Yet again, we have a misleading title. Indeed, I do not have to wonder about my fate should such an event occur, as it's already happened. Earlier tonight, I finished my final performance of Sherlock Holmes as the title character. Let me tell you right now; I've loved every second of it.
The past few days have seen my thoughts entirely focused on the play. Will I forget a line? Do I have all of my props? Who's coming? Will the audience be receptive? These questions swim about in my head all day. Who cares about french tests or getting worksheets done? I have the school play to worry about.
Now, having just finished the final run of the show, I find myself sitting in a dreamlike state of happiness. It's incredible how much I have come to love the annual play. It is truly the highlight of my school year.
The first thing that has to be mentioned is the camaraderie that quickly becomes apparent between members of the cast and crew. We joke with each other before every show, we laugh with each other at the intermission. When the show is over, we come out from backstage beaming, and promptly break into a dance party as soon as the audience has cleared out. Reader, you've got to experience our dance parties to realize the epicness of them. A dozen sweaty kids dancing without a care to some eastern-sounding music onstage, with our lights guy making the lights pulse to the beat, is truly an inspirational sight. You know you're tight when you can have dance parties like we do.
And then there are the weird antics we have backstage and in the art room at halftime. Now, to read this without thinking my whole school crazy you must realize that weirdness thrives in the drama room. Some things are only moderately weird. Backstage, people mouth the lines that are being said onstage, having heard them so many times before. Before the play starts, we crack the stupidest jokes imaginable and burst out laughing because of them.
Only when you look closer is the really odd stuff revealed. For you to understand this one, you must understand... I am terrible at remembering peoples names. Having discovered this fact two nights ago, most of the cast was rather insulted and kept quizzing me on their names. Therefore, I'd made a concerted effort to learn said names.
Today, one of the girls (who I've ironically forgotten the name of) came up to me and asked me to tell her her name. Of course, I couldn't come up with it. I then felt bad, so as soon as I learned her name once more I started my perfectly reasonable apology; serenading her with some love song I know, improving the lyrics as I went to communicate my sorrow at forgetting her name. My mate Finn, who knew the song I was singing from last years play, joined in with the song to thoroughly weird out everyone around. Ten minutes later, me and the serenaded girl were chatting as normal once again. As I say, weirdness thrives in the drama room.
The positive impact these plays have had on me is practically endless. So many friends have been made, memories created. However, people get older and people leave the school, and so I've seen many a former drama mate leave for another school. That's why it was so awesome when, tonight, I saw two of my former drama buddies!
One of them was from last years play, and the reunion was brief seeing as how we hadn't been too tight. On the other hand, one of the girls had been the female lead in the grade seven play. She came all the way to my school just to see this years play! It was awesome to see her again, and it adds weight to my theory that drama friends are forever.
All good things must come to an end, though. The play for this year has now ended. The cast disbanded, likely never again to have quite the same level of friendship that we do tonight. The props were taken away, the lights for our dance parties taken down. Sherlock Holmes is finished.
This year, like both previous years, I feel a distinct sense of sadness saying goodbye to my character as Sherlock. It may sound stupid to those of you who haven't experienced immersion in a play, but I feel as though I'm saying goodbye to not just my character but a part of myself.
It's a weird phenomenon, but I swear that a bit of the character I'm playing rubs off on me. When I play confident characters, I swear to God that I feel a little more confident myself. Laura, I believe you feel the same way.
And so now I must say goodbye to a character that feels like he can practically rule the world, that no challenge is too great, just a bigger adventure. I'll miss that.
So goodbye, Sherlock Holmes, both the man and the play. It was a hell of a lot of fun.
Thanks for reading,
-Mark
No comments:
Post a Comment