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The shows have just become better and better, and the first week of the run is over. It bothers me how relieved I am.

See, in the seventeen years I�ve been doing theatre, I�ve lived this odd contradiction. I love working on a show, all the preparation, the evolution of the sense of identity that the company develops, the actual staging of the thing where there�s an excitement in the air as you give something to the audience, they transform the energy you�ve raised and give it back to you, and it snowballs into an all-around magnificent performance.

However, I don�t like working with people very much, and I hate being the centre of attention.

This confuses just about everyone I know. �You�re on stage singing alone in front of five hundred people!� they say. �How can you claim to not like being the centre of attention?�

Easy. I�m in character. I�m someone else.

The wonderful lie about stage work is that you are simultaneously someone completely different living the story for the very first time, and plain old you, focusing very closely on where you are onstage, how the audience sees you, how the audience sees the stage and performers as a whole picture, what�s coming up next, and how you�re sounding tonight. It�s like multi-tasking with personalities. I love doing it, and I do it well.

This year, however, I�m just not into it. We have a terrific cast, a chorus that ranges from passable to outstanding, two phenomenal directors, and a fantastic show. I�m not enjoying it, and I don�t know why. Not knowing why irritates me, and when I get irritated with no apparent source I get angry, and when I get angry I get very cold and don�t like to be around people even less that I do on a good day. During a show, everyone gets all jittery and excited and they do all the stupid theatre stuff that I tolerate on those good days but which is sending me right up the wall this year � such as the two-cheek kisses and the �break a leg� wishes, all from forty people whom I work with but don�t necessarily like. I usually go into what my dear friend Rob calls �show mode�, where I don�t chatter with everyone else backstage and try to be by myself so I can keep focused on the show and my character. The two mind-sets don�t mesh very well, and as a result I just know that people think I�m stuck up and don�t like them this year. In our current disastrous financial situation we can�t afford to go out with everyone after a show either, to the spontaneous parties or to the official planned ones, and that�s probably not helping the anti-social beliefs that are developing.

So, in other words, I�m frustrated. There are a few people who don�t rub me the wrong way this year, and I love them dearly � particularly Richard, Rob, Andee, Annika, and Tara – and they�re my saviours backstage along with Sarah, Kay, Helen, and Christina. It�s nothing personal against everyone else; it’s just that these people somehow know how to cut through the crap going on and touch me gently, to make me calm. I�ve been doing theatre with Annika since we began, seventeen years ago; we�ve lost count of how many shows we�ve done together. Rob is my chosen brother, older, younger and twin, and I�d be without an anchor in a show (and life in general) if he weren�t around. Richard is like a younger brother who I care very deeply about. All three of them understand how I can�t seem to connect with this year�s show, and have the same professional approach to theatre that I do, and they make this run okay somehow. They also understand that I�m not a people person, and they never make me feel guilty about creeping out of the theatre right after the curtain closes, or pressure me to go out partying.

Hence I�m relieved that we�re halfway done. I don�t know why I�m not enjoying myself, and that upsets me beyond belief. I should be having fun. Well, I am having fun, to a degree; but it�s nowhere near what I usually get out of it. If we weren�t doing Yeomen of the Guard in 2003 I�d quit the society based on how I feel this year, but it�s such an awesome opera that I have to try for it. With luck, everyone will remember how blown away the cast and audience were by Rob and I in Ruddigore and we�ll be able to play opposite one another again. If luck�s not with us, well� I guess I�ll be sitting on the other side of the curtain.

CURRENT READING:

The Big U, by Neal Stephenson
Brr. Was university really that bad for this guy? Some really philosophical concepts, and some truly terrifying pranks. Stephenson wins the award for Obsession With Pipe Organs In An Author�s Books. Lots of themes that are further explored in later works. Interesting.

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Well, we did it, and we�re not dead, the theatre is still standing, and no one asked for their money back, so I guess it was all right!

No, seriously, though, as always in theatre, we had absolutely everything go wrong that could go wrong. Lines were dropped � okay, that happens here and there. Someone�s cell phone went off loudly in Act 2, despite the several �turn off your damn phones you inconsiderate jerks� in the program; besides, it�s just common courtesy. But the icing on the cake was the P.A. announcement ten minutes before the intermission. Both our stage managers ended up in the school night supervisor�s office yelling at her. Last but not least, yours truly caught her swishy red and white circle skirt on a huge wooden plant cutout and nearly swept it over as she fled offstage in Act 2. We�d all been so careful about the pointy, sharp, evil-looking thing up until last night, and of course, the near-disaster had to happen to me in front of an audience.

There�s a theatre tradition that you leave notes and little gifts and flowers for people throughout the run of a show, and my night to do it is always opening night. Well, I got to the theatre later than I usually do last night, rushed, and I stopped dead when I saw carnations, chocolates and cards sitting at my make-up table. I felt horrible. I have never, in the seventeen years I have been doing stage work, ever, forgotten opening night. Not that I forgot it was opening night � that�s a little too engraved in brain tissue. What I forgot was that on opening night I gift people.

Now, I can do it on some other night; that�s not the problem. The fact that I forgot for that particular night really upsets me.

It threw my whole mood off. My parents and in-laws were in the audience, though, and my mood improved slightly when I saw the huge bouquet of deep red lilies my mother picked up for me. They’re breathtakingly exquisite. Then we got home and polished off a bottle of Soave (Italian, of course, in keeping with the Gondolieri feel) and that was terrific too. I see my parents so rarely that I cherish all the time I get with them, especially here; I usually travel to Toronto to see them. Now I’ve seen them here twice in two months; they came down for my smashing chamber orchestra debut as well.

Off to cog to make money for kibble!

Live Radio, Movies, and Theatre

The Vinyl Cafe show last night was terrific – not as good, in my opinion, as the one taped in NDG two years ago, but hey, it’s Stuart McLean – he’s always good. Listen two Saturdays from now (that would be, um, March 2nd) to hear the fabulous Montreal show broadcast on CBC Radio 2 at 10 am, and Sunday March 3rd at noon on CBC Radio 1. Stuart grew up in Montreal; why doesn’t he come back more often? This is only the second show he’s done here, in all the eight years he’s been hosting the Vinyl Cafe. He went to school with my dentist, I discovered a few years ago. The things you hear in a dentist’s chair! (Ah, it’s such a small island, after all…)

The news is in, and it ain’t good. The movie adaptation of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Alan Moore’s phenomenal graphic novel, is going ahead… and they’re ruining it. Check out The Last Comic Site’s rant on the topic and mourn with me, my friends.

The Canadian women’s Olympic curling team lost last night in the semi-final round to Great Britain. Now they’ll play for the bronze. Seems a pity when they’ve demonstrated that they’re obviously the strongest team in attendance. And how about the Canadian men’s hockey team? Way to pull up your socks, gents!

The Gondoliers is opening tonight – wish I was enjoying myself just a teensy bit more. I’m getting rather frustrated with the chorus’ apparent lack of dedication to the project. Ah well; the magic of theatre means the audience will never know. It’s a truly terrific show, and light years beyond what the society has pulled off before. Our new stage director, Corey Castle, is gods-sent, and I adore him. I just hope we haven’t frightened him off…

On VW Bugs And Cellos

Dwelling on the visual images Highly Amusing Fact #2 conjured up, I was reminded of my cousin who also plays the cello. In the past few years he has moved from Vancouver back home to Nova Scotia, west again to Vancouver, then to balmy Sioux Lookout in Northern Ontario, and thence to Toronto proper. Not only does he play the cello, he also drives a nice shiny deep cherry red Volkswagon Beetle — not one of the new ones, an original. He also owns a canoe.

You see where this is going, don’t you.

He drove across Canada. Now, a Beetle doesn’t have a lot of room to begin with, but when you’ve crammed it with all your personal possessions there is considerably less room. As most people do, he lashed that canoe to the top of the Beetle. (Yes, go ahead; pause and appreciate the humourous mental picture that sentence conjures up.) The only thing left was the cello. My cousin, being of innovative stock that thinks outside the box, picked it up, tucked it inside the canoe, and drove East.

Spring

Okay. It’s getting to be Spring. (Not that we’ve actually had a Winter here in Montreal, but still.) The new cars are coming out, and I’m becoming itchy.

Spring’s a car kind of season, the way Fall’s the time of year when we look at babies and dogs. We were watching TV the other day and a wonderful ad for the PT Cruiser came on — the one that talks nostalgically about Hot Wheels and how cool they were, and how nifty the loop-de-loop flexible track was. My husband said, “I had that exact set,” then sighed, shook his head, and said, “They’re aiming this commercial right at me, and every guy my age.” For the past year or so I’ve been drooling over the Chrysler PT Cruisers myself; they’re just so classy. My eye was also caught by the new Chrysler Crossfire they unveiled at the recent Auto Show. (Since they merged with Daimler, Chrysler’s vehicle designs have really improved!). Now, however — ah, now. My fealty belongs to another. I passed a billboard the other day — a quiet, elegant, silver-grey tone billboard with a vaguely familiar silhouette on it.

They’re making Minis again.

I adore Minis. It has something to do with the ridiculous smallness of them. I’m fond of small things — I’m a small thing myself. My family had an ancient dull red Mini as a second car when I was a kid, and it was terrific: it had a woodgrain dashboard with all of three dials on it. You could reach into the trunk from the front, through the back seat. And it was missing part of the floor; my father had to put a board over it. It was a clunker, and I loved it. It was enough to get us around when the other car was unavailable. Okay, so the brakes failed a few times; so there was more rust than body. It was cool!

It dropped in the traces one day, a front wheel coming off as my dad drove down the highway. That was the beginning of the end. I think my parents sold it to a scrap dealer for a whole fifty dollars.

Now — now… I, too, could have a Mini.

Highly Amusing Fact #1: My husband is built like a rugby player.

Highly Amusing Fact #2: I play the cello.

Highly Amusing Fact #3: They’re quoting top speed of the regular Mini Cooper at 200 KPH. With an acceleration from 0-100 KPH of 9.2 seconds on four cylinders.

So, if you’re looking for the perfect birthday present for me — and you’ve got a handful of months to save up for it! — you can buy me a Mini Cooper in British Racing Green.

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Well, it had to happen eventually – the Canadian women’s curling team finally lost a game in the Olympic round-robin. Their final draw was won by Switzerland 7-6, and it was an essential win for them, saving them from being knocked out of the semi-finals. Canada retains possession of first place after the round-robin play, however.

Can’t wait for the semi-finals!