope, thinking it would be less likely to actually kill me (though we used a real chain in the actual play -- which I guess means that if it did kill me, that would have just added to the drama). Anyway, I was supposed to get my fingers between the rope and my neck, and then just "act" like I was dying; however, Greg was always too damn fast, and I never could get my fingers where they needed to be in time. On this particular day though, Greg was truly inspired, and he choked me until I really passed out.
After each rehearsal, especially the later ones (which this was), Mr. Salter would evaluate and critique our performance. The thing to keep in mind here is that after I passed out, Greg let me fall to the ground, where I lay until the scene was over. No one at this point even knew what had happened (eventually I woke up on the floor -- disappointed the bunnies were gone). When Mr. Salter got to my performance evaluation, everything went pretty well until he got to my "death scene". He wanted to know what the hell I was doing; why was I being such a doofus?
Apparently my real-life death throes were too awkward and staged, which makes me wonder that when I really do die, will anyone actually believe me?
By the way, Victor Frankenstein was played by Donnie Keshawarz, who has been seen in shows like 24, Lost and The Sopranos. Check out his IMDB page here. Too bad I didn't keep in touch.
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2 comments:
Great post Stephen! I almost spit up my drink laughing out loud. What did Mr. Salter say when he found out your "bad acting" was you almost dying?
I don't remember what exactly he said, but I think he was both surprised and concerned. In fact, for at least one of the performances, there was someone just offstage whose job it was to drag my corpse away in the event I did die.
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