My Time at Temple Studios, Part 16

Show #16
Friday, March 7: 9 pm

One decision I made before arriving in London was that the first time I saw James Traherne's name on the cast board next to the name “Mr. Stanford,” I would track him down straight out of the lift (unless I had a really good reason not to. Because no decision is ever truly final at Temple Studios). Of course, I do belong firmly to the camp that believes there is only one Stanford and his name is Sam Booth, but that did leave me with a perverse curiosity about what the alternate casting would be like. Plus, my admittedly limited experience with James as Tuttle suggested that he might actually be a decent fit, and I had heard some good things about him as well. Worst case scenario, I would probably be happier with him than with the previous alternate Stanford (name withheld), who just felt wrong in the role from the get-go. Either way, I needed to see for myself.

As you might have guessed, this was the show where I first saw those names paired. I quickly positioned myself to be the first one off the lift – but first, I would have to get past Sarah Sweeney's Betsy. You see, in doing so, I had also placed myself right in the middle of where she would have to walk to get from the controls to the photos and back again. She made her way to the photos without incident, but on the way back, CALAMITY! She went left. I went left. She went right. I went right. Left again, x2. Finally she stopped and gave me a look. “Excuse me, sir, are we dancing?” Sufficiently cowed, I stood still and let her push past whichever way she felt like. Teach me to try to get out of the way.

That mishap aside, I zipped out into the basement and found Stanford just where I expected, grabbing his gun from the safe and laying it out on a platter. As he stepped back and stood motionless, preparing himself for the initiation (or, technically, preparing for the 1:1. Which, by process of elimination, would have to be with me, since the only other option was no one), I looked him over carefully and decided that this could work. He doesn't possess Sam's special brand of eccentric authority, but he makes up for it with his massively imposing frame and a face that, when it gets stern, gets really, really stern.

After a few moments, however, we were joined by another couple of white masks (and I don't just mean “two” - they were wandering about, hand in hand). They circled around us, muttering audibly but unintelligibly to each other, and finally walked straight up on to the platform. I was focusing on Stanford, so I didn't see what they were doing, but I saw the flash of anger and irritation across his face as he broke from his position and strode straight for them. My first thought was that he was going to take one of them to the 1:1 as a way of splitting them apart, but it quickly became apparent that he was just trying to get them to stop fucking with his gun. Big no-no. After their silent rebuke, the troublesome duo quickly scurried out of the room, leaving me alone with Stanford again. He shook his head ever so slightly, looked me right in the eye, grabbed me by the arm, and we were off.

On the way out of the 1:1, he told me he had something he wanted me to see, and deposited me in a particular spot to watch the initiation. Amusingly, it was my usual spot for this scene anyway. This is a scene where James' height really works for him, as he towered over poor Frankie (Carl Harrison, who is actually one of the taller members of the cast himself). And of course, he pulled the usual Stanford trick of staring me down while he shoved the orange in Frankie's mouth, tying our fates together.

After the initiation, we retreated to Stanford's office/dressing room. Whatever it is. You know the one. It was still early in the night, so we were joined only by a few other white masks – however, one of them felt the need to walk right up to Stanford and ask (regarding Dolores) “excuse me, sir? What happened to the woman? Was she downsized?” I began to have a severe case of audience anxiety – with two of these incidents already, and during magic hour no less, what would the rest of the night be like? Fortunately, the man's companions quickly chastised him and left, presaging the fact that my fears would ultimately prove to be unfounded.

Soon Romola (Aoi Nakamura) came in. Based on this scene, she was easily the most meek and timid Romola I've seen, and possibly the most innocent. Even when she starts slapping Stanford, she does so very gently, and giggles through the whole thing. This Stanford also seems more gentle with her than Sam's – although his apology feels much less sincere. He definitely pushed her about the room with a soft touch, and even kissed her eyes at one point. During the dance, when Sam would typically cast a sinister smirk at some of the white masks, James' face went blank, as if he was dead inside. It was strange – this is a scene I've seen more than a half-dozen times, and yet everything about it felt completely different.

The next stop was the rolling desk dance, guest-starring Emily Mytton as Alice. I had seen her briefly at my previous two shows, but this was the scene where it really hit me just how good it was to have her back. I warmed considerably to Laura Harding's version over the course of my December trip, but watching Emily do the rolling desk dance was like slipping on an old, comfortable shoe. It just felt right. Moving into the main area of the masonic temple, Stanford did his usual dance/collapse after drinking from the chalice, but James seemed to build the collapse slowly into the proceedings, unlike Sam's sudden drop, then followed it up with some comical attempts to move after he lost the use of much of his body. Highly entertaining.

After the orgy, the slow wheelchair journey down the hallway, and the jump scare (which I swear he does just for shits and giggles), Stanford held out his hands to me. I extended my own and he took them both, examining the palms for a moment before Lila (Kirsty Arnold) came tearing down the hallway, bursting through our arms. I am still at a complete loss as to what he was doing or why he felt like doing it, unless it was purely for the purpose of throwing up an obstacle for Lila to break through. In which case: well played, sir.

The next scene, Lila's discovery, was my first extended look at Kirsty as Lila, which is a very different role from both Andrea and the PA. She seemed to fit well enough to interest me in following her for a loop (which I then proceeded to never do – maybe next time), although her timing relative to Stanford's recorded instructions seemed a little off – she was only on cabinet 2 when it started talking about cabinet 3, and I think she jumped the gun on a few reactions/gestures. Otherwise, the most notable thing about the scene was the gigantic grin plastered on Stanford's face at “we live inside a dream,” which was kind of endearing and intensely creepy all at the same time. After the scene, Stanford held the door for everyone, rather than just for a single lucky 1:1'er, and led us back into his room off of the temple, where he poured himself a drink and spoke to those of us who stuck around, covering much of the same ground that the tree room 1:1 would normally cover. To be honest, if you take away the thrill of being in a 1:1 and the fun of being given a souvenier, I think this version actually works better.

All in all, I have to stand by my original point: Sam Booth is Stanford, and that's that. But I'm pleased to see that there is now a perfectly acceptable alternative in place, who has some fun and interesting quirks of his own. I would absolutely recommend James Traherne's Stanford to anyone who feels like a bit of a change of pace from the usual.

Following the bizarre reset meeting with the Doctor (Ira Siobhan), I took my leave of Stanford to go make another attempt at a Romola loop. I found her alone in the car, dead (or asleep, depending on who you ask). Her white mask appeared to have abandoned her, but there were a trio of girls standing just outside the car, staring and occasionally shaking and poking her. Such an odd thing to be doing, especially considering that the lead girl had a Studio Pass on, implying that this was not her first time. Huh.

Soon she sprung to life, and I was immediately struck by how much dancing she worked into those initial scenes. She danced through and ultimately out of the car, she danced the whole way over to the woods, she danced through the woods, and up the trees. . . dance, dance, dance. It was quite unlike the other Romolas I'd seen – although of course, they were all either a non-dancer (Katie McGuinness) or using Romola as a lower-strain alternative to the more dance-intensive Faye and Andrea (Sonya Cullingford and Miranda Mac Letten). It definitely added some spice to these early moments, and the way it segued into her dance/encounter with Miguel meant that it turned out to be yet another step in the progression of that scene from a throw-away moment to a full-fledged, choreographed piece, as I noted back in December. I can only assume that next time I see it, they'll have found a way to work in some backup dancers or a choir or something.

Not long after that, she headed into a 1:1 with poking girl. I took some time to explore and take note of some of the local set details, then returned in time to see Miguel (Nicola Migliorati) evict her from her trailer, because Badlands Jack wasn't there to do it (Did I mention there was no Badlands Jack at this show? I should have. Because there wasn't. Yes, again.). As with the Stanford/Romola scene earlier, among others, it was fascinating to see how different the same material can be with different people involved. In this case, the blocking and most, if not all, of the dialogue was the same as usual, but with Miguel, it all seemed much more playful and less mean.

I stuck with Romola until she got to the grocery, when I noticed that the new Grocer (Monsur Ali) was in. I wasn't clicking tremendously well with Aoi's Romola, despite liking several touches she added to the role (like the additional dance stuff), so I decided to switch over. Almost immediately after Romola left, however, he disappeared into the back room with another white mask. Well, I've been there enough to know he has to come back out the same door, so I decided to wait. I took the opportunity to pore over his script in detail. One funny thing I noticed in there is that the description of the drugstore girl changes between scenes. When he first meets her, it describes her as being young, with too much lipstick on her pretty lips. In their final scene, it says she may be pretty, but you can't really tell under the weight of all the disappointment or something along those lines. It almost feels like the woman described in the later scene comes from years, if not decades down the line from the first.

I also noticed that the sound cues for the 1:1 were audible in the grocery, so I knew precisely when the other white mask would be emerging. She took off almost immediately, which meant that when the Grocer emerged a few moments later, it was just the two of us. And so it remained for the majority of the loop.

One of the first things I noticed about Monsur's grocer is that he doesn't talk much, although paradoxically, he feels much more open and exposed to the world, through his body language and expressions. Where Julian Stolzenberg was a sullen loner and Jesse Kovarsky was a repressed psychopath, Monsur was just kind of bluntly an oddball, wearing his heart on his sleeve. It's a very appealing take on the character.

Almost immediately upon emerging, he grabbed his script and headed for the drugstore. No time spent rehearsing his lines like the others, he just took off (although he stopped at several lights along the way to reread the script page). His meeting with the Drugstore Girl (Isabelle Cressy) seems to lack the sexual charge of some of the other versions of the scene – it's like he's too weird for that sort of back and forth to really get going. Then, keeping with the weird theme, he didn't even take the napkins back to his store and pretend to clean something up – he just wandered over to a table near the phone booths, stuffed his script page in, and returned them. To make matters worse, after leaving, he hung out right in front of the window watching her for several minutes. THIS GUY IS SO WEIRD. It's like he doesn't actually understand how to interact with people. Or – ooh, here's an idea. Maybe he (Eugene, the character - not Monsur, the actor) just isn't a very good actor, and can't figure out how to act naturally and follow the script at the same time. Now I wish I'd followed him back into the studio to see how he acted when he wasn't the Grocer – but I'm getting ahead of myself.

We returned to the grocery, and in short order the Drugstore Girl arrived to give him a lemonade. He offered her a slice of orange in exchange (because weird), but she refused. So he gave it to me instead. Not seeing a trash can nearby, I set the rind on the countertop. I should mention that, thus far, I hadn't seen any other white masks except for two or three that had been hanging out in the drugstore, and none of them bothered to follow her over to the grocery. Very odd, but not unwelcome.

After she left, he set about cleaning for a while. There's a funny little thing he does as part of this process – he would spray the window and wipe it down, but every time he sprayed it, he also had to wipe first his glasses, then his eyes, as if he caught some backspray. But the interesting thing is, the way he does it is very evocative of someone wiping away tears. Another oddly affecting quirk. Sometime during this process another white mask showed up, and the Grocer got him cleaning rust off of pea cans – but that didn't last long, and he quickly skedaddled. Not long after that, it was my turn for the 1:1, which has gone through some changes. Still basically the same, but slightly reorganized, and there's some very interesting new material at the end – in addition, the Grocer himself felt more raw and emotionally exposed than I'm used to.

Afterward, I had a few minutes to myself before he emerged, and I occupied them by watching Faye (Katie Lusby) and Miguel's moving (physically, not emotionally) tryst through the town. It was. . . let's just say steamy and leave it at that. Talk about chemistry. Katie, like Emily Mytton, was a part of the cast when I visited in September, but had left the show by December. Now she's back. I was quite fond of her Faye, and very much wanted to revisit her – so I resolved to do precisely that, come reset time.

We weren't there yet, though. I still wasn't through with the Grocer. Upon emerging from the back room, he found my orange rind. He gave me a weird, inscrutable look and took it back behind the counter, where he kept a trash can (d'oh!), then picked some peas up out of a can with a pair of foreceps and flung them at me, bouncing them off of my mask. I can now say that those are not fake prop peas, but rather, simply peas. After that, he returned to cleaning, and recruited me to help with the can polishing.

While I polished, a couple of other white masks came in, and very shortly thereafter the moment of truth arrived. It was time to go kill the Drugstore Girl (or whatever it is that actually happens). This is one of my favorite scenes, creepy and sad in equal measures. I was very excited to see how Monsur's Grocer would handle it – but I was completely unprepared for how it had changed.

Actually, I take it back. It wasn't time to kill the Drugstore Girl. It was time for him to make me drink some of the lemonade she brought over (surprisingly difficult with a mask and no straw). Then we went to the drugstore.

The scene there began as it always does, but then, as the Grocer began to read the script out loud. . . well, this time he didn't do that at all. Instead, I suddenly heard the voice of Stanford all around me. The amplified, voice-of-god version that pops up all over the studio. But we weren't inside the studio gates. How could this be?  My pulse quickened. I began to feel a mounting panic. Something was wrong. Something bad was going to happen. It's the same feeling I always get at this scene, but this time it was much, much worse.

But soon it was over. The Drugstore Girl was dead, or sleeping, or whatever the hell happened to her. On the way out of the drugstore, we came across Harry (Simon Palmer) on his way in to revive her. He and the Grocer stopped briefly, acknowledging each other like co-workers at a shift change. It was an odd moment that certainly makes me reevaluate Harry. Then we returned to the grocery, where the grocer crumpled up his tiny note (“the drugstore girl must know the key to my escape”) into an ever tinier ball and flung it at me. As the reset music played through the town, he changed into his actor clothes and left the shop. There was no triumphant “My Name is Eugene Greene,” like I had seen with Jesse's Grocer. Instead, he simply flipped the sign to “closed” and left, stopping for a moment to look back at the grocery in a manner that I would almost describe as wistful. I think, maybe. . . maybe this Eugene actually wanted to be the Grocer. Maybe.

That was the last I saw of him, though, because I had a date with the lovely Miss Greener. As I followed him back to the studio, I veered off toward the motel and into her room, where I found her getting ready for the day. It was a little disappointing that I'd missed the beginning of the scene, which is one of my favorites, but we weren't too far along. Also present was Faye's brother, Harry. Let me say that again, Faye's brother. Red Flag. When I first heard that one of the new Harrys was a young guy, I was dubious. When I heard that they were actually reconceiving the character as her brother rather than father, I was aghast. The father/daughter dynamic is so important to the duo, that I couldn't imagine it could ever work. Having come across Harry earlier, I knew I would be dealing with the young version, and I walked into the room fully expecting to hate him.

But you know what? I didn't hate him. In fact, I liked him quite a bit. Not since the first time I saw Sonya Cullingford's Romola back in show #3 have I done such a complete about-face in such a short time. Simon's Harry really is, in many ways, the result of winding the clock back a few decades on James Sobol Kelly's version. He's more energetic, and his optimism doesn't seem quite as hopeless, but he hits all of the right notes (except for some of the musical ones – couldn't stick to one key for the entirety of Codfish Ball). If the Infidelity Ballet is how I judge a new Wendy, this scene is the make-or-break point for Harry – and Simon definitely made it. I was wrong. This round to you, The Drowned Man. This round to you.

Although I had suddenly become very interested in doing a loop with Harry, the rest of my night was already spoken for – I let him go and followed Faye out into town, where she met Dwayne (Vinicius Salles) and danced with him and Mary (Laure Bachelot). I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but Faye is my favorite character in the show, with both Sonya and Katie's versions among my top character/performer combinations. Back in September, I described the difference between the two as being the difference between beautiful and cute. Sonya is the knockout ingenue, youthful and mostly innocent (at least at first), but also feels like a full grown adult, a little more aware of how the world works. Katie, on the other hand, is cute – kind of like a kid. Her Faye is more like a girl playing at being a woman, which makes her choices and troubles a little easier to sympathize with. I was pleased to see that, having left the show and then returned to it, Katie has held on to that aspect of the performance and really played it to the hilt. I love the way she pops the top button of her shit and half-poses against the saddlery as soon as Dwayne looks away – equal parts adorable and sad.

Soon after, she headed into the studio for her audition (Codfish Ball!) This, more than any other scene, demonstrates the difference between the two interpretations. Sonya's audition feels like a back-and-forth struggle for dominance with Claude (Fred Gehrig, in this case), while Katie struggles, but never manages to wrest control. As an individual scene, I much prefer Sonya's version – but it would be horribly out of place for Katie's Faye to take control to that degree, making her version much more appropriate in context. This is why it's nice to have the option of both, I suppose.

I should mention at this point that there were still very few white masks about. A small handful would gather at most of the scenes, but I seemed to be the only one actually following Faye from place to place. Kind of a shame, in many ways, but it certainly made my experience all the better. We crossed paths with Harry again, and I realized that having a brother-Harry instead of a father-Harry actually plays into this version of Faye very well. Assume they lost their parents early on, and that Faye was mostly raised by her older brother – it certainly explains her sort of arrested childhood coupled with a contradictory urge to grow up prematurely. Katie and Simon are a really strong pairing.

After a brief stop at the bar, it was time for Bulldog. Ah, Bulldog. My love for you is so great, yet so inexplicable. It was a real pleasure getting to see this number with 15-20 other white masks, tops. Normally I have to pick one of the three rooms on the stage and position myself accordingly, sacrificing my view of the others. Occasionally I can manage a spot that gives me a good look at two of them. But this time, I was able to see the whole thing, free and clear. Lovely. That said, I was amused to see that even with so few people in the room, Frankie and Andy (James Finnemore) still had to actively clear seven or eight people off of the locker room set mid-song. Not only a small audience, but a very inexperienced one as well.

Something very odd did happen at the end of the song, however. Typically, Faye introduces herself to Frankie and he chews her out for stepping on his timing or some other made-up reason. This time, she introduced herself as usual, but he didn't respond – just stared silently. At first, I thought he was just giving her the cold shoulder – and she reacted as if that was the case. But when I circled around a bit, I caught a look at his face. He was frozen in shock, absolutely terrified of her. It was creepy as hell, especially coming so unexpectedly at that moment. I have no idea what was going on there – my best guess is that he recognized her as his doppelganger, which she sort of is. Folklore indicates that such an experience is a harbinger of your own death, so. . . maybe? I don't know.

I was able to shake the chills out of my spine very quickly, though, as one of my favorite unexpectedly humorous moments (assisted by a serendipitous bit of interplay with another scene) took place almost immediately afterward. Backstage, Faye ran into Dwayne, and the heavy flirting immediately commenced. Dwayne tossed his hat in her direction and it fell to the floor – so she offered to pick it up. In doing so, she made sure to kick it away just a bit, so that she could stand with her back to him when she bent over. It was completely ridiculous, like a cartoon, much too blatant and silly to actually be sexy. I loved it, and was barely able to keep from laughing out loud – and I actually did let slip an audible snort when, from across the studio, I heard Alice's inimitable half-talk/half-shout just as Faye stood up (and just as the exact words were running through my head): “That was so GOOFY!”

Okay, she was actually saying to Frankie, “That was so MOVING,” but in my mind it will always be goofy.

As the scene concluded, I was able to pick up on details of the conversation I was never able to catch before, thanks to the sparse attendance. It turns out, Dwayne's not such a bad guy after all! He's not really hitting on Faye, stringing along two women at once, he just thinks she has potential and wants to give her acting lessons. It's all totally innocent, and it's really Faye's fault that she read too much into – oh. Oh, wait. He's folding up the note and tucking it into her cleavage. Never mind. What a prick.

After a quick stop in the seamstress's office, we headed out into town. It was, again, me and Faye. Just the two of us. She stopped short in the middle of the street as she saw Dwayne and Mary cavorting on the car, and held her note from Dwayne up in the light. It was right at that moment that we were joined by some old friends (sarcasm alert), the couple who like to play with guns. You remember them, from the very top of the show? I was following Faye relatively closely, but there was at least a person's-width between us. I know this because the male half of the couple decided that, with literally not a single soul within a fifteen foot radius of us, the best thing for him to do would be to stand right in front of me to read the note. Literally right in front of me, not six inches between us but whole vast galaxies of space all around. Surely this must be a joke.

Fortunately, his short attention span soon reared its ugly head and they disappeared, before Faye had even finished crumpling up the note and dropping it on the ground. Then we headed into the hotel, broke out the booze, and rushed over to Dwayne's trailer, where she did an electrifying solo piece. I wonder if Katie was injured the last time I saw her do this scene, because there wasn't much to it then – but this time, it was full of spinning, swinging, jumping, and an array of odd, twitchy movements that I couldn't get enough of. Between the way she played dress-up with Dwayne's hat and the pretend-smoking gestures, this may be the point where the little-girl-playing-grown-up aspect of the character came across most clearly. I also enjoyed the way she occasionally worked me into the choreography ever so slightly, sidling up against me and looking coyly back over her shoulder. She even did that coming off of a leap from the trailer at one point, which was a bit scary. I should mention that I generally take that level of proximity during a dance number to mean “you're in the way, get the hell out of there!” but between the looks she gave me and the fact that there was plenty of space all around for her to play with, I'm comfortable saying it was all deliberate.

Next stop was the desert, for the dance/fight with Dwayne and Miguel. On arrival, I counted the white masks – there were sixteen, including me. That's the combined followers of three characters, one of whom is a main character with his photo in the lift. During the third loop! Don't get me wrong, I was happy as a clam, but that just isn't right! As for the dance itself, well, it's the desert dance. If you've been to the show and you haven't seen it, then your priorities are clearly out of whack. Katie's version may well be the best – even though I've seen that same choreography multiple times, it felt improvised, like she was really just slipping and sliding in the sand, then trying to pretend it was all deliberate.

On the way out from that scene, I was surprised to see that Dwayne actually followed us most of the way across the desert, making weird animal sounds. That did not happen in September or December, and was. . . let's just say disconcerting. But it was over in a flash, and soon we were down in the Horse and Stars for the hoedown. As I took  my place, Dwayne swaggered in and gave my neck and shoulders a squeeze as he passed. It's funny- I've been on the receiving end of the Dwayne neck-squeeze several times now, from multiple different Dwaynes, despite my loathing for him as a character. I have to assume he's like a cat, seeking out the one person in the room who wants nothing to do with him.

The hoedown choreography went through yet another transformation, as this time the bartender (Ed Warner) didn't even come out from the bar during the dance. Also, Miguel wound up taking a bit of a nasty tumble when his feet slipped out from under him, but managed to transform it into a cool, semi-acrobatic spinning dance move and jump back into position without missing a beat. If I didn't know he was supposed to be doing the same thing everyone else was, I might not have even been able to tell anything went wrong. Top marks to Nicola Migliorati.

As the post-hoedown fight got underway, I was again the only person following Faye and Miguel out of the Horse and Stars. I can't get over how strange it was not having a whole crowd pushing down that hallway. Watching the entire scene, rather than just the bit at the end that I caught during my Grocer loop, I was struck by how much more of a chase, a game, it seemed in comparison to the other performer pairings I've seen. That's always an aspect of the scene – but typically I would describe it as 60% Miguel and Faye unable to keep their hands off of each other, with maybe 40% chasing. This was closer to 80% teasing/chasing and just 20% hands. It kind of refreshed the scene for me, as I had seen it enough times for it to start getting a little stale, and of course, made perfect sense in light of how Katie plays Faye.

A few white masks appeared while they cavorted through town, but in the end, only I followed them into the motel. Yep, two characters, one white mask, third loop. A couple of others joined us mid-scene, but by the time Miguel took off, they were gone. I have to wonder if this scene is why I've never really connected with Miguel. It's totally irrational, but every time I see him walk out on Faye, I just. Hate. Him. So. Much. Maybe I can't let go of that when I do his loop.

But enough about Miguel. The smile on Faye's face as, having undressed, she turned around expecting to see his reaction, along with the expression it transformed into when she realized he was gone, was physically painful for me. I felt it, right in my gut. It also led into the release of Katie's secret weapon – she may well be the best crier I've ever encountered. I've seen people cry for real that were less convincing. It was real enough to make my presence feel incredibly invasive, especially since I was still the only one in there.

After another quick stop at Dwayne's trailer for a depressing, angry mirror to the earlier dance (during which she again pulled me ever so slightly into the proceedings), we wound up back at the nearly deserted Horse and Stars for Walking in the Sand. If you've read my previous write-ups, you know that this is a pretty key scene for me, and she already had me in a pretty heightened emotional state. This was a dangerous time. She started the song looking at the barman, then (I assume) at one of the two or three other white masks in the room. Then, a few lines into the first verse, she locked eyes with me and refused to let go until it was over. So yeah, she sang Walking in the Sand TO ME. That's just about the best thing that's happened to me at this show, and it was almost more than I could take. I managed to avoid the waterworks (er, mostly), but only just by the skin of my teeth.

Then Harry came in and rushed her out of the saloon, in another example of a scene transitioning from a static location to happening on the move. This whole bit was kind of odd, not the same happy alternate ending I'm used to with third-loop Faye. Harry didn't invite her to a wrap party with the stars, he just snuck her in to watch the filming of the last scene. As a result, Faye didn't suddenly turn giddy and excited, all of her troubles forgotten. She tried to be happy for Harry's success. I mean, she really was happy, deep down. But nothing was forgotten. Honestly, it all really works much better this way, but part of me misses the giddy excitement. I need my cathartic release, damn it!

I followed them down to the murder, where Faye stood alone on the stage, selecting neither me nor any other white mask to watch with her. I decided to stick close by, because surely she would cheer up when the party started, and I wanted – maybe even needed – to see that. I took up a position a few feet in front of her, so that I could turn and see her expression at the appropriate moment. As Wendy (Sara Black) lifted the bloody Marshall (Jesse Kovarsky) up, I suddenly felt Faye's hand slip into mine. She squeezed tighter and tighter as Wendy dragged Marshall over to the hole – and then he was gone, and she relaxed. It was a very different take on the walkdown, but fit so very well with this version of Faye. Deep down, she's still a child. Of course she wouldn't clutch my shoulders. She'd hold my hand.

Then I turned to her and got to see that moment of elation I was waiting for. Still holding my hand, she dragged me across the stage – but unlike Sonya's Faye, she didn't try to dance with me (sigh of relief). She dropped me off at the front of the stage and told me to wait for her, then ran off to join the rest of the cast. My vantage point wound up giving me a nice, clear look at her during the second phase of the finale, where she and the other dancers were collapsed on the ground around William and Mary. I was surprised to see just how much acting and emoting she was continuing to do just with her face, even while at rest. It's the little details.

The finale came to an end, the lights went out, and when they faded back in, I saw a figure looming above me, hand extended. It wasn't Faye, though. It was Stanford. Dilemma time – she told me to wait for her, but you don't say no to a performer. Especially not one as gigantic and terrifying in silhouette as this one. What to do? Fortunately, before I had to come to a decision, Faye rushed up and pushed Stanford aside. She pulled me up to the stage, smiling, and said, “I found you,” then led me back to Luna's List reserved area of Studio 3, where we settled in against the wall, half-hidden by a curtain.

“Thank you,” she said, removing my mask. I croaked out the same in response, and she embraced me. We stood like that, arms around each other, for a long time – full minutes, I'm sure. It was exactly what I needed at that moment – all of the tension and emotion slowly seeped out of me and soon I was ready to rejoin the ranks of the unmasked and vocal. Then, with one last parting glance, she was gone, and I did just that.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the sort of show that's worth flying across an ocean for.