Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Apologies to those who have read part or all of this privately, but I want to post it here as well for my records and for the sake of those that haven't read it.
There is a sort of dream that is between the night dream and the day dream. It happens when you awaken and are still lying in bed with your eyes closed. You find yourself in the dream and you can consciously watch it. If you choose to control it and guide it more into a day dream then you can, but you can also just let it flow and act more like a night dream. If you open your eyes, you will quickly begin to lose contact with the dream and unless you fairly quickly close your eyes, you could lose it completely. I prefer to watch them because my subconscious mind seems to come up with more interesting stories than my conscious mind.
In it, I was performing in the play Phantom of the Opera with a local theatre group in the town I grew up in. The twist, however, is that I was playing Christine, the lead female character. For whatever reason, I had auditioned for that part and had been able to pull it off so convincingly in the audition that I was given the part despite being male. It is strange that I could pull of the singing since it is basically female operatic vocals that are used. Nonetheless, with the right amount of makeup and a beautiful satin gown, I made a very convincing Christine. Behind stage, I was always nervous about making sure I would go out at the right time or get across stage while the back curtain was pulled across at the right moments, but as soon as I was on stage, that would all go away and I would powerfully portray the character.
On closing night, as the thanks were given and the cast was introduced at the end, I came out last with the phantom and was given a large bouquet of flowers. Since the director had announced the actors/actresses playing the parts as she announced the character, at this point even those in the audience who hadn't looked at the program to see who played Christine knew it was a man. It almost seemed that they ignored that shock as they gave me a standing ovation. The critics were blown away saying they had seen the play on Broadway and the character hadn't been this good. Needless to say, I wasn't anxious to end that one but I had to get up for work so it
ended.
One thought that went through my conscious mind as it neared the end is that I began to wonder how I should behave in the meet and greet after the show. With this theatre group, many times, the actors/actresses, while still in costume, will go out into the lobby after the show for autographs and pictures. I wondered whether I should act and speak more in character as a woman due to my role and costume or whether I should act more in character with my day to day style. I never did resolve this issue before I got up and were this hypothetical situation real, I'm still not sure how I would resolve it.