Show #7
Friday, December 27: 5 pm
Returning to Temple Studios after three
months away, my head was abuzz with options and concerns. Do I dive
straight into new characters? Do I ease into things with some old
favorites? Over the preceding weeks, I had already designed and
discarded several potential plans for my first show. In the end, I
decided to just see what the cast list looked like and go with
whatever jumped out at me.
The thing that jumped out at me was
that Kirsty Arnold was playing Andrea, and Fania Grigoriou was the
PA. These are, in my opinion, the definitive roles for each of them,
yet they are reversed much more often than they play the “correct”
role. At my very first show, I had done a full loop with Fania's PA
and approximately half of a loop with Kirsty's Andrea – so seeing
the rest of Andrea's loop was on my “to-do” list for this trip.
Thinking that this particular bit of casting may be tough to catch
again, I decided to start my night out with Andrea.
I knew she would be in the dressing
room early on, because I had seen her there shortly after the start
of my sixth show, but she was nowhere to be seen when I arrived. I
wandered out to Studio 2 to catch a bit of Wendy (Anna Finkel) and
Marshall (James Finnemore)'s watch fight, and by the time that was
wrapping up, Andrea passed by in the hallway, dressed in her Bulldog
costume. Ah, so I was picking her up almost exactly where I had done
so at my first show – but no matter, it had been several months. I
had no problem with watching her whole loop, including the repeated
portion.
In short order, she changed into her
magic trick outfit and headed for Studio 3. This could be a problem – Studio 3 doesn't open until an hour into the show.
How would this work? As it turns out, halfway down the hall to
Studio 3, she turned and took my hand, leading me into the deserted
bar for my first 1:1, just a few short minutes into the show.
Sparing the details, as before, I'll just say that while I walked in
with Andrea, I walked out with Conrad (Adam Burton). So much for
plans. Fortunately, Conrad was also high up on my to do list, as he
was the character I knew the least about. In nearly all of the
scenes I had come across previously – the magic trick, Romola's
scene - he had been putting on an act, revealing little about
himself. Plus, I had heard nothing but raves about Adam's version of
the character, and knew that he was leaving the show soon, so I was
very happy to have this opportunity, especially early in the night
while the crowds were thin.
Picking up his loop halfway through,
however, I still didn't manage to get a real sense of him – he's an
odd case, simultaneously magnetic and off-putting, involved in some
odd philosophical/religious stuff, and seemed to be pretty angry and
disgusted with the things going on around him. I actually found
myself more interested in seeing the first half of his loop, to find
out how he came to be this way, than I was in the things I was
actually seeing, however engrossing they were. It was not to be,
however, as, following a very cool bit of business in the dressing
room involving Charles Allan Gilbert's “All is Vanity,” his fight
with the PA, a hallway encounter with Harry Greener (James Sobol
Kelly) that was massively expanded from the few words I had seen them
exchange before, and Romola's scene in studio 5, he took me in to
Studio 8 for a loop-ending 1:1. It was very similar to the Fool's
1:1 I had experienced previously, but there were a few twists, and
the experience of being there with the decidedly un-comforting Conrad
made even the familiar parts much more unsettling. It all wound up
the same way, though, with me spit out into the basement all alone.
My time with Conrad had come to an end.
I wasn't sure who to track down next,
but I felt the need to get as far away from the basement as possible
– which meant taking a few flights of stairs up to the desert.
There I found Andy (Rob McNeill), collapsed in front of Mary's shrine
at the scarecrow funeral. Suddenly one of the scarecrows came to
life and carried him away – it was Miguel (Ygal Jerome Tsur).
Miguel was another character on my list, and in my limited
experience, Ygal was my preferred incarnation (for an admittedly
stupid reason). When following Faye at previous shows, I had seen
both Ygal and Ed Warner's Miguels abandon her while she was
undressing for him in the hotel room. Ygal's Miguel did some
business with his Death tarot card, showing that he was pulled away
by supernatural things. Ed's Miguel just kind of left, coming across
as a massive dick. Yeah, like I said, stupid reason (I have also,
since then, come to appreciate Ed's Miguel). All of that is a
long-winded way of saying that I decided to follow Miguel for a loop,
a plan that was almost immediately derailed when he disappeared
behind a locked door.
Fortunately, Hannah of the spoiler
group was also following Miguel, and out of the corner of my eye, I
saw her waving me over to the sand dune where William had murdered
Mary. After a few minutes, Miguel's arm emerged from the sand, Lila
(Margarita Zafrilla Olayo) arrived to pull him out, and we were off.
Miguel's loop was fun, but not
tremendously involving as a singular narrative. Even though I
enjoyed most of his scenes, I never managed much emotional connection
with him. To be honest, though, a (mostly) more light, playful loop
was just what the doctor ordered at that point. The highlight was
probably his teasing chase through town with Andy, running through
the motel and climbing atop the buildings, and culminating in his
disappearing act in the phone booth. I also held his package for a
while (no, not like that) before he delivered it to Badlands Jack (River Carmault).
This loop also gave me my first glimpse since September of the lovely
Sonya Cullingford, who was playing Faye. When she's present in a
scene, it's kind of hard to watch anyone else, and I had to make a
conscious effort not to switch over to her loop. I managed, somehow.
One interesting thing about Ygal/Miguel
is that, unlike many other characters/performers, he made a real
point to spread out his attention. He has lots of little
interactions throughout the loop, plus the 1:1, and I don't think he
ever picked the same person for any two of them. So as you may
guess, having carried the package, I wasn't selected for the 1:1 – but I also
knew that we were just about to the point where I came in, so I
decided not to wait around just to watch him walk to the scarecrow
funeral and sit down. Instead, I returned to the studios.
There, I found Andrea again, in the
dressing room. Wendy had just left to murder Marshall, and Andrea
was having a breakdown over that fact. On a third loop (this was the
second), the story would branch off at this point, and Andrea would
take a white mask to the finale – which is what happened to me back
at that first show. In other words, this was exactly the point in
the story where I had left off. Perfect.
Her breakdown took her to Studio 4,
where she had a violent dance in the doorway of a snow-filled room.
I had seen this a few times out of the corner of my eye when
following Dolores or the PA, but this was the first time I got to
really watch it – and it's quite striking, with a very cool
conclusion where Claude (David Essing) emerges from the snow room,
appearing first as nothing more than the giant shadow of a hand, to
reset Andrea.
Once the loop reset, it turned out that
there wasn't much of it that I hadn't yet seen while following other characters.
In fact, the only completely new moment to me was her cigarette
dance on top of the caravans, which is fantastic and which I can't
believe I had never seen before (and never saw again, at least as of
show 13). Still, it was nice to get everything in order. I followed
her as far as Bulldog, which holds some strange power over me. If I
hear it, I almost can't help rushing over to Studio 5 to watch. At
that point, I had come full circle, both to the point where I first
saw her at the beginning of this show, and to where I picked her up
back in the first show, so I took my leave.
I knew I was on short time, with maybe
half of a loop left to go before the end, so I decided to find
something familiar to ride out the rest of the night. Since I was
feeling a good bit of first show nostalgia from my Andrea loop, I
decided to track down the first character I followed, Dolores. I
immediately recognized her as the same Dolores that I had seen but
was unable to name in show 1, so a quick check of the cast list means
that I now know who she was (Sarah Dowling, for the record).
Following her certainly felt like going on a tour of old haunts, as I
picked her up at Frankie's initiation and she eventually brought me
to the executive party/orgy. I was surprised to see that they seem
to have become a bit more circumspect about the nudity – back in
September, little Marshall was just flapping in the wind for a
while, but now they wait longer to pull down his pants and keep
Dolores's head right up against him. I think the new choreography
works better, actually.
Not long after that, Dolores met with
Alice (Laura Harding) and got turned into the Grandmother. This was
my first real look at the new Alice, and I wasn't immediately sold.
She seemed more aggressive and less funny than Emily Mytton's
version. Still, it was promising enough that she went on the list of
things I need to see more of. As the scene ended, we were at finale
time, and Dolores grabbed another white mask to take to the finale.
I followed along, but instead of heading straight there, they
detoured into the ornate bedroom – and the masses followed them. I
decided not to take part and cut through Studio 4 to head straight
for the finale. Up ahead, just disappearing around the corner, were
Harry and Faye. When I reached the corner myself, they were just
passing the next one – but Faye leaned back around to look at me, making sure that I was still there. I thought back to her similar actions in show #4 and developed a strong
suspicion about what was going on. Sure enough, as I entered Studio
2, she grabbed my hand and pulled me close to watch the murder. I
had some seriously mixed feelings about this – on the one hand,
it's always better to watch the murder with a character. It's even
better still to watch the murder with a character played by my
favorite performer in the show. On the other hand, I had been there
before, so I knew what was going to follow – she was going to make
me dance, and I was going to make a fool of myself.
Terror.
Fortunately, my foreknowledge served me
well. I can't say I actually danced any better than last time, but
at least I knew when to twirl. As she deposited me on the steps to
watch the final dance, she rewarded my near-competence with a kiss on
the cheek. Although presumably not intended as such, it was a lovely
way to welcome me back to Temple Studios.
No comments:
Post a Comment