So today the cast and crew of Les Miserables met downstairs at 2:00 to go to Chavez and have a rehearsal and time to get used to the competition site. Little did they suspect the surprises that awaited them. It would be a long, taxing 4 and 1/2 hours.
Yeah, that's pretty much how it would go if that time slot was made into an article. The whole thing started kind of negatively for me. I didn't really feel like going, I mean, I wasn't too thrilled about it all, so I started with a negative outlook. Not to mention, my left leg was hurting a bit. So it was all just kinda sucking.
Any who, what really did it in for me was when I had just gotten back from carrying out some of the props and saw three of my friends talking and put in a quick comment, and Sibly came up and yelled at us for slacking and not being where the other actors were, getting into character. I walked over, and wadda-ya-know? The peeps over in area 51 were talking about their hair and just standing around, so I was really pissed off. I even talked back to my teacher and he sort of heard me and got real quiet and said "What?" All angry like, but I thought fast and said "Nothing, I was just ranting to myself", and thus escaped death.
So we went outside and only one of our buses was there. The bus for the props was running late. Sibly told us to go with the student director to practice projection, but as I was walking I double-checked where he wanted us to go, because the student director didn't say, and he told me that the student director was telling us, and I practically snapped back "No, no she hasn't; she has no clue the bleep is going on".
Well, we did all this crap and about 1 hour and 15 minutes later the bus came. That's enough to annoy the most patient of people in itself. As we were loading I was talking to a friend of mine and I said something and Sibly came up and said rudely "You should be getting into character (as Eponine)", and then proceeded to turn to the friend that I was talking to and started joking with her; I sort of lost it and started bitching him out. I told him: "Look, it really pisses me off when you tell me to be quiet and that I need to be getting into character and then turn and start talking to someone on the cast.... it really annoys me". A bit bold for a teacher, but he is very rude and overly bitchy to the cast quite often, so I figured I wasn't out of my rights. My friend just laughed and said "Yeah mister, you do that a lot". Sibly made some lame excuse as to the context of his comment and I had to follow suit, but honestly... I dunno. It was just very hypocritical. A tax on my life.
So we get on the bus, get yelled at a bit about not getting into character or being serious, and we get to Chavez. We ended up being late, and they told us we would only get 45 minutes instead of the full hour. Keep in mind, Challenge has no lights or anything to do with tech, no stage, no curtains. This is our first and LAST time to see these things and get used to them before the competition. It was very disheartening.
The rehearsal started out well enough, but really, it soon took a turn for the worse. There was an obvious lack of energy, emotion, enthusiasm, and even projection, which we had SO RECENTLY WORKED ON. For my first scene, I am supposed to enter with a kid named Grant, and we are supposed to be lovers who get offered flowers. Now, Grant is also a stage helper person, so during rehearsal, I would always had to remind him when our scene was, and even had to just yell for him, since he works on the opposite side of the stage (from me) for that particular scene. I always thought that this was a bad thing, and I knew that it meant that he wasn't going to remember his cue, though I've told him a million times over. So, yeah. He missed his cue and was on the other side of the stage when I had to go on. This is a problem, because another girl has the line: "Flowers for a young lady, Monsieur?" which, of course, she can't say to me without it being obvious that someone has missed their entrance- which, by the way, is sort of like actor hell- it's ok to mess up a line, but NOT to miss an entrance. In any case, this would all have been fine and dandy, but in UIL you cannot significantly change a line. I didn't know how it was gonna work out, but my fellow actress was quick and just said "Flowers?" so it went relatively smoothly.
I was so nervous after this, and there was so much going through my head, that in the next scene, I managed to pull off all the new business that was added yesterday, but I was so nervous and so full of technical thoughts that I completely forgot my first line. I sat there for what felt like an eternity trying to remember what I was supposed to say, and I finally managed to spit out the second half of the line. After that I went through the motions but I was kind of in a shock. I thought for sure I was gonna get an earful at notes for that.
Then there was the barricade scene. It felt so flat, so bad, and it was just such a dead show... it doesn't matter who started it, but one actor was having a hard time, and knew it, and was dead, and so the entire cast was feeling it. We had to stop at the barricade scene to get off for the next school, but when we stopped we had gone for 39 minutes, and we CANNOT go past 40... and there were still so many scenes left. It was a horrible feeling. And Sibly. was. ANGRY. He didn't say a word until we got back to the school. I made a comment to a friend along the lines of "Geez, Sibly looks angry" because he did, and honestly, it was sort of scary.
We got back and did the notes. I thought I was going to have the whole megilla read to me, but, surprisingly, I got three comments. Only two were in reference to acting; one was that Mr. C didn't "buy" one line that I said, and that for one of my lines I should be feeling "this". I was really surprised. I stayed after school to get notes, but some kids were already talking to Sibly, including my aforementioned friend. This friend then said "Yeah... a bunch of people came up to me and said 'Silberman looks angry' and I was just like well, do they expect me to pat them and say 'Poor baby, you did a good job'?" or something along those lines, and I just wanted to slap her across the face and be like "No, stupid, I know when I suck, I was just making small talk because I felt like shit. People aren't always looking for reassurance... sometimes they just want to chat. Has that thought not even run across your tiny, bloody little mind?".
I was so angry I was seeing red. When I get into a foul mood, any little thing PISSES ME OFF. As for Sibly, my anger at him has been building all year long, and it's not gonna go away until I get a break from that man.
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