I once took part in a play in college. I was the mother with the powdered white hair. Although looking back, it seems I was always chosen to play the mother, dunno why. So anyways, this play was put together at the last minute which meant that nobody actually had any time to practice their lines or remember a long list of never-ending dialogues.
A classmate graciously offered to stand in the shadows, holding the script and prompt whenever the characters on stage forgot anything. With that infallible concept in hand, we headed towards enacting a most unforgettable and thoroughly laughable play in the history of that particular stage at least.
The scene was supposed to be a dramatically sad one; the dead body of the son is brought home and the family weeps at the loss of a life so young. When it was time for the mother’s speech of lament, luck had it that I remembered only two sentences which I stupidly repeated like about 10 times. I dont remember now exactly what misfortune befell the prompter but either she took just that time to take a break or she spoke so low that I couldnt hear any of my other lines.
So the white haired mother lamented thus – “Bartley, my son Bartley… now that you are gone, who will feed us and look after us?” That was the first line that I remembered. The second one went something like this – “Bartley, now that you are gone, who will fish for us and bring bread on the table“.
Later on, a friend in the audience told me that the mother came across as being only concerned about where her food is going to come from and for her, that was a tragedy even greater than a son dead.
Bartley, on his part also did his best to have the audience in splits. Although he was supposed to be dead, his eyes wouldnt stop blinking and his feet kept twitching for a dead body. We, the cast ourselves had a hearty laugh when we heard of the shenanigans that happened onstage later on.
And to think we got third place for this play. Maybe the judges gave points for all the laughter. And for the semi-dead Bartley perhaps. I’ve not had the courage to participate in any other play after that.
You said, I said