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Wow. Worst Actor's Nightmare ever.
Now, it occurs to me that when I give a dream a superlative like this, it is entirely possible that, I being the author and creator of my dreams (there is no evidence of outside agency in our brains' activities), that dream was specifically designed to elicit that superlative.
So let's go. This was not in a theater space evocative of such spaces I've dreamed of in the past. It was pretty generic. The director was female and seemingly about my age. The script was one I had memorized reasonably well, and the performance we were heading into was our Opening for this show. It was a comedy, and may or may not have been Shakespearean. My role was The Bishop. The events of the dream might have taken place during the first performance, and they might have taken place during final dress. Unlike some Actor's Nightmares I've had, there were plenty of scripts lying around backstage that I could borrow and look at.
The first thing that happens is that I blank - totally - on my lines for my first scene. It is about the third scene of the play itself, and it takes place in a Post Office, or on the main set with some of the characters having returned from the Post Office. After I finally grab a script and find out where I had completely blanked, I stare at my first line for a while, with the feeling, which I share with my fellow actors and director, of being utterly unfamiliar with the line. I sheepishly say that this happens, it's one of my "senior moments," and I am quite embarrassed. While I am saying this, I do start to remember my familiarity with the line, start to have confidence in my memorization process and abilities again. The line is cued by a female brunette character expressing some distress while holding a stack of mail, to which The Bishop is supposed to reply, "Well, you'd better pay all these bills, then," a line that, in context, should get a laugh. Yeah, my dream sense of comedy makes about as much sense as anything else.
During the time between my first flub and the re-do of this scene - actually, the director started the show over from the very beginning, and so there were two or three scenes to be performed again first - the director comes over to me and leans close, talking to me about my emotional state, which is quite distressed. She touches my left temple, right below my eye, and there is a tear there, although I cannot tell whether it is due to allergies or actual crying. She says something vaguely reassuring and everything moves on.
Then it occurs that there is, apparently, a line flub or skip on someone else's part. We've gotten through the scene without me making my entrance or saying my line, but we have to keep going anyway, for some reason. Now I feel like I don't remember the cue lines or my own lines for any of the several other scenes that come after that one, and the end of the dream has me acquiring yet another copy of the script that's lying around and riffling through it, trying - not yet successfully - to find the scenes and lines I need to study to refresh my now worried, frustrated memory.
Now, it occurs to me that when I give a dream a superlative like this, it is entirely possible that, I being the author and creator of my dreams (there is no evidence of outside agency in our brains' activities), that dream was specifically designed to elicit that superlative.
So let's go. This was not in a theater space evocative of such spaces I've dreamed of in the past. It was pretty generic. The director was female and seemingly about my age. The script was one I had memorized reasonably well, and the performance we were heading into was our Opening for this show. It was a comedy, and may or may not have been Shakespearean. My role was The Bishop. The events of the dream might have taken place during the first performance, and they might have taken place during final dress. Unlike some Actor's Nightmares I've had, there were plenty of scripts lying around backstage that I could borrow and look at.
The first thing that happens is that I blank - totally - on my lines for my first scene. It is about the third scene of the play itself, and it takes place in a Post Office, or on the main set with some of the characters having returned from the Post Office. After I finally grab a script and find out where I had completely blanked, I stare at my first line for a while, with the feeling, which I share with my fellow actors and director, of being utterly unfamiliar with the line. I sheepishly say that this happens, it's one of my "senior moments," and I am quite embarrassed. While I am saying this, I do start to remember my familiarity with the line, start to have confidence in my memorization process and abilities again. The line is cued by a female brunette character expressing some distress while holding a stack of mail, to which The Bishop is supposed to reply, "Well, you'd better pay all these bills, then," a line that, in context, should get a laugh. Yeah, my dream sense of comedy makes about as much sense as anything else.
During the time between my first flub and the re-do of this scene - actually, the director started the show over from the very beginning, and so there were two or three scenes to be performed again first - the director comes over to me and leans close, talking to me about my emotional state, which is quite distressed. She touches my left temple, right below my eye, and there is a tear there, although I cannot tell whether it is due to allergies or actual crying. She says something vaguely reassuring and everything moves on.
Then it occurs that there is, apparently, a line flub or skip on someone else's part. We've gotten through the scene without me making my entrance or saying my line, but we have to keep going anyway, for some reason. Now I feel like I don't remember the cue lines or my own lines for any of the several other scenes that come after that one, and the end of the dream has me acquiring yet another copy of the script that's lying around and riffling through it, trying - not yet successfully - to find the scenes and lines I need to study to refresh my now worried, frustrated memory.
