Dear Constant Reader,
No tip this week. A story instead.
Before I discovered burlesque, I performed with a commedia dell’arte troupe. For those unfamiliar, commedia is a form of theatre that developed in Italy in the 16th century. It’s the great-great-grandmother of burlesque, opera, ballet, pantomime, &c. We stuck to commedia’s roots, wearing 16th-century style costumes, most of the male characters wore masks, and rather than using a script we had a scenario, a plot outline from which we improvised the three-act play. (This is not to say we were winging it — it takes a lot of rehearsing to be good at improvising).
A commedia troupe in Austin, Texas invited us to perform at the first ever Commedia dell’Austin Festival and nine members headed off from Logan Airport on September 9th, 2001. It was going to be a whirlwind trip. We arrived just in time for our Sunday evening show, we had a Monday night show, and a Tuesday matinee and then we were leaving early Wednesday morning for home. Well, that was the plan.
If you want to hear about the first two shows (a good story in its own right), ask me in person some time. It’s Tuesday I need to talk about.
My room was asleep when Jennifer banged on our motel room door. “Turn on the TV!” “Which channel?” someone asked. “Any of them.” We watched the second tower fall. I don’t remember a lot from that morning. I know I went into the bathroom, sat on the edge of the tub, and cried, knowing that the world had changed forever. I know my mother called. I had just told her we were going to Austin, not where we were staying. I still don’t know how she found us.
They say the show must go on — and it did. We performed a lackluster version of our show before a lackluster audience. Three of the masked actors switched roles, just to make things more interesting and try to kick up our energy, but it didn’t work. Afterwards, the festival organizer asked us if we could perform that night. The troupe that was scheduled had cancelled — at least one of their members was too distraught to go on stage.
We agreed and I believe it was our capocomico (director/producer) who said “But I don’t want to do this show again.” Jennifer whipped out a folder and said “I have a scenario for 8 and a scenario for 9.” Once upon a time we had had to put on a show with no notice and spent all day recreating a scenario from memory. She never wanted to go through that again.
We chose the scenario for 8 actors, because four of the performers had performed it the previous month and three of us had been in it when it it debuted. Miraculously, the seven of us had each played a different role, so there was no duplication and need to scramble to recast. And the only uncast role was for Pantalone (the miser) and the one person left was our best Pantalone. He had never played this scenario however.
Our rehearsal was the hour before curtain, which was spent in a storage room at the venue with Pantalone and Il Dottore worked on bits, a couple of other troupe members were arguing while I sat on the stairs, head in hands, saying “this is never going to work”. But work it did. In fact, it was fucking brilliant. One of the best shows we ever did. It’s hard to put into words how well we worked together, how we played off each other, and supported each other. For a couple of hours we took everyone away from the unthinkable reality and brought some laughter and joy to people who badly needed it, including us.
We were stuck in Austin for the rest of the week until we finally got a flight out on Saturday. In reflecting upon it, I was glad to be away from the familiar and the everyday. I don’t know how I could have gone into work and gone about my day like usual that week. There is a magic in liminal places, where one is neither here nor there, and that is what Austin was for me. And more than anything, I was grateful not be to alone and even more than that to be with this group of friends and fellow performers.
I’m not sure how to wrap this up. I’ve been unsure for 25 years.
Take care of yourselves and those around you,
Oh, The Glamourous Life! 