Previously on “Just
Thinking”…
I arose from my
psychosomatical sickbed and dragged myself to the Rec Hall for the announcement
of the “Senior Show’s” casting for “Peter Pan”, certain I’d being awarded a really
big part and not wanting to miss the adulation that would accompany the public
acknowledgment of my thespiatorial greatness.
Are you sensing a big
“turn” coming?
The Rec Hall was alive with excited “Seniors” as I slipped in
through the back door, trying to remain unobtrusive, or at least as unobtrusive
as you can be when you’re wearing pajamas and a bathrobe and everyone else is
normally clothed.
“How are you feeling?” I was asked.
“I’ll be fine,” I wanly replied, with a suggestion that the
unauthorized leaving of my sickbed came with an ominous hint of personal
endangerment.
I was acting already.
And we hadn’t even started.
They were down to the “Pirates” and the “Indians”, generic
roles bearing no specific character names, and including no lines other than the
lines they delivered as a group. (I
often wondered about the people receiving those parts. Were they just happy to be in the show? And if so, why? I ponder this in brackets, because I know it’s
disgusting, and I am reluctant to pollute the rest of the writing with my
hateful superciliosity.)
And finally, it was over, the ceremonial announcement ending
in an explosion of applause. There was
an electricity in the air, the kind that accompanies the beginning of a new
project, in this case, an elaborate production of Peter Pan that had six days to be mounted, and nobody was sure if we
could do it. (I would later feel a
similar buzz at the table readings of the first episode of a new series. But it’s different with amateurs. It’s better.
Maybe because there was no money or careers on the line. It was pure “Let’s make a show.”)
People rushed over to congratulate me, telling me I was
perfect for the part, and that they knew I’d be great in it. I thanked them for their kind words, even
though I had no idea what they were talking about. My role assignment had been announced before
I’d arrived.
I did know one thing, however.
Nobody says “You’ll be great in the part” if that part isn’t
big.
The passing decades have robbed me of the specifics of how I
finally learned who’d I’d be playing, and I am loath to insinuate a fabricated
element into what to this point has been a chronicle of (pretty much) “lie-detector”-passing
accuracy. (By the way, not being able to
make stuff up that sounds as real as the real stuff? Not good if you’re a scriptwriter.)
Anyway, somebody told me I was “Smee.”
“Smee”, to those unfamiliar with Peter Pan, is Captain Hook’s “right hand man”, which means he
stands behind Captain Hook and slightly to the side while Captain Cook enjoys
“Center Stage.” Because Captain Hook is
a big part. And “Smee is not. “Smee” is one step above “chorus” – a “Pirate”
with a name.
I was not at all happy.
Especially when my friend Shelly came over, clapped me hard on
both shoulders, and, with more exuberance than seemed necessary, crowed,
“Hello, ‘right hand man!’”
My friend Shelly was Captain Hook.
And I’m not sure he even wanted
to be.
(Historical Note:
Shelly and I had become friends because nobody in our cabin could stand
either of us, me because…I’m me, and him, because of his of his patented posture of withering disdain. We were two
“outsiders.” Though only one of us by
choice.)
So there you have it.
I had risen from my sickbed and been handed a small part.
Yes, I know what they say:
“There are no small parts, only small actors.”
But did you ever notice who says that?
It’s usually somebody with a big part.
Tomorrow: Rising from obscurity.
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