Bottles, Pantaloons, and a Proposal

Laughter is quite a phenomenon. Making thirty people in a cast sincerely laugh together after all these shows is one thing, and even greater is making two hundred and thirty audience members share the same laughter. It has been an interesting week of performances for me and I am sure that there are others who share my views. In Friday night’s performance I was constantly in tears and wondered just how closely the audience was looking at my red rimmed eyes and if what I was doing was in the moment or masking something.

But then came Saturday’s performance and what a fun day that was. The wedding scene in Fiddler is one of my favorites in the play…maybe it’s because it is long and eventful. There are all sorts of things that happen, dancing, big “noddings of the head”, wailing, the bottle dance, singing (of course), people getting beat up and heated arguments. You’d think this would be enough to keep me entertained but this story constantly provides even more. During the bottle dance our men line up proudly and then proceed to show us how well they can balance a bottle on their heads. As the women watching we are very impressed by this.

It started when Tevye dropped his bottle. Of course we have to make a bid deal about dropped bottles. There are lots of groans and hand waving, laughing and pointing at the person who somehow messed up. So the bottle was dropped, a few moments later I hear a great deal of laughter. I look up to see Tevye, his face turning a deeper shade of crimson,  frantically clutching the waistline of his pants. His pants were falling down in front of a full house! It didn’t help that the men were about to be on their knees in a climactic impressive choreographed moment. If the pants were about to fall down nothing would stop them when they were all spread-legged on the floor. The audience could not miss this and neither could we.

Moments like that you really have no choice but to laugh along with the rest of them instead of pretending that it’s not happening. And it was really funny. Tevye finally had to leave the stage when complete dropping of his pantaloons seemed imminent. He left with as much flourish and poise for the circumstance and we laughed again. 

I do believe that the audience appreciates us more for that and this was not even the end of the merriment. During intermission there was a marriage proposal in the audience. The man even sang “Wonder of Wonders, Miracles of Miracles” to his sweetheart, with a voice worthy of the show. The rest of us peeked through the curtains from back stage to see this real live performance and we too were caught up in the happiness. That tiny opera house is a gathering of many people and for a few short hours we share something. Two hundred and sixty people laughing at the lead who did not tie his pants up and smiling at the girl who is now engaged, is in my opinion a great way to finish off the week.
 
To Life! Once again,
 
Kendra Hutchinson
Graduate of mentorship level one