Jeez Brendy!! You've got nerves of steel! I'd have passed out!

In every production I was in, I quickly sensed that I was seen as the "hired picker" rather than a member of the "acting troupe". Fair enough, but learning the superstitions (and getting up at 8am...that's what I mean by discipline, Peter) was at first tricky. Not that I was going to be sitting in the dressing room whistling and saying "MacBeth" over and over again, but just things like giving each other presents on opening night. Nobody told me...so I didn't, and I was embarassed.

In a production of O'Neil's "Desire Under the Elms" I played the drunken fiddler neighbour who gets the old man dancing faster and faster. To my horror, one night he tripped and danced (fell) right through the wall of the set! I didn't know whether to keep playing, say "holy shit!" or whatever. (this was something the director never prepared me for) I watched in amazement as Wanda Cannon (playing his new young wife) reached through the shattered wall, pulled her aging husband back, and in a decidedly un-O'Neil-like line, say, "I guess my lovin's bin makin' ya strong!!"

If anyone's interested I have a photo from the production taken about 2 seconds before this incident happened. I can ask Tony Burns to post it.

Rick