Memory: Not so bad after all

I gave up acting seven years ago. I couldn’t remember my lines as the baker’s father in the Prizery’s “Into the Woods.” Kids young enough to be my grandchildren were coaching me. Too old,  I guessed.

I did join the (over-55) Double Nickel Players in Clarksville in 2021, but I didn’t feel up to performing in skits in their annual “Sunday Funnies” show. I liked the group, though, and sang songs during scene changes for four years.

I was thrilled when.    helping get  the Clarksville Community Players to stage “Guys and Dolls” this past February, but as music director. I didn’t have to memorize lines. I was on stage a bit but singing songs again.

When Double Nickel decided to do two one-act plays this fall, I was mildly interested. I did  not want to put on a crazy costume in “Frankenstein Slept Here,” but the other show, “The Potman Spoke Sooth” was intriguing.

Monica Walter, who had been director of “Guys and Dolls,” figured I could be “the playwright” in the show. OK, but 37 lines? That’s more than I have ever done and my memory is fading at age 84.

So I did play the writer who is upset and offended when actors don’t like his work. He gets mad when they mangle his lines and complain about the script.

Wow. This is already me. I don’t need to act at all!

The show seems to call for an angry creator. Regardless of the script, how would I really feel about these complaining actors? I would feel hurt, violated.  So instead of being outrageously angry, I am almost in tears as I fret over the actors’ complaints about my writing.  I become the kind of wimpy, sulking guy that Monica says would be beaten up by bullies in the schoolyard. Is this hard? No, it’s how I feel!

Somehow the 37 lines came together. I was so panicked about forgetting them that I rehearsed them in my mind over and over again—in the bathtub, on a walk, driving a car Now I cannot stop. I am young again.

Freed from carrying a script, I can raise my hands in disbelief, glare at my enemies and beg the audience to take my side. In real life, I’m not supposed to yell at my wife or servers that mess up my order. But on stage, I can scream loudly at evil characters who have done me wrong.

 I can imagine they are the bank employee who put me on hold, the guy who cut me off in traffic, the telemarketer who woke me up from my nap. One of my lines is, “You fake!” Another, “You hear that? You lousy, stupid….” And “You’re crazy!”  Oh, that feels good! Maybe it will add another year to my life.

You too should join the Double Nickel Players, which puts on about two shows a year. We only rehearse in the daytime! Come to a meeting, held at 1:30 p.m. the third Thursday of the month at St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church in Clarksville.

Come and see our shows at 7:30 p.m. Saturday Sept. 19and 2:30 p Sunday Sept. 20  at the Clarksville Fine Arts Center. Tickets, for $15, can be bought at at Clarksvilleplayers.org.