A Bit Part Surprise

A Bit Part Surprise

My iPhone reminds me I am scheduled to appear this very evening in a bit part of a play. I had entirely forgotten it. I’ve not gone to a single rehearsal and do not even have a script.

I arrive early at the Theater and join a small group of men and women waiting in the adjoining park. Perhaps they are patrons or even actors. Soon, a side door opens and I enter with the group. I follow them backstage where they start to prepare for the performance that evening. Some are having make-up applied; others are donning their costumes. My name is attached to one costume on a rack. A white shirt and tie, with a tweed suit coat and trench coat and gray fedora. The trench coat is padded to make me look quite rotund. I am now a dead ringer for Orson Welles who played the embodiment of evil in “Touch of Evil”. Except for my face that is. Fortunately, I have several days of stubble and the makeup man does the rest.

My worry now is what bit part am I to play. Everyone around me is speaking a different foreign language. So I start to look in bookcases and cupboards. At last, I find the script and it’s in French. I know no other French, but what I learned at my

grandmother’s knee and it was Quebecois. I thumb through the script, but not knowing my character’s name, I find nothing.

The “Places Everyone” call rings out. I station myself backstage near the curtain. I expect some cue as to how and when I should appear. By now, I don’t expect any speaking lines. The curtain soon rises and the play begins. I do not understand a single word of it. It’s evidently about goings-on in high society. The set is a lavish drawing room. A couple is expecting guests. The husband is dressed in a tuxedo. His wife in a formal gown. A maid in short uniform enters and the wife goes out. The husband can’t keep his hands off the maid. The wife enters and sees them, but retreats to greet guests who are arriving. The rest of the play is French farce, but I can’t figure out the plot.

Late in the last act after the guests have left, suspense builds as the wife catches the husband and maid on the dinner table. The maid runs out and the wife starts shouting at the husband. I catch a couple of slang swear words. The husband reaches in his tux and takes out a gun. He points it at his wife.

At this moment, I cannot contain myself. I step forward into the drawing room gun in hand. The audience erupts in laughter at the sight of me dressed as a seedy detective. I fire into the ceiling and yell out the only Quebecois phrase I remember, “Sacre Bleu”. The wife steps forward toward me with outstretched arms and says “Daaaarling.” The wayward husband falls to the floor in a dead faint. The shouts, laughter, and a few catcalls increase greatly. I take a bow before stagehands hook me backstage.

©  Sherman Poultney  12 March 2013