Roundtable: Regret's Bitter Taste
The perpetually peevish Carol wonders about our regrets...What are the specific moments in your life that you seriously wish you could take back?Considering that I prefer to block those moments from my mind, generally, I'm having a tough time coming up with something, but there are a few instances of other's regret that I sometimes remember fondly...
Scene: After party at Theater Schmeater. I'm shooting the breeze with this woman I'd just met, and another actor approaches her, and they have one of those brief shop-related talks, and he asks her what she's up to. She replies that she's about to direct an outdoor production of some Shakespeare play or another, and, after determining the size of the job, I ask her how she's feeling about it.
"Oh, I'm fine right now...Whatever the case, at least I know that it'll be better than that production of Volpone that the Schmee did last year. Ye gods, that was bad." She laughs. "Do you guys know who directed that?"
I raise my hand, "'twas me."
"Oh, it wasn't that bad, I..." she trailed off, and gave up. We all laughed.
Anyway...©
You know the deal, go over there, read of the misfortunes of others, and if the spirit moves you, fess up to your own regretful moments.
posted by the beige one @ 9:00 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
To be fair, Volpone is an unproducable script. Cut, it makes no sense; intact, it's long and boring, and has way too many digressions and subplots. And the man we shall call "corn," who played the same role I did in an earlier production with another company, were both flummoxed by the words (we're both crack memorizers, and have had no troubles with Shakespeare in our experiences thereof).
well, and if that were the only thing that was wrong with my production thereof, I'd consider it a success and wash my hands of it.
but (and this is one of the regrets listed on Carol's blog) since saying yes to the thing, being given an uncut script, without a cast, and only six weeks of preprod/rehearsal combined...A cast that was about as used to working outdoors as its director; even less adept at slapstick...
I mean, the list is endless.
At least I had the audience laughing at most of the right spots, and it didn't lose money; I just shouldn't have said yes...
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