The Kitchen Sink

Freshman year in high school, I was too chicken to join drama club (I don't think I would have gotten a part anyway because it was a production of "Little Shop of Horrors" and I can't really sing.  Sophomore year I was cast as Boris in a production of "You Can't Take it With You," under interim advisors, but I was one of the few people who showed up to rehearsals, so the play was canceled.  Junior year we brought in someone from Newport, RI, an alum of rival high school, Longmeadow High (they're the ones that beat us in the Thanksgiving Day football game every year).  Ann Garner decided to put on a production of "The Philadelphia Story," not far off in tone and era from "You Can't Take it With You," it was a comedy of manners written specifically for Katherine Hepburn.

 

When the cast was in place, I was to play George Kittredge, the uptight, conservative, working class fiance marrying into the rich family through Tracy Lord, Katherine Hepburn's character (I've noticed in the few actual plays I've been in, I've tended to play the catalyst).  The other students said the roles were perfectly cast.  "You are George Kittredge," the other kids said.  I guess that was true in that I didn't quite fit in and that I was pretty private about my non-existent social life.

 

But our advisor, having cast us, tended to agree, with regard to me.  Though I wasn't a good improviser, I had trouble learning my lines, and I didn't even know what "blocking" meant, she thought I was doing well.  At the end of a rehearsal I would notice I hadn't been given any notes outside of simple blocking so I'd ask, "Was there anything I needed to fix?"  She tell me she thought I was doing a pretty good job.

 

April 1998: I walked down the hall of East Longmeadow High School thinking about what had just happened.  I froze.  I suppose that's appropriate since we were playing an improv game called "Freeze Tag," but this was a more psychological form of freezing.  In "Freeze Tag" the rules are simple, two performers act out a scene and someone from the sidelines yells "Freeze!" and replaces one of the performers.

 

I was kicking myself because just then, I thought of a nifty joke, it was a reference to "Pinky in the Brain"--ah the nineties.  Of course, improv isn't supposed to be about jokes, but I didn't really know what it was except that it was part of my drama club.

 

We put on a two night production that spring, but senior year, there wouldn't be a drama club because our advisor had a dinner theatre gig back in Newport.  She signed my yearbook urging me to have fun the rest of my time at ELHS.  It was largely because of my episodes with improv here that I decided to take it on years later.

 

Monday, June 11th, 2007: I walked over to the kitchen and noticed my dishes were swimming in a shallow pool of water.  I didn't know why, so I checked to see if it was clogged.  It didn't appear to be.  I had already started cooking some rice to be put in a wok with some chicken and vegetables, so I decided to save it for another day and just whip up some macaroni and cheese.  I would talk to the building manager about repairing the sink, while I washed the dishes in the sink.

 

The next day, I got an email from my mom, that a local paper, The Reminder, reported that our high school production's Tracy Lord was now a recurring character on a show on Lifetime.  I wasn't surprised.  She was the most serious and experienced actor among us.  There was another fellow who was equally talented, he played the Cary Grant part with charm, but his interests lied more with music.

 

On Wednesday we had our last class of the session with our regular teacher.  He was leaving for another job and would give our evaluations a week early.  I missed the first class of this session, our mid-session evaluations were a week late, there was a festival in place of class, and the end-of-session evaluations were a week early.  I actually felt pretty good about my work that week, but the decision had been made.  I wouldn't be advancing to the next level just yet.  He mentioned that I still seemed to get distracted by new information, that I didn't take charge in scenes, and continued to play low-status characters.  However he said that this was not a comment on my ability as a performer, more that I would be at the head of the class in eight weeks and to enjoy my time as a student, because like high school, it will some day be gone forever.

 

I had every intention of doing so, and I said so at the time.  But human nature, especially this human's nature, made that an unlikely scenario.  On the surface I joked about it to him an others, appearing to take it in stride, while performing great internal exercises in self-analysis.

 

The evaluation process was such that as each of us had our meeting with our teacher, the others would improvise in a format of the teacher's design.  We'd do a quick scene, then a game, then a scene, ad infinitum.  I was the second to be evaluated.  So, after having not passed, I had to go back in and improvise.  I felt like it was too soon, but put on a smile and played as hard as I could, negative thoughts still in my head.

 

I told a few improvisers with whom I was relatively close, that I'd be repeating level 3 and went with them, and the rest of class to see our teacher perform in "King Ten" one more time.  He asked for a suggestion and having already prepared one I shouted, "Sandwiches!"  "Sandwiches, I heard 'sandwiches' from the gentleman right there," he declared pointing at my direction.  The show was fun as usual, and he played another outsider character as he often does.  A success, I bragged outside, "I made that show!" pointing my thumb at the theatre.

 

"You sure did," a classmate encouraged in a tone that seemed half a joke, have sincere.

 

But my mood worsened on Thursday.  The night before I was greeted with a note on the door.  "Don't use the kitchen sink, someone will be in to repair it tomorrow."  It wasn't turning out to be a particularly good week.

 

Friday, however, I found a new house music CD at the Andy Dick Theater, got a ride home, from my friend who runs Friday Night Frankenstein

 

In addition to that, there was a Geek Film Festival at the Aero Movie Theatre in Santa Monica.  The festival was based on the premise that 1982 was the best year in geek film ever.  Sunday night would be the finale, a double feature of Tron and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan with crew from both films speaking after their shows are screened.

 

On Saturday night I picked up an extra shift at IO West and bought a Director's Edition of Star Trek II to get it signed the next night be director Nicholas Meyer.  I also thought I might watch the commentary track and special features to make sure I wouldn't ask a stupid question.

 

I took the bus the next afternoon into Santa Monica and walked into the theatre, tables providing a gauntlet of nerd-dom with their vintage issues of magazines promoting the films, and behind-the-scenes pictures sitting in easels.  I had something to cheer me up.

 

To Be Continued...

 

(Part II tomorrow)

 

Thank you, I'm Eric Cheung.  I'm on MySpace and Live Journal.