Staying in Character

Lexie’s in the Winter One Acts playing now at Bainbridge High School. It’s a really cool show, with ten original plays written, directed, and performed by students. With musical acts in between.

I love this story about what happened during tech week rehearsals: Lexie plays a police officer who wears several different pairs of sunglasses. It’s part of the schtick. She kept dropping one pair and, finally, without breaking character, she just stuck them on over the sunglasses she was already wearing. It was funny and everyone laughed. She took what could’ve been an awkward situation and made it work for her.

It reminded me of the time we saw Aladdin on Broadway. We were so excited to see the show, especially since James Monroe Iglehart, who was playing the Genie, had won the Tony for Best Featured Actor in a Musical the year before. The show was going along perfectly, but then suddenly Iglehart forgot his lines. He could not pull it back together, even when the prompter prompted him. Several times. But the Genie’s character is to break character and Iglehart pulled it off brilliantly. When he said, “You can win a Tony and still mess up your lines,” the audience loved him for it. And by the time he got back on track, we were all on our feet, cheering.

We all mess up, but it’s how we deal with it that matters. “Grace under pressure,” as Ernest Hemingway put it. Sure, he was talking about bull-fighting, but I think it applies to any situation where you put yourself out there.