THE ACTOR'S NIGHTMARE

It was to have been a perfect Sunday afternoon. My friend Marnie had scored a couple of "comps" for a revival of Noel Coward's HAYFEVER at the South Coast Rep in Southern California. Another friend Carol had agreed to go with me. The outing began with a tasty lunch and a couple of glasses of Chardonnay. Carol had even sprung for the meal. An auspicious beginning, I thought, to a lovely day.

On our way into the theatre we said our hellos to the director Bill, who had directed me some years earlier. Once seated, we barely had time to open our programs, when all of a sudden, Bill was sitting beside me, whispering, "How would you like to go on for one of the actors?" I took this to be an existential examination of the classic Actor's Nightmare.

“Not much!” I laughed. He continued with, "No, I'm serious." Then he asked me to follow him backstage. I figured it must be some practical joke he was playing on my friend Marnie. The annals of theatre lore are filled with terrible tales of things actors do to each other on the closing performance.

It wasn't until I saw the cast standing outside their dressing rooms in full costume and make-up applauding me, that I realized Bill was serious. I told him that I couldn’t possibly do this. I didn't know the play, let alone the vicissitudes of this particular production Suddenly a couple of women from Wardrobe appeared and fell to their knees. They whipped off my shoes and unbuttoned my pants.

Then over the public address system I heard, " At this afternoon's performance, the role of 'David' will be played by Bruce Gray.” With that the stage manager announced, "Places!" Then she and the cast disappeared!

I turned to Bill and said, "Why don't you play DAVID? At least you know the blocking!" He replied that even if the character were a 40 year old, New York Jew, as he himself was, he couldn't do it. Playing the "pater

Familias" in a Coward play was simply out of the question. Sensing no way out, we set to work on the script. Suddenly it was time for me to make my first entrance.

With tea tray in one hand, a script in the other, and a girl on my arm, I descended a grand staircase on the set reading DAVID’S lines from the script. The director told me I’d be addressing a few actors, some of whom were my children, some their friends, and one of them my wife! “She’ll be the tall one.” Alas, they were all seated when I came on and I couldn’t tell my wife from my kids.

After a few pages of dialogue, I marched back up the stairs, took a long pause before my last line (as directed) and said: "Put her in the Japanese Room.” This got a huge laugh; although to this day, I don't

know why. I exited to a round of applause.

The next scene unfolded in much the same manner, except in this case I had to merely sit onstage and watch a parlor game. However, I hadn’t any idea what the game was, and just sat there mystified. I looked out to where Carol was sitting, and gave her a "Do you believe this?" look. She later reported that at this point she peed her pants.

Suddenly the lights went out. I was yanked offstage and we were at intermission. Back came the Wardrobe women, tearing off one outfit and putting on another. I quickly began to work on Act Two, unencumbered, I might add by any notion of what was going to happen in Act Three. Mercifully my next big scene was with my friend Marnie. We rehearsed a lot of business about pouring drinks, a slap on the face, and a number of kisses.

Unfortunately, when we were actually doing the kissing scene onstage, I dropped my script. I was forced to disengage from Marnie to pick it up and get back on track. When I finally found my place, my next line read, "I'm doing the best that I can," which of course brought the house down. Marnie countered with her next line, "Words, masses and masses of words!" At this point, truth and illusion collided, and we were barely able to contain ourselves. The audience, who were by now in on it, simply went berserk.

All at once, the woman playing my wife marched on stage and started shouting at me. This came as a complete surprise to me. I thought that the actress, playing the part, must have become completely unhinged. After a long pause, I glanced down at my script only to discover several pages of hitherto unseen dialogue. Apparently my character had been caught "in flagrante delecto.”

Backstage I was introduced to the actor who was meant to be playing the part: James Cromwell who went onto fame in BABE. It was the first performance he had missed in a thirty-year career. I realized that his was truly the Actor's Nightmare. I suggested to the director that he go on. But he insisted that the audience had now gotten used to whatever it was that I was doing. And they might be resentful of Cromwell’s late appearance.

Act Three was mercifully short. I came on and announced that I had finished writing my book, indicating the script, and that I would be reading from it. Since I had been reading from it all afternoon, the audience found this hugely amusing. As I was about to begin reading, the front door suddenly opened and in flew an actor with his jacket over his head, and disappeared upstairs; another undisclosed bit of direction. And soon the play mercifully came to an end.

Carol came backstage and just looked at me in amazement. She had recently nursed me through an understudy performance of WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? I had to go on for an ailing John Lithgow opposite Glenda Jackson. But at least I had been rehearsed and knew what the hell was going on.

Never in her life had she heard of anyone being snatched out of the audience and thrust onstage in a play he had never been in, much less seen before. It took me years before I could go to the theatre again, without worrying that the director might suddenly appear and ask "How would you like to go on for one of the actors?"

© BRUCE GRAY 1993