Putting the Feet in Footlights

The talk around our house has been family. And babies.

And that leads me to a story and a suspicion...

Sally ending up in movies really wasn’t a surprise.
The truth is, she had long wanted to be in theatre.
Seriously.
For a while, that’s all she talked about. ‘Hitting the boards’.
Whatever that means.
She was actually cast in a play here in our city.
Once.
Not the lead, but an important part. A governess.

I don’t remember much else about the play itself apart from the fact that she and another woman were in the first scene. Two turn-of-the-century governesses gossiping about the families they worked for during a daily sojourn in a park. Their baby carriages, supposedly complete with quietly sleeping infants, were parked beside them as they gossiped. Behind them were a gazebo, a small garden shed, and notable vegetation. (All great, wooden cutouts realistically painted, BTW.)

Now the theatre Sally’s play was performing in had a unique feature. A moving ‘thrust’ stage.

For any to whom this term is unfamiliar (ie. me) it is a stage that ‘thrusts’ out into the audience. Chairs are arranged to accommodate and the audience members get an up-close-and-personal, three-sided view.

Now what made this theatre truly unique is the fact that this particular thrust stage wasn’t permanently in that position.

No.

It was cranked forward for each performance at the push of a button.

Following the retracting of the great, ponderous stage curtains via another button.

(Bless mechanics and electricity.)

So the proper order for all of this was: first, the curtains. Then, the stage.

And finally, the first line from the two women who had been thrust out with the stage.

For all of the rehearsals and the first four performances, all had gone perfectly.

Perfectly.

I can even remember Sally’s first line: Gertrude (while fanning herself rapidly with a large fan): “I tell you, Hortense, I do not know how much longer I can possibly put up with it!”

‘Hortense’ answered and blah, blah, blah...play.

Then, the fifth performance.

Now you have to know this was a matinee. And though the playbills specifically requested no ‘infants in arms’, there were several.

It made for a restless, rather noisy audience.

By curtain time, the actors and the backstage crew (I was the script girl) were already strung out.

Then what happened…happened. And no it wasn’t someone’s cellphone ringing. (Don’t I wish.)

The stage manager hit the button for the thrust stage first.

Uh-oh.

Said stage was well into its grand entrance before he realized he had forgotten to pull the curtains.

The very, very heavy, capable of sweeping a stage bare (and made that way to cancel noise backstage) curtains.

Already, the sounds of set pieces hitting the wooden planking were loud and…notable.

As well as the shrieks of the two women already in their places in the dark and trying to avoid messy squishiness and/or death.

As the curtains finally opened, one of the props, Sally’s baby carriage—already tipped and threatening disaster—took the final tumble.

Spilling a not-that-real-after-all infant onto the stage.

Where it rolled, like a little flannel-wrapped football, into the audience.

There was a small, dusty pause as audience and actors alike blinked. And actors’ minds began working frantically for ways to salvage…

Almost before the rest of us could draw a breath, Sally had picked up her skirts and leaped down from the stage.

Handing the baby doll to a woman seated on the front row holding her own sleeping infant, Sally said, loudly, “Here’s your baby ma’am. Please take better care.”

Then, scooping up the woman’s own very real baby, she scurried back onstage, righted her carriage, made a show of placing the infant in it, and said her first line.

The woman stood up—I expect she was about to protest the apparent kidnapping of her child—then sat back down.

Maybe she was excited to have said child onstage at such a young age.

Maybe she was just happy to have someone else take it for a while.

The play went well from there on.

As ‘Gertrude’ and ‘Hortense’ continued their scene, black-costumed stagehands efficiently righted set pieces and all was well.

The child was quietly traded back during intermission, none the worse for its sudden drafting into the world of theatre.

Surprisingly—or maybe not so much—Sally got several acting offers thereafter.

All of which she had to turn down because…movies…fame…sigh.

And now the aforementioned suspicion...

I’m telling you all of this because Sally has suddenly started talking about ‘family’ and necessities a family needs like ‘toilet paper’ and…and how good that baby was for her during that play and how much she enjoyed holding it. And aren’t babies nice?!

I know she’s not announcing the pitter-patter of little feet because she, like Mom, has a pretty strong opinion on Marriage First.

But she and Mort have been exchanging significant looks and I know he’s dragged my Peter to the jewelry store on more than one occasion.

The truth is, I think we have a wedding in our future.

Lord help us all…

 

Use Your Words is a writing challenge.
Each month, we submit words and each month, our noble Karen re-distributes. We don’t know where our words went or what will be done with them…
Until now.
We’re as surprised and pleased as you!
This month, my words: football ~ curtains ~ toilet paper ~ cellphone
Came—via Karen—from my wonderful friend Rena at
Thank you, my friend!                             
 
Ready for more? 
Here are the links to the other “Use Your Words” posts:
 
Baking In A Tornado  
The Diary of an Alzheimer’s Caregiver
Climaxed 
Part-time Working Hockey Mom