My Time at Temple Studios, Part 32

Show #32

Saturday, July 5: 9 pm

Here we are, at the final normal performance of The Drowned Man. With only the finale remaining afterward, this would be my last chance to see the show in a pure form. Having been run through the emotional wringer at the early show, I stepped through the red shutters in a state of complete uncertainty. Had the earlier experience primed me for some sort of insane emotional collapse? Or was I, for lack of a better term, all cried out? And who was I going to follow, anyway? I had already done my farewell loops with nearly all of my most important characters, with only Romola and Drugstore Girl remaining. I ruled Romola out because none of the Romolas I had initially imprinted on, the ones who meant the most to me, were still playing the role.  Lily Ockwell and Sarah Sweeney are both very good, but I had seen them both fairly recently. Drugstore Girl was a possibility, though, but I tend to run very hot and cold on them. It very much depended on the casting.

Fortunately, the casting was in my favor – Sonya Cullingford was on as the Drugstore Girl, for one last time. That was my third loop figured out. But what to do until then? It took some excited waving and gesturing from a friend a little farther back in the queue to point out to me that, in reading the board, I had skipped over something very important: Marla Phelan would be playing Dolores. Marla was the one exception to the “revisit and say goodbye” strategy I was employing. She had been my favorite from Sleep No More, and I very much wanted to see her perform in The Drowned Man – but thus far, I had only been able to catch her Dust Witch, which. . . well, it's not the same as watching someone play Wendy or Dolores. Given the choice, I would have much preferred Wendy – but Dolores would certainly do. That's my first loop figured out. Second loop?

Ah, hell, second loop could work itself out when the time came. Having somehow managed to get into the first lift for the first time that week, I bounded out of the lift into an empty basement and legged it back up to the ground floor. I burst into the Ornate Bedroom to find an unusual sight – two (former) Sexy Witches lying in bed together, chatting quietly. That would be Marla/Dolores and Stephanie Nightingale as the PA. I watched them for a bit, slowly edging farther and farther away from the bed as I got more and more uncomfortable with my voyeuristic posturing. Finally the music changed and they rose, ready to begin the show in earnest. The PA departed almost immediately, while Dolores wandered over to the couch and hung out there, subtly posing and strutting, until Marshall (James Finnemore) arrived.

Thus began their sexy frolicking, the narrative equivalent to Mary and Dwayne's car dance. It definitely took on a different tone with a young Dolores – they seemed to be a bit more evenly matched, rather than the slightly predatory overtones that colored the scene when Dolores was played by an older actress. To be honest, it also made it feel a little more traditional – when Dolores is the new hot young thing in Marshall's life, it's easy to write off his motivations for the affair as just that, rather than the more nuanced explanations you tend to reach for with an older Dolores (star-struck admiration, being out of his depth in relation to her advances).

Before long the PA returned and interrupted things, preparing Dolores for the initiation. I followed her downstairs, and due to the direction we entered from, I wound up watching from the exact opposite side from my usual spot, looking back at Stanford from over Frankie's shoulder. It's kind of a funny coincidence that both times I wound up watching the scene from this side, it happened to be Adam Burton's Stanford who was on, whereas I've only ever seen Sam Booth's Stanford perform it from his perspective. Perhaps that helps to explain why I've always harbored a bit of sympathy for Sam's Stanford, while Adam's seems like more of a monster to me.

Following the initiation, Dolores was given the script for her new role as the Grandmother and stormed off. I have to admit, this scene gave me some pause – I wasn't really buying her crying, and coming this early, when I hadn't really gotten to see much of what she could do otherwise, it worried me somewhat (fortunately, things got much better very quickly). Amusing side note – when she crumpled up the script and dropped it down the stairwell, it joined a pile of similar scripts from the early show, which hadn't been cleaned up in between. I guess this wasn't really the first loop, after all.

Back upstairs, she changed into her red dress and moved out to the deserted Studio 4 to film a scene that never seemed to fully materialize. When I said things got much better very quickly, this is what I meant – she sold the hell out of this whole sequence, which was actually pretty fresh to me. Since it was a Dolores solo scene, I hadn't caught it since my first show. With her slightly softer, slightly higher voice than the others, she seemed that much smaller and more alone as the scene wore on and she began calling out for Stanford, or anyone really, to reach out to her. Then she began her ascent to the Doctor's office, which was absolutely harrowing. Stumbling and spinning, her eyes searching vainly in every dark corner for someone to help her, Dolores kept trying to recite her lines, clinging to them like a rope thrown from shore, each time failing to reach the end. As we climbed the stairs, the words fell apart in her mouth, and the dialogue slipped further and further into incoherence – until the final stretch, running down the hallway past Studio 5, she was reduced to a horrifying, wordless shriek. Somehow, in the middle of all that, I actually started feeling some sympathy for her – so full credit to Marla for managing that.

My sympathy didn't last long – soon she'd received her magic injection from the Doctor (Sam Booth) and was restored to he former self: Dolores Grey, eminently watchable but fuly unlikeable. Incidentally, they christened her rejuvenation with a deep, passionate kiss, well beyond anything I'd seen other Doloreses and Doctors do. I don't know if it's a Marla thing, or Sam thing, or something about the two of them together, but when I think about it alongside Sam's Stanford Frisky Corridors (in comparison to Adam's), I do feel a bit of amusement at how these sorts of things seem to keep working their way into his loops.

The next stop was the orgy, which I finally managed to stop getting emotional about – it's the orgy, no more, no less. Once most of the characters had departed, I followed Dolores into the Anteroom, where Alice (Pascale Burgess) transformed her into the Grandmother. This was another instance where Marla's strengths really shined through – her physical transformation, the posture, the breathing, the movement, was absolutely stunning. If you'd walked in at that moment, you'd never have guessed who was under the mask and coat.

She worked her way back up to the bedroom, where the PA ultimately strangled her, tearing the mask off. Here's a moment where having such a young Dolores was a tremendous asset – when that mask came off and I saw her face emerge, it actually shocked me, even though I had watched that face disappear under the latex only a few minutes prior.

After her usual start-of-day banter with the PA, Dolores headed off for some “filming” in Studio 2, which really meant playing around with Frankie and Marshall. It's funny, after nearly ten months since I had last seen this scene, there I was, catching it for the second time in the same night. When it rains, it pours. Watching this entire sequence of scenes – the trio outside the caravan, the birthday party, and the “date” in Studio 4 – was very interesting to me. This was the very first time I had seen it as someone who had any idea what was going on (the last time I saw it was, again, my very first loop at my very first show), and I suddenly realized just how much it had colored my perception of Marshall, even though I had forgotten most of the details. My reaction to him had been troubling me a little bit for some time now, but this provided an explanation.

You see, I always blamed him more for the affair than I blamed Mary for hers, even though in a very literal sense, he is much more innocent – the forces manipulating him are out in the open, clear for all to see, and when the moment of the final betrayal actually comes, he has literally been drugged out of his mind, against his will. Given that I also find Wendy more sympathetic than William (though I think there's a legitimate argument to be made that William, especially the Omar/Ygal versions, is much colder and crueler to Mary even pre-affair than any Wendy is to Marshall) and more sympathetic to Dolores than Dwayne (though I'm more sympathetic to most of the greatest villains of human history than I am to Dwayne), I was starting to wonder if I just subconsciously cut the women more slack than the men. And I didn't love that explanation.

But no! There's a good reason why I didn't sympathize as much with Marshall. It's all about that first sequence at the top of the loop (up until the gift-giving), well before any of the manipulation becomes overt. During that time, Mary has three separate encounters with Dwayne, each time pulling away. There's a progression to the seduction. The first time (the dance in the arcade with Faye), she even walks out at the end, despite a bit of infatuation, specifically because he starts to move on her. Marshall's seduction, on the other hand, is one continuous event – once he meets her, he hardly leaves her side, lingering for only a minute or two with Wendy before the birthday party, which barely delayed his entrance. There's no fight, no struggle, no resistance. He even wandered off with Dolores to “keep this party going” immediately after watching Wendy get humiliated, have a bit of a breakdown, and rush off to the Doctor's office. No points for Marshall on that one – manipulation or no manipulation, he clearly goes in with his eyes open.

Despite all that, I still managed to tear up ever so slightly during the Studio 4 dance with the two of them. If you divorce it from the context, it's an absolutely lovely, joyous scene, and that extended instrumental break in “Past, Present, and Future” pushes all of my buttons.

Soon Marshall was sent on his way, and Dolores and the PA had one more scene together, where I realized that my musings about the PA's jacket from two shows earlier were not entirely accurate. Even without the use of the jacket, the PA's appearance does change over the course of the loop – just more subtly. It's the pearls. Complaint (well, sort of complaint) nullified.

Then there was just one final scene for me to watch – Dolores's birthday meeting with Claude (Omar Gordon), the only other time in the loop where you might feel some sympathy for her, if only because Claude is so horrible here. Shortly after the scene started, a tall woman moved in and stood right in front of me, which. . . why? I'm sure I've stood in front of people before as well – there's no way around it in this sort of scenario where you're constantly moving and reshuffling, but to walk up to an already stable and situated block of audience and then stand right in front? Geez. Fortunately, I had a nice, short friend (Virna) sharing the loop with me, and I was able to move behind her and have an unobstructed view. Then the scene was over and I was adrift, with no idea how to spend my partial second loop.

I decided to try the Seamstress (Annabeth Berkeley), who I had always liked – but I found her locked away in a 1:1. So I moved next door to the medical suite in search of the Doctor, but when I got there I remembered that Sam's Doctor was on, and I had already done a loop with him just a few days prior. Also, he was absolutely rammed. At this point, I figured that time was too short to properly follow anyone anyway, since I wanted to pick up the Drugstore Girl at the hoedown. Instead, I set myself to wandering, taking one last quiet look at much of the set. I looped around Studio 5, then the Seamstress's workroom, and navigated through the clothing maze out into town. I made a full circuit of the town and trailer park, encountering shockingly few signs of life. Then I headed downstairs to the basement, home to several rooms that you can only ever find while exploring – no character ever sets foot in them. First up: the pitch black projector room, which gave me a bit of a start. After heading in, wandering to the back to check out the projector, and heading back toward the door, I suddenly became aware that there were at least a half-dozen other people in there with me, and they had been there the whole time. It was certainly unsettling.

Next I wandered down the angry hallway, stopping off at the plinth rooms and the red string room, then took a moment in the PA's office. Then it was up the staircase and out into Studio 4 again. I took the exit toward Studio 2, and there I paused for a bit longer, taking a seat on the bench and enjoying the silence in that vast, open space. Having a little time to think, I took note of the fact that, apparently, the early show had not keyed me up for crazy emotional breakdowns – I felt pretty even and calm, back to peacefully enjoying things. Part of me was a little disappointed – the early show had been such a satisfying experience. But on the other hand, how long can you continue in that state before it wears you down completely?

Eventually that little voice in the back of my head, the one that always tells me I'm going to be late to the scene I want to see and therefore always makes me early, started getting louder and louder, and I left for the Horse & Stars. There, Andy (Rob McNeil) was just starting his dance to 24 Hours – I was actually not that early after all. I settled in to enjoy his bar-strutting and rafters-swinging, then grabbed a spot at what I considered to be the front edge of where the audience should stand for the hoedown. Once again, my experience and judgment with regard to where we should stand for the big setpieces and everyone else's did not coincide, and another layer of rather tall people slipped in front of me just as the dance began. Example #74 of how I never seem to learn.

Ah, well.

As planned, I followed Drugstore Girl out of the hoedown, watching her hang out in the Saddlery and change shoes. As I noted last time I followed her (by that I mean Sonya as Drugstore Girl), I love that she doesn't seem to have a problem with Faye (Miranda Mac Letten) and Miguel's (Ed Warner) tryst, the way so many others seem to. She just shook her head, smiling, and said “Faye Greener.” Moments like that almost make me wonder if maybe she has a bit more understanding of things than some of the other characters – does she remember, deep down, seeing Faye pass by over and over again?

She also took a look at the note the Grocer (Jesse Kovarsky) gave her, which was the longest version I had yet seen: “We must be perfect or we will be trapped inside the gates forever. --your new friend.” Then she emerged into the arcade, had an awkward conversation with Tuttle (Edward Halsted) about the blood (or is it paint?) on his hands, ending in a surprisingly sincere sounding invitation to stop by for some lemonade, and returned to her drugstore. After settling in behind the counter for just a moment, she pulled out the first of several magic red lemonades – but there was a twist. After pouring it, she added a shot of vodka as well. I could already tell that this was going to be a fun loop.

Then Andy arrived, had his brief moment with her, and ran out, knocking over the postcard rack. Interestingly, he provided the third unique pronunciation of Drugstore Girls' name (Kade) that I had come across. He called her Kay-duh, rather than Kay-dee or (the correct one, in my estimation) Kah-duh. Drugstore Girl glared at the spilled cards for a moment, then leapt upon them, scooping them up into a pile as quickly as possible. I refer you back to my write-up of show 24 if you want to know exactly how much I love that she deals with them in that way (short version: a lot). She wasn't fast enough to prevent one of the white masks from jumping in and helping, though. I also wound up picking up an errant card and dropping it off back on the rack, unnoticed.

Normally I'm a “sit at the counter” sort of guy, but I felt like, having already done a loop with one of Sonya's characters earlier in the night, it might be prudent to hang back slightly and let others have a turn up there. So I wound up in the second row of masks, watching as the guy who sat front-and-center helped her sort the postcards. I seem to find myself oddly entranced by hand activity – there was that time with the Dust Witch's hand shadow, or when the Seamstress kept trying to make eye contact with my while creating a charm, but my eyes kept drifting down to where she was threading the loop. Thus, without realizing it, I kind of wound up staring at the postcards. When I realized that and shook myself out of it, I looked up to see that the Drugstore Girl was looking at me. She quickly turned her head, and I swear I saw a hint of a smirk, or a chuckle, pass her lips.  Because of course I was going to show up sooner or later.

Eventually she grabbed a jelly baby and offered it in one of two closed fists to the card sorter. Guess she was out of loaded coffee mugs (and in fact, she never did put out a jelly baby in a mug throughout the rest of the loop). He guessed wrong, but she gave it to him anyway. Then she pulled down her script page, the one given to her by the Grocer, and looked over it. I was surprised to see that several lines were underlined, and that an additional sentence had been added: “She skates over with lemonade.” How very odd. After a moment, she added yet another sentence: “Enter 'Grocer' with ANSWERS.” Then she looked up, and the Grocer walked in.

Oh my.

This was very, very exciting, on several levels. For one, it was a new development – she definitely had not done it back in May. Any time I stumble across some new example of the constantly evolving nature of the show, it pleases me very much. More importantly, though, it was a particularly fascinating change. It opened a whole new can of metatextual worms. By changing the script, was she causing things to happen? Was it some vestigial memory of previous loops slipping out, allowing her to predict events? It put me in mind of the excitement I felt the first time I ever saw the Grocer's script, and realized just how tenuous the town's connection to reality actually was.

But best of all, it made me love the Drugstore Girl even more. It made perfect sense that Sonya's version – the proactive, questioning one – would find a way to make the script work for her, or at least explore the possibility. She had taken the best part of her character, the thing I loved most about her, and brought it to a whole new level.

My excitement was short-lived, though – she wasn't really in control of anything, and the Grocer's answers would not prove to be helpful. They ran through the scripted scene (and I noticed that Sonya waited until she had the full instruction before throwing salt over her left shoulder – some of them jump the gun on that one). The Drugstore Girl made one last stab at defiance, stealing the script and triggering a brief scuffle, but the Grocer ultimately put an end to it with a desperate“We have to be perfect,” which somehow managed to be hyper-aggressive and gentle all at the same time. It was a very compelling argument – if he'd said it to me that way, I would have sat down at the table and started throwing salt over my shoulder as well, despite knowing where it would lead.

They acted out that final scene multiple times, the Grocer demanding “again” after each one, growing louder and more frantic each time, until finally he dragged Drugstore Girl to her feet and managed a bit of a smile. “Perfect,” he said, before sending her over to the phone, and this time I understood that she didn't take the script with her of her own accord – he gave it to her, not to provide answers, but to instruct her.

Once Drugstore Girl was dead(?), he dragged her out to the middle of the floor, an act which still turns my stomach every time. He left her with one final, chilling comment: “That was your greatest performance ever. You were perfect.”

Within a minute or two, Harry (James Traherne) arrived, and woke/resurrected Drugstore Girl. She stumbled over to the table and found the Grocer's note, staring at it as if she could almost remember what it meant – basically, the same thing she did with the lipstick glass last time I saw the scene. Then she grabbed some woman for the 1:1 and disappeared into the phone booth. I was, of course, committed to the loop, so I just pulled up a barstool and occupied myself with perusing a school composition book that I found on the counter. Before long, she returned – which was a relief, because there was not much of interest in that book. Let's just call it authentic and leave it at that.

Then, unexpectedly, Dwayne (Luke Murphy) pounded on the door, causing me to leap out of my seat.  Even in my other loops, he torments me.  Drugstore Girl watched him run off, then quickly poured a glass of lemonade (with vodka, of course). She took three straws and headed outside with it, where she found a rose on the ground. She stood by the rose, sipping lemonade and looking coquettishly at Dwayne while he danced, until Faye and Mary (Laure Bachelot) arrived. That was when the purpose of the three straws became clear, as the three women circled around and drank lemonade together. Faye's face – well, let's be fair, it was Miranda's face – when she realized that she was not just drinking lemonade was priceless.

Then Faye and Mary rushed off to dance with Dwayne, and Drugstore Girl returned to her Drugstore, rose in hand. She set it on the back counter, and I realized that all along, Dwayne had been delivering the roses that she takes to the finale. Such a tiny, useless realization, but still kind of cool.

After a moment, Tuttle came in, and she greeted him by asking if he was here for that lemonade. Which she invited him for during the previous loop – see? Retained memory! Given how the rest of the loop turned out, I'm really curious whether she always makes that comment or whether it was part of the mounting series of alterations that were being made for this final time through. I'll probably never know – the only other time I followed Sonya's Drugstore Girl, it was first loop, so Tuttle never came by.

He gave her one of those pinwheel wind toys in exchange, and I was then treated to the longest, most awkward stare down imaginable. He drank his lemonade. She stood on the other side of the counter, slowly blowing on the pinwheel. He continued drinking. She continued blowing. They both continued staring. He drank so slowly. She blew just as slowly. . . but with mounting concern and discomfort growing on her face. It was hilariously creepy. He finally finished drinking with several large, loud slurps at the end and she coughed out a relieved laugh. “Thirsty?” she asked.

I'm really not sure how either of them made it through the whole thing without breaking down in giggles.

Once Tuttle wandered off, Drugstore Girl started taking note of her customers. She has an interesting way of doing it – she looks up with a kind of awed shock. How did that person suddenly appear there? Then she retrieves the glass and the lemonade pitcher, setting them out like an offering in front of her, a friendly, but very timid and nervous smile on her face. It's as if she suddenly found a giant bear sitting at her counter, and she's trying to appease it so it will go away. She served first one lemonade, then another, then another (all with vodka), each time seeming to think she was finished, then seeing another customer as soon as she finished pouring. It just kept going – a good five or six at least. The mounting panic on her face was starting to get a little unsettling, so it was quite a relief when she finally came to me and offered my lemonade with a conspiratorial smile and an arched eyebrow instead.

We just barely had time to finish our drinks before Miguel and Andy burst into the room for the gris-gris creation scene. Like last time, I kept my eyes on Drugstore Girl the whole time, as I find her reactions to the whole thing utterly fascinating. I commented before that she seemed pretty excited and pleased by what she was seeing. At the time, I debated about whether to include that observation, because I wasn't entirely certain about it, but now I am – she is totally into watching Andy struggle with Miguel. If anything, Sonya has started playing that reaction up even more – the wide eyes, the quickening breath, the smile that briefly and repeatedly slipped across her face until she caught herself each time. . . there's nothing subtle about it. I'm not even sure what it means, whether it's something to do with Miguel or just the thrill of something crazy happening, but I love so much that there's this extra performance going on in the back of the room while everyone is watching Miguel and Andy run circles around each other.

Once Miguel disappeared into the phone booth (at which point I almost thought Drugstore Girl was going to break into applause, she seemed so delighted), we transitioned into the romantic phone booth dance, which was absolutely lovely. It, in turn, continued out into the street for a longer and more elaborate conclusion than I remember, with Andy hoisting her up into the air above his head, spinning and walking in circles for quite some time, swinging her up and down, but never actually putting her down. At one point he swung her in my direction and I was dead certain he was about to drop her right on top of me – but no. I have no idea how he managed it.

Eventually he did put her down and they headed in for Bulldog, which got me feeling a little sentimental again – the journey through the twisting corridors, just as the instrumental break of “I Love Marie” comes on is one of those little moments of magic that I love so much about the show – tiny, unimportant pieces of the story that stand out against the more important scenes purely by virtue of their sheer, possibly accidental perfection.

Bulldog itself was wonderful as always, and I was unreasonably thrilled to see the return of the teddy bear in the cabinet. Back in May I saw the scene during a loop with Sonya's Faye, and she brought a small teddy bear over to the kitchen cabinet when she and the Drugstore Girl popped up inside, making it dance along with their head bobs. It was the cutest thing ever. This time, she did one better, taking a much larger, gigantic, fat teddy bear to the cabinet and moving its legs and arms independently in a much more elaborate dance. It's such a little, screwball sort of thing – it lasted for maybe 15-30 seconds of the song, and I'll bet half of the people there didn't even notice it. But to me it was the best part of the whole number.

I neglected to mention this next part in my earlier write-ups, but two or three times during this batch of shows, I was privy to an interesting post-Bulldog interaction between Andrea (Fania Grigoriou) and Andy. As I understand it, this is specific to the pairing of Fania and Rob; no one else does it. They meet, shake hands, and introduce themselves at the exact same time (the “And-” portion of the name overlapping). Clearly uncomfortable and shaken, they then turn away and shrug off their jackets, again at the exact same time – and upon realizing that, quickly rush off. It's a very cool, kind of creepy acknowledgment of the mirrored structure of the show, and something I kind of wish we had more of.

Of course, this time around, I wasn't really paying much attention to that interaction. Instead, I was enjoying the jealous glare of the Drugstore Girl as she saw Andy introducing himself to hot young movie star Andrea Alden.

Once we got back into town, I was excited to pick up on yet another detail that I had never really registered – the exact circumstances of Drugstore Girl acquiring Andy's jacket. I'd seen her pick it up from the sandwich board sign outside the Drugstore before, and always assumed that Andy left it there for her deliberately, in that old-fashioned, “hey, you're my girl” sort of way. But the guilty look on Drugstore Girl's face and the way she hid it behind her back when he turned back to say goodbye tell the true tale.

Back inside the Drugstore we found Harry waiting. This was a treat – I remember following James Traherne's Harry back in May, loving his scene with Drugstore Girl, and thinking about how much better still it could have been if he was paired with Sonya's Drugstore Girl. Now, at the last possible opportunity, I got my wish – and it was everything I had hoped for, even though it didn't go quite the way it usually does. Instead of pulling out a bottle of vodka, she brought out two of them, causing Harry to do a bit of a double take. “What do you have all this alcohol for?” he asked.

Without missing a beat, she replied, “This is the good stuff and this is the bad stuff.”

Harry protested that he doesn't drink anymore, and she shrugged and said “Fine. I'm gonna have a bit of the good stuff.”

This of course led to Harry taking a drink with her, which he, as usual, proclaimed to be disgusting. Drugstore Girl's response was easily my favorite line of the night thus far:

“I know. You want some of the bad stuff?”

After another shot, Harry launched into his sales song, which Drugstore Girl was well-familiar with, even singing along with some of the lines – but he concluded with “yours for just. . . one dollar,” even as she sang “just two-fifty,” after which she laughed and told him he'd changed his pitch. I worry a bit that I'm assigning significance to something that is actually part of the standard script, but I swear that every other time, he finished the song out as normal, then adjusted his cost down to a dollar afterward. Either way, it was a sweet, charming exchange.

Then they moved into the dance behind the counter, which ended with Harry leaning in for a kiss. I've never actually seen exactly what happens to break the moment at the end of this scene before, as I've always been down at the other end of the counter, so it was nice to see it up close this time. Then, in another “This feels different and I hope it's not just my imagination” moment, he lingered by the counter, drawing out his apology. I feel like typically he rushes out pretty quickly, telling Drugstore Girl that she “looks just like her” while on the move. But this time, he stood his ground.

“No, it's not okay.  I'm an asshole, what can I say?  But in my defense, you look just like she used to look. Beautiful. You look beautiful. You are. . . beautiful.” It was incredibly awkward and incredibly lovely at the same time, and I started to realize that some of those early show feelings were returning – just a hint of a stinging in the eyes. Drugstore Girl was affected even more so – she had to stop to wipe away tears before calling out for him to come back.

He did not, of course, and we were left with just enough time for her to give out another vodka lemonade before the Grocer arrived to introduce himself. This time, I felt like her subsequent description of the interaction (“I was mean”) was a little more accurate, but she still couldn't help a brief, playful smile when he took the napkin holder from her, leaving a single napkin in her hand.

Once he returned with the script page, she was as concerned and fascinated by it as ever, which is to say, much more so than any other Drugstore Girl I've seen. She pored over it, underlining key descriptions, and finally wrote “she skates over with lemonade” before doing precisely that. And yes, the lemonade had vodka in it.

After dropping off the drink and inviting the Grocer to the hoedown, she skated out to the arcade and danced around with the Barman (Daniel Whiley), which was much more fluid and impressive than I remember from before – I think, oddly enough, this fully packed audience was actually better about staying out of their way than the audience at my not-sold-out 24^th show. Afterward, we headed into the Horse & Stars for the hoedown. I didn't feel up to fighting the crowd, so I decided to watch from the curved end of the bar, for a different perspective. I settled onto a bar stool right at the top of the curve, only to be forcibly evicted by William (Ygal Jerome Tsur). Whoops. Where did he come from?

After the hoedown, we returned to the Saddlery – this was the point where my loop came full circle, but so close to the end, I was sticking around for the duration. Drugstore Girl's response to Faye and Miguel was different this time: she called out directly to Faye, saying “That's how you get. . . . “ something. I couldn't hear the last word. Laid? Happy? Pregnant? Herpes? Flowers? One last mystery of Temple Studios, I suppose.

After inviting Tuttle over for another lemonade (like me, she just doesn't learn), Drugstore Girl led us back into the Drugstore, where instead of cleaning up and handing out more lemonade, she grabbed stacks of coffee mugs and started setting them out on the counter – five or six of them, all told. Sadly, having decided to hang back ever-so-slightly again, I was not one of the lucky recipients, but at least I still got to watch. She poured vodka into each, then raised her mug, toasting to. . . well, that's a matter of debate. My recollection says “to all those bright, shining people out there in the dark.” Another recap I've read claims “beautiful people.” Then, of course, there's the Sunset Blvd. quote, to which this was surely a deliberate reference, which says “wonderful people.” But really, the exact wording doesn't matter – the sentiment was clear. A toast to all of us. It was a beautiful moment, made even more so by the simple aesthetic effect of her quiet whisper against the early bell-tones of “Avarice.”

She cleared the mugs, and for a moment, the Drugstore was quiet, and at peace. No one, Drugstore Girl included, wanted to break the moment. But then Andy arrived to do just that, panicking about William. When Drugstore Girl held him, trying to calm him down, they seemed to linger together a lot longer than usual, whispering things that none of us could hear. And then he was gone, spilling the postcards across the floor as usual.

Drugstore Girl attacked the postcards with her usual gusto, but instead of hauling them straight up to the counter, she kneeled over the pile, staring down - perhaps even crying over them. No one moved. Eventually, composed again, she returned to the counter and half-heartedly sorted one or two piles before pulling her script page down from the wall.

This is where things got very exciting.

She looked over the page, re-underlining things, and generally lost in thought. Then, she moved he pen to the bottom of the page, and began to write. But she didn't write “Enter 'Grocer' with ANSWERS.”

She wrote, “She runs to her new friend and they live happily ever after.”

My heart leapt into my throat and my heart began to race. Did I really just read what I thought I read? She looked up and smiled at all of us, and the sparkle in her eyes told me it was true. Whatever this was, wherever it would lead, it was actually happening.  Her previously scrawled stage directions may not have meant anything, but this time. . . this time she really was taking control.  She grabbed a rose and ran to the door, pausing just long enough to toss back an almost irrelevant “I quit.”

I chased her over to the Grocer's, where I couldn't get through the doorway and was just barely able to hear what was happening between the two of them inside.

“Let's run away,” she said. “Let's just go.”

They exchanged their roses, holding their heads together, repeatedly confirming their plans with mounting excitement, back and forth, until finally the Grocer looked to the sky and proclaimed, “This town ain't big enough for the both of us.”  He took her hand and led her out to the arcade, where they stood face to face, grinning like fools.

“We're gonna run away,” the Grocer said. “And we're never gonna look back. On the count of three. One.”

“Two.” she continued.

“THREE!” Suddenly they took off down the arcade like a rocket, laughing and screaming. Thanks to the very considerate countdown, I was right on their heels. Their elation washed over me in waves, and I couldn't help joining in the laughing and screaming, “no talking” rule be damned. We hit the back door to the studios and they just kept going, a whirling, twirling mass of smiling, whooping faces flashing in and out of the dark, battering through door after door until we reached the stairs.

I stuck close to them all the way down until we reached Studio 2, where they slowed and finally came to a stop at the edge of the stage.  It was slightly early for the murder; Wendy and Marshall were still fighting in front of the caravans. Drugstore Girl put her arm around the Grocer and I stood a bit behind them, not wanting to miss a second of what they were doing. This was so much better than any walkdown could ever have been. I remembered how excited I was by their third loop alternate ending the last time around, and marveled at how Sonya had for the second time managed to take one of the things I loved most about her Drugstore Girl loop and amplify it to dizzying new heights.

Then, a surprise – she turned to look at me, reached out with her other arm, and took my hand. I stepped forward and the three of us watched the scene play out, together. When Wendy and Marshall moved toward the murder mound, we followed: first the Grocer, then Drugstore Girl, then me. As we walked, I felt her hand slowly relax in mine and begin to slip away. It seemed to take ages, my arm extending forward, hers backwards, our fingers loosely intertwined until, finally, the very tips lost contact. She looked back at me the whole time until that final moment, when she finally turned away, fading into the darkness. It seemed to take several long minutes, but the distance we traveled would surely be covered in seconds. I caught back up to them at the mound, where amazingly, the crowd hadn't closed up behind them. Perhaps I had remained in step with them the whole way after all, and the vast gulf that opened up between us was in my head. There, I watched them watch the murder and throw their roses, together. When Stanford called wrap, Drugstore Girl finally released the Grocer and took my hand again. She led me over to a spot by the caravans, where she stopped and gave me a long, contemplative look. She dug into her apron and pulled out a marked up script page, pressing it into my hand. Then she kissed me and spoke into my ear one last time: “Goodbye, Johnny Guitar.”

That was it – those words were the final straw, unleashing a torrent of tears beyond even those from the early show. In fact, their very character was entirely different – not sad tears, not sentimental or nostalgic tears, not even tears spawned by overwhelming beauty. They were tears of simple, rapturous joy, unleashed when those three words brought everything else into focus.

The first time I heard her say them, at the end of the 1:1, they hit me like a ton of bricks. The three saddest words in all of The Drowned Man, especially the way she spoke. Quietly, resigned - not just sad, but desolate. She spent all of her life – or as much of it as we've been privy to, waiting for Johnny to come save her, to take her away, and having that possibility dangled in front of her and then snatched away just took everything out of her. Those words represented the death of an all-to-brief dream – goodbye to the thought that the moment, that Johnny himself, had finally arrived. 

This was different, though. The words were warm, loving, and, most importantly, confident. When she decided to run away with the Grocer, it was her defining moment. She would no longer wait for someone to save her, but rather take her destiny into her own hands. “Goodbye, Johnny Guitar,' in this context, is not a sad acceptance of reality, but a bold statement about her future. She said goodbye to me (as a proxy Johnny) because she didn't need me (him) anymore. Goodbye to fantasy and dreams, hello to life. The last few moments in Studio 2 flashed through my mind – standing hand in hand with her and the Grocer, the slow release of my fingers, this final statement – it was a transition. She was letting go.

With a beautiful, radiant smile on her face, she turned and disappeared into the crowd, dancing up to the stage. I watched her go with tears streaming down my face, yet I've never been happier. Somewhere at the far end of the room, I heard one or two people clapping along with the music. Overwhelmed with joy, I joined in, stomping and clapping to the beat with an intensity completely foreign to me. Soon everyone around me was taking part as well.  It was the loudest, most enthusiastic finale I've ever seen - I'm not even convinced the following night managed to top it.

Then a funny thing happened – I felt myself letting go as well. I've been making claims all along that this was the real last show, that the final show was just a bonus round, but I never really felt that way inside. I was trying to convince myself. Until that very moment, I wasn't ready for the end. But in using me to say goodbye to Johnny, Drugstore Girl – Sonya – had made it possible for me to say goodbye to The Drowned Man. I was still excited to see the final show. I was sure it would be fun, and wonderful, and exciting as always. But in my heart, it all came to an end that night.  In the ways that really matter, my time at Temple Studios concluded with “Goodbye, Johnny Guitar,” reclaimed and transformed into a declaration of hope and possibility, and with a final, enduring image. Drugstore Girl, tucked in between the others in the final lineup, dancing hand in hand with the Grocer: alive, free, and, finally, perfect.