Going up (and up and away)

Emery's doing this cool animation camp this week where he's learning and doing claymation and stop animation. So we were talking about future careers in that and he asked me if when I was doing plays and stuff if I was able to always learn my lines. I answered yes, I was able to learn them. Then he asked, "was there ever a time when you just couldn't learn them?"

In fact there was one time, and I told him about it. Merry Wives of Windsor, the prose play (as I call it) was a show I did with Helene Gresser as Mistress Ford (I was Mistress Page)... And we simply could not learn our lines. I couldn't really explain to Em how the iambic pentameter usually helps immensely in memorization, and that this being a play without meter it was especially difficult; I did tell him of the rehearsal timeline, a shocking 2 weeks, at the end of a summer of 8 plays, this being the 8th... My brain was just done. And I hated the play. I didn't like the director (he was cukoo, like really). And it was a strange 'vehicle' piece for this actor who'd come in town just for this play. I had an instant dislike for him: who would travel anywhere to do Merry Wives. And then he wasn't any good as Falstaff - he was awful.

I am sure all these things are why I don't do that anymore, and don't particularly miss it. It's not just that I have kids or what-have-you... There was always so much not to like about the whole business. And the moments of sheer joy or glory were very few and far between.