So it’s the night before the House Productions but, seeing as this is my final year for any of this, I’m unexpectedly unenthused about it. Perhaps all the hours I spent taking the bloody vocal track off a Broadway song using nothing but Audacity and the sweat of my brow, or all that other time trying to compose harmony to a song with an unidentifiable key signature and about five accidentals in each bar really sucked the enthusiasm out of me. Or perhaps it’s because, seeing it’s my final year, I wound up with two lines in the entire play. Not to be vain or anything, but the majority of our lead characters have spent under three years in high school, and I’ve been in enough miscellaneous school productions to at least know what it’s all about.

And their casting! Okay, so it’s not like this is ‘Hamlet’ or anything – far from it, it’s the second rewrite that was the best that a couple of hacks (myself included) could churn out in half a week. But wouldn’t you think that, seventeen hours before it goes on stage, your main actors wouldn’t need to be given stage directions or be prompted for their lines anymore? And don’t get me started on the actors themselves! Maybe I can put it down to their relative youth, or inexperience, but the fact that most of them don’t seem to know what they’re doing on stage is a bit of a concern… The Chief Protagonist (who just happens to shit me to no avail, but THAT is irrelevant) has so much ham in her performance that I could have sandwiches for the rest of my life and die of monosodium poisoning. Not to mention the fact that, with her accent which is really no fault of her own but STILL, she slurs her words like she’s been on a three-day bender. The Love Interest appears to have no idea she’s actually supposed to be pretending to be someone other than herself, and walks around the stage with a vague expression of bemusement, swaying slightly from side to side because she doesn’t know what she’s doing with her hands. The Angry Little Man has big, big eyes and a sweet little smile, but can’t actually manage to conjure up any anger – the best she seems able to produce is ‘mildly irritated’.

The only person who’s actually competent is stressed out beyond belief because of the sizeable mini-monologue that she’s having problems committing to mind, and honestly just wants out of this whole thing. And she’s got the part that I was told I’d probably have been given if she hadn’t auditioned, so perhaps you can’t blame me for being a tiny bit frowny about that matter. I’ll be the first to admit that they do have their moments of… okay, perhaps ‘shining brilliance’ is overstating it a little, so, let’s say, basic proficiency, but when dramatic pauses turn into oh-my-gosh-I’ve-forgotten-my-line awkward pauses, and you cannot hear a single word being said on stage while sitting in the front row… It just worries me, okay? And there are so many moments when they’re speaking the dialogue in a totally different way to what we’d written and what we’d intended that I have to suppress an overwhelming and totally inappropriate urge to SHOW them how it’s supposed to be done. To be fair to our captains, none of them are drama people; so directing a play in their position has got to be an unbelievably daunting task – which is all the more reason for casting people in main roles who’re actually HALFWAY COMPETENT. Bitter? Moi? Never…

All I’m going to say is that it’s a pity we’re not going to win the Characterisation category this year.

On the other hand, the singing for which I’ve written harmony and lyrics seems to be managing okay. Again, we’re probably not going to win it this year but at least it won’t be a cause for shame like SOME other things I could mention… Although at times I get a very deep desire to push a certain House Captain who is a complete musical dimwit off a bridge. After a whole bloody evening I could have been spending doing the homework they claim they’ve been letting us off lightly with these past two weeks writing bloody harmony, the Girl Who Cannot Tell If A Song Is In Four-Four Or Three-Four Time tells me she wants three quarters of the one-and-a-half-minute song solo. NOT UNTIL HELL FREEZES OVER, SISTER.

Deep breaths. Okay. Still, despite all my doubts and apprehensions, I do actually hope it all comes together tomorrow, if not for my sake, then for our captains who’re just about to explode with stress. Nothing could beat the disaster of last year when a main character was wheeled off to hospital with chronic fatigue hours before the play started. And we managed to muddle through that pretty well. And win it. (Although as for actually winning it, I’m not going to get my hopes up too high this year…) So wish us luck. I say this before any performance – but god knows we REALLY need it this time.

Posted By Little Miss Nobody//6:45 am

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