Saturday, March 8: 5 pm
This was always going to be a
troublesome show. I normally like to go in knowing who I'm going to
hit right out of the lift, then let the mood strike me after that.
But this time, due to the quirks of the scheduling, there were two
performer/character combos I wanted very much to follow that would
only happen at this show. I was, essentially, booked. One of them
was Mateo Oxley's Tuttle, as this would be my last chance to see him,
and the other was Fania Grigoriou's PA, who I had not followed since
way, way back at my very first show. Tuttle doesn't even exist until
partway into the second loop, and some pre-show lunch discussion (Hi,
Ben!) convinced me that the third loop would be the best time to
catch the Fania's PA, so I was in the odd position of having no idea
what I would do to start the show, and an exact, carefully scheduled
back half (and then some).
After hemming and hawing over the cast
board for a bit, I decided on Miranda Mac Letten's Andrea for my
first loop. She had caught my eye the night before during Bulldog,
and I knew that she had some Fool interaction right near the top of
the show that I was curious to see. For this night. . . there was no
Fool. At least we finally had a Badlands Jack again. I was looking
forward to seeing what she would do in his absence. I zipped out of
the lift in the basement and rushed upstairs to the dressing room,
but she wasn't there. I knew she would be soon, though, so I took a
moment to hang around and enjoy the weird gargoyles and pillars that
are stashed around that room. Eventually I decided to get proactive
and follow the path I knew she must be taking, in reverse – surely
we'd meet somewhere in the middle. In fact, I wound up making it
almost all the way up to Studio 5 before our paths crossed, as she
was just starting out toward the dressing room. Amusing side note:
they were not at all ready for me to be up there so early. Romola's
picture wasn't even hung at the shrine yet.
Sadly, my plans came to a premature end
when we reached the ground floor and she kindly (yet firmly) directed
me back out toward Studio 2 and disappeared into Studio 3. So that
was how they would deal with the lack of a fool. There just wouldn't
be a scene at all. Hrm.
I knew Andrea would be making her way
back to the dressing room eventually, though, and that Wendy would be
there when she did. So I headed into Studio 2 to watch Wendy's tree
dance and follow her until I could meet back up with Andrea. That
was when I hit snag number 2: Studio 2 was completely empty. I
didn't even see a black mask there, although I have to assume there
was one. This was very confusing – Grenouille's Childhood was
pouring from the speakers, so we must have been mid-tree dance. And at previous shows, I'd been in this same spot a full scene earlier, with action already
underway. Unable to believe the room was really deserted, I moved
toward the trees, thinking Wendy must be in there somewhere, and that
I was just failing this practical test of observational skills. But
nope. Nothing. Suddenly I heard footsteps behind me and turned to
see Wendy (Sara Black) rushing up to me from out of who-knows-where.
She ran up the woodchip pile just in time to slide back down,
concluding the number. I guess that's timing.
We immediately moved up on to the stage
for the retrieval of the scissors, and the whole thing just felt so
desolate. Usually, even if I'm the only white mask, the Fool is
there watching with me. Such a strange way for the night to begin.
Back in the dressing room, Wendy stashed the scissors and then the PA
arrived to summon her to the bedroom. I had a brief moment of
indecision – the PA was all alone – maybe I should scratch my
plans and start following her? But I decided to stay the course. It
was a tough call, and I'm not entirely sure it was the right one.
Who can really say, though?
In the bedroom, Wendy got into her
fight/dance with Marshall (Fionn Cox-Davies, who had cut off all of
his hair since last I saw him!). Again, I was all alone with them
and a single black mask, and the whole thing reminded me of my
experience with Dolores and Marshall's dance at almost the exact same
time the night before. I love when the crowds are sparse, but it
crosses a line into truly unsettling when you spend that long without
coming across a single soul.
Finally, we returned to the dressing
room and I was reunited with Andrea. She and Wendy changed costumes
and headed to Studio 5 for the Infidelity Ballet. There we found the
Seamstress (Laure Bachelot) and Frankie (Conor Doyle) with their
audience of zero white masks. It wasn't until the Infidelity Ballet
was well underway that others began to trickle in. But boy, once
they got started, the deluge was unleashed and it wasn't long before
the room was packed. I have no idea what was going on during that
first half-hour, but from that point forward, it was like a whole
different show.
I also attempted again to try to hear what
the Seamstress said to Andrea during filming, but no dice.
This scene is probably the best point
to delve into the way that Miranda's Andrea differs from the others,
as the clearest example occurred during the pre-filming chatter.
Essentially, she's the one who goes all in on the movie star life.
Both Fania and Kirsty Arnold's Andreas have varying degrees of
insecurity and a stronger sense of genuine decency underneath all of
the movie star trappings. Fania's incarnation in particular found
Frankie's attention in this scene to be outright unpleasant and
embarassing. Miranda's Andrea, on the other hand, revels in it. She
luxuriates in the attention – when Frankie went on and on about how
hot she is, she looked for all the world like she was physically
basking in it. Miranda even sticks with a British accent for the
role (a non-uncommon affectation for movie stars), even though she
puts on an American one as other characters. All in all, it makes
her much less sympathetic and likeable – but at the same time,
she's easily the most magnetic of the three. She simply oozes heat.
Is it a worthwhile trade-off? Depends on what you're looking for,
but if nothing else it highlights again how nice it is to have the
option of so many disparate takes on the characters in this show.
Over the course of the next few scenes,
I started to get a feel for the crowd around me. They were fairly
aggressive, with some substantial crowding in around scenes – but
apparently, not all that interested, because very few people actually
seemed to follow anyone from scene to scene, as far as I could tell.
Coming out of the orgy we did pick up another dedicated follower, a
tall, gangly guy who insisted on being right up next to everything.
It always kind of amazes me when I see this sort of thing. Don't get
me wrong, I'm a close follower. I'm usually kind of skirting the
edge of what I feel is a reasonable distance, and there are probably
those out there who would say I cross that line a lot. I'd be the
first to admit that it happens sometimes. But that's kind of my
point – if that's the perspective I'm coming from, how ridiculous
would someone have to be for me to notice? During Andrea's breakdown
in the snow room, there was a semi-circle of people watching from
about 6-8 feet back. . . and this guy, standing right at the foot of
the snow. Fortunately, he had apparently had enough of Andrea by the
reset and took off.
Moving on to the start of the story, post-reset. Every time I've seen Andrea and Wendy's
first scene, on the ice mound, I've always managed to get stuck
behind the pillar. I have no idea how this happens – I just try to
get into position, they move, and suddenly there I am. Repeatedly.
It seems that I have some sort of spatial memory disorder in the
presence of Andrea (see also: the cupboard, in previous write-ups).
This time I made a point to break the cycle, though, and stood near
the boat, which is actually a really nice vantage point, and usually
unoccupied or sparsely occupied because it's on the other side of a
performance space. As an additional bonus, while I was watching the
scene, the Seamstress (Laure Bachelot) snuck up behind me and pressed a little
talisman into my hand, whispering “only fools believe what they
see” into my ear. A nice little moment, but it kind of made me sad
more than anything else. Whenever I have a moment with a character
like that, it makes me want to follow them. And the Seamstress
doesn't tend to get followed a lot. And I liked Laure so much when
she was Mary.
But I was booked. It was three scenes
until time to catch Tuttle, and those three scenes are the best part
of Andrea's loop (other than the magic trick), and three scenes isn't
enough time to properly follow someone anyway, and. . . Ugh. I felt
bad, here she'd given me this charm, and I just turned my back on
her.
Buuuuuut. . . as a reward for my
callousness, I got to watch Andrea's cigarette dance on the caravans
just a few short minutes later, so I guess I did the right thing.
The funny thing about this scene is that no one ever seems to watch
it. There's a massive crush of people trying to get into the tent to
watch the birthday party, and half of them probably can't see
anything at all. And yet none of them seem to realize there's a
really beautiful dance happening right behind them. I sympathize,
because for my first seven shows, that was me. But it also makes me
chuckle inside. If they only realized.
After that came Andrea's creepy
audition with Claude (Fred Gehrig) and William (Paul Zivkovich),
which is always fun. I mean, always creepy. Followed, of course, by
Bulldog – about which there is nothing new I could possibly say,
other than that it is another prime example of the distinctiveness of
Miranda's Andrea. It's a playful song, a little naughty, but mostly
just playful, and that's how Fania and Kirsty do it – but in
Miranda's hands, it's Dirty with a capital D. Dirty, dirty, dirty,
dirty, smoldering, dirty.
With the conclusion of Bulldog, I had
cycled all the way back around to the point in the loop where I had
first emerged from the lift, which meant it was time to find Tuttle
for a truncated second loop. When I arrived, however, I found the
toyshop empty. Was I too early? Was he late? Unsure of what else
to do, I headed over to the Horse and Stars to kill a few minutes.
There I found the Barman (Luke Murphy) straightening and bundling the
day's proceeds. I watched him for a minute, and then he motioned me
over. He leaned in close and told me how he distasteful he found his
business, but then turned philosophical. What work would there be
for a tailor if there was no such thing as shame? What job would
there be for a soldier if we didn't feel the need to kill ourselves?
Then he poured me a shot. Not a happy barman, but he seems to get
by.
I returned to Tuttle's shop and found
him inside, alone, playing with his Mary doll. That probably sounds
worse than it really is. I stepped up to the counter to watch him,
and soon sensed the arrival of a handful of additional white masks.
I had met up with some friends prior to the show, and we joked about
all arriving in the shop at the same time for a Tuttle convention.
At least, I thought it was a joke, but since I was going to be there
anyway, it didn't matter what I thought. Apparently, though, we were
not all on the same page because when I took advantage of a lull in
the action to take in my surroundings, I found Ben standing right
behind me and Hannah lounging in the window seat. The fourth member
of the convention, Kate, was conspicuously absent but swung by later.
I also noticed that I was standing up
front with a ring of people behind me, not entirely unlike (but
definitely somewhat unlike) the gangly guy at Andrea's ice dance, and
stepped back sheepishly. Embarrassed in front of my friends. . .
Sadly, I don't have a lot to say about
the Tuttle loop. Last time I caught it, it was an amazing
experience, and I was riveted by the character. This time, it felt
like there was just less going on. Admittedly, I arrived a bit later
than I had previously, but only by a single scene, at most. It seemed like
only a few moments passed before suddenly he had disappeared into the
back room with another white mask. Where before I had followed him
in and out of the shop several times, and saw multiple interactions
between him and other characters, here it seemed to happen only once
or twice. Perhaps most significantly, I saw only the faintest
glimmer of his mooning over Faye, which had been my way into his
mindset last time (I feel your pain, buddy. . .).
This is not to say it was bad – he
still performed some cool tricks, like the moons appearing out of the
filings, but it just wasn't grabbing me the way it did before. I will absolutely cop to the fact that it may have been an issue with my frame of mind, all wrapped up and concerned with my schedule. Despite my disappointment, I stuck around after he disappeared into the 1:1 so that I
could see the end of the loop and the reset, which I had missed
before. While I waited, I passed the time by watching William (Paul
Zivkovich) and Andy (Rob McNeil)'s final scene together at the
fountain. Then, eventually, the lights came back on in the toy shop
and Tuttle emerged, much the worse for wear. I had no idea my first
time through of the toll the experience took on him – he stumbled
out of the back room, covered with blood, and collapsed in the window
of the shop, gasping for air. Or maybe he was sobbing. Or both, I
couldn't be entirely sure with the glass between us. Finally he
composed himself and worked his way over to the motel, where the
consumption of a red jellybean took him to that ambiguous state of
being asleep or dead that is the hallmark of The Drowned Man.
Personally, I vote dead. The convulsions seem like a dead (rimshot!) giveaway.
Sadly, I couldn't stick around to watch
him wake up – I was on a schedule. As soon as the convulsing
stopped, I slipped out the door and headed downstairs: it was PA
time. In devising my plan for the night, I concluded that I would
have to live with something just shy of a full loop with her, and
essentially abandon any thought of trying to get the 1:1 (well, 2:1)
that happens right after the reset. Instead, I figured on arriving
in the basement while she was in the midst of it, and picking her up
upon exiting.
When I reached the basement, I saw a
small crowd of white masks backing away from the locked globe room,
the crushing disappointment evident in their eyes. Perfect timing,
then – she must have just gone in. I leaned up against the wall,
watching the others disperse. A few more minutes and we'd be off and
running.
Imagine my surprise, then, at the sound
of a large crowd of people approaching, and my even greater surprise
when they rounded the corner and I saw that the PA was leading them!
I leapt forward, shocked, and she took one quick look at me, then
grabbed one of the guys from behind her and lead him into the locked
room. That was when it hit me. I had arrived just after the Doctor
entered the room. I was early. Suddenly I realized what I had just
done, completely unintentionally – I had committed the cardinal sin
of the returning visitor.
I had camped a 1:1 spot.
This is, to date, the most embarrassed
I have ever been at the show. I'm sure my face went bright red
(saved by the mask!), and I couldn't even look anyone around me in
the eye. Never before had I wanted so badly to be able to talk and
explain myself, not even that time in December when I was sure Kirsty
Arnold/Andrea thought I was stalking her. It's a good thing the PA's
crowd dispersed quickly, allowing me to stew in isolation. At least, for a moment- prior to the PA's return, Stanford rushed past, followed immediately by Ben and a handful of other white masks. Once again, a friend was there to witness my shame.
The last time I followed Fania's PA was
many months ago – as I mentioned before, it was at my very first
show. Since then, I've done full loops with two other PA's and
partial loop with a third. All of them were effective, to varying
degrees, with quite a range of personalities between them. Over
time, after seeing that, I had started to wonder if my memory that
Fania was the best of them all was just a matter of being overwhelmed
at my first show, or because it was my first exposure to the
character. I'm very pleased to say that is absolutely not the case.
In just the first few moments after she emerged from the locked room,
I could sense the difference. If Kirsty is the fun PA and Lucia is
the distant PA, Fania is continually, overwhelmingly present. The
heart of the character lies in her eyes, which consume everything
around them, and her fingers, which seem to have a mind of their own,
always in motion, always working and scheming. Her simple presence in a room is tremendously
unsettling, no matter how alluring she might otherwise be.
After returning the mannequin to the
temple, she led us to her office – and along the way, we managed to
accumulate a surprisingly large crowd of maybe ten people. In the
office, she climbed on to her desk to retrieve the watch from the
wall, then stepped forward to the edge. In my previous experience,
this is the point where she would normally stumble, catching
someone's hand in order to make them her assistant for the watch
quest. I was still feeling kind of lousy about camping the 1:1, so I
didn't even try to stand in the usual spot for that.
To my surprise, though, things played
out differently. Instead of stumbling, she stood still – and the
desk itself began to shake. I'm sure she was doing it herself,
somehow – but it looked for all the world like the desk was the
source of the movement. She crouched lower and lower, reaching her
hand out into the room. The shaking got more and more intense, but
no one else seemed to react, and finally, just as it began to feel
like the whole room was beginning to shake, I reached out and took
her hand.
Everything went still. Those
wonderful, horrible eyes bored holes into my own, and she sat me down
in the desk chair. She placed the watch in my hand and enchanted it
with a ritual that was slightly different from before. There were no
seeds, but this time she wet her lips from a bottle and marked my
mask with a red smear from them. Then we went upstairs to prepare
the box. She sat me at the desk and completed the whole task without
looking, as her eyes never left mine the entire time. This stare
down was the most intense I've had at the show yet, and I could feel
my heart beating faster and faster, second by second. She stood
mostly in shadow, but those eyes burned a bright white. By the time
she handed me the mirrored box at the end of it, I think I was even
shaking a little. I was so out of sorts that I had to compose myself
for a moment before I could follow her out of the room – and,
strangely, whatever had happened in those moments must have been
strong enough for the rest of the room to feel, because even with the
pause, I was still the first one through the door after her.
Everyone else – maybe a half dozen of them – refused to move
until I was out.
After the watch was delivered, the PA
helped Dolores to change clothes, then angrily futzed around the
dressing table for a bit. There's so much rage inside the PA; it's
quite striking when glimmers of it appear – such as when Dolores
tossed the dress to her and it hit her in the head, mussing her hair.
The PA stood stock-still, stoic, unmoving. She betrayed no
reaction at all – except in those eyes.
Eventually, said eyes met mine in one
of Dolores's mirrors, and she led me off to the 1:1. Again, it felt
like the room understood things in a way that it usually doesn't – the crowds parted cleanly, happy to allow me to pass. I'm
used to a mad rush for the door at times like this.
I've had this 1:1 before, with another
PA, but this was an entirely new experience, despite the fact that,
as scripted, the two were identical. Previously, it was kind of
cool, kind of sexy, but also kind of hollow. I've found that the
vast majority of 1:1's really serve as the moment where the character
is most exposed – if you don't really understand who they are and
where they're coming from, it's where you find the key. Conrad, the
Grocer, Romola, and especially Badlands Jack – I feel like you
don't know the character until you share that experience. But the
PA's 1:1 was really more about the job and the studio, not about her.
Not this time, though. This time. . .
this time I came away from the 1:1 feeling like it was vitally
important, because for the first, and only time, I felt like I saw
her true face. It was terrifying, and it wasn't human. I still see
it when I close my eyes, and it still chills me to the bone.
The next several scenes are kind of a
blur for me – all very well performed, all compelling, etc – but
honestly, that 1:1 took a little while to recover from, and sort of
blots the rest out of my mind. There was the luring of Wendy to the
bedroom, the preparation of the drugged drink for Marshall, the orgy
– the next thing that stands out clearly is immediately after the
orgy. I followed the PA down the long hallway, where we met up with
Stanford (Sam Booth). As usual, they had a bit of a discussion about
the orgy, and how pleased Stanford was with it, but other than the
words, it was anything but “as usual.” This scene has gotten a
lot more. . . physical since the first time I saw it. Nuzzling,
giggling, licking of eyelids. . . I'm really not sure what to make of
it.
Also, during the parts where the PA and
Stanford were not touching, she spent a lot of time giving me strange
looks, including one where she bent over backwards and looked at me
upside down. In retrospect, I feel like I must have imagined that
last bit. It's so weird, it doesn't make any sense, and I know I
wasn't in the most stable state of mind at that moment. But it's
what I remember, clear as day. So I just don't know.
After Stanford moved on, the PA tapped
me on the chest and said “I need a drink,” leading us all back to
Stanford's room. There, she poured herself a goblet of wine, took a
sip, then handed it to me. I took a large gulp and – oh. That's
not wine. That's whiskey. Wow. I handed it back to her, and she
passed it to another white mask, then stepped around me to take the
hand of a third mask (from whom she had sucked the life essence
earlier) and lead him to the finale. I took another moment to myself
in the room, trying to restabilize my perspective, then headed for
Studio 2 as well. After the murder, I grabbed myself a spot at the
front of the stage, right in the center, and suddenly Hannah and Ben
appeared on either side. As we settled into our spots, we were
jostled to the side by Romola (Aoi Nakamura), who was depositing her
chosen white mask (a younger girl) beside us with instructions to
wait for her. The finale proceeded as usual, and afterward, Dwayne
(Luke Murphy) appeared, reaching for Romola's girl. In contrast to
my situation with Faye and Stanford at the previous show, the girl
did not hesitate (it would take a fairly unusual girl to hesitate to
take Luke Murphy's hand), and he led her off, leaving Romola, a
second too late and looking a bit bewildered, to find someone new.
Poor Romola. The studio just has to
take everything from her.
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