Your Table’s Waiting – At Sea – [12/16/2018]

We can’t picture being anything but show people! Civilians find the whole thing quite bizarre! But that hum in our hearts when the overture starts, lets us know how lucky we are.
~ Curtains

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Isn’t that silly? I’d been involved in a competition for a prize that I didn’t want, and yet when I lost I resented it!

~ Polgara the Sorceress

I’ve missed the perspective. Sometimes I’ve missed the perspective so much that I actually lose perspective.

Most ships these days don’t do a lot in the way of big shipboard crew events. We have the occasional bingo, and we have a fair amount of raffles and such – but not anything massive. But what we do have on this ship is a very active Crew Recreation committee, who has made it their business to make sure that there is always something going on. This month’s edition? Shipboard talent show.

On the real stage.

The proper, big, showroom stage.

I had signed up before I even knew there was a cash prize.

I’m sure there was a time when stage fright didn’t follow me around like a lost puppy, but I don’t remember it. I remember Dad joking when I was a teenager that if it was two hours before curtain you could almost set your clock by the stages of how ill I felt. But this performance was more of a challenge for me than most: it had been five years since I set proper foot on a real stage (the introductions in the first show of the cruise don’t really count) and …it fell very very close the anniversary of the my casting in the Rocky Horror Show, which was 9 years ago, which was the last professional (well semi-professional) show I ever did. That’s a lot of emotions piled up on one song. Add to that the fact that Amras was judging (that, contrary to belief, does the exact opposite of give me and advantage) and that I really haven’t gotten a whole lot of sleep lately? And you have the recipe for Shaughnessy a la nervous wreck.

Amras’ does insist that I did eat supper, but I don’t remember it at all. I think it involved kiwis…

Crew events are always held late, and I wasn’t up until the sixth slot in the line-up sooo I had plenty of time to think about how silly it was that I was nervous at all.

Because despite shaking knees and trembling muscles, when I stepped onto the stage and opened my mouth…it all got fixed. Because that’s how it works. That’s how it has always worked. I hope deeply that that’s how it always will. It has been years since I was actually on a full stage, with full stage lights, where you can’t actually see the audience, but simply know they’re there. And with me? There is an element that’s all about the shock value, because my voice doesn’t match my body, and there’s always a moment where people don’t really know what to do with that sudden realization.

For as many times as I’ve ‘performed’ Cabaret I have never actually staged it on a full stage. There’s a big difference between what you do when you’re working a room during a guest karaoke event, and when you’re actually officially up there behind the footlights. For one thing…the stage itself is a prop – and as soon as I realized that we were going to be on the mainstage…I knew at least one bit of staging that was going to have to happen. The central section of Cabaret (“Elsie from Chelsea” I’m sure many of you know it) I usually pick a person in the audience to play to – but when you can’t see the audience, things get a little more difficult – unless you do what Judy Garland did once, and drop yourself down to sit at on the edge of the stage, and put yourself at near eye-level with the front row, or in this case with the judges (and no, I didn’t play to Amras – for one thing that would have felt like cheating, for one thing, I would have broken my own fourth wall and gone back to being nervous). And I have always wanted to do that.

And after that happened? There was that magic moment…where I had the crowd.

You can feel it when that happens, and you can plug into it as surely as plugging into an electrical circuit. And beaming over from the corner of the judges table, despite the fact that I was stoically refusing to look in that direction, I could feel how proud of me Amras was. Which added a whole other level to things.

I wish you could bottle that feeling. I always have and I still do.

When I finished, the two judges who were due to comment on me conferred for a moment, and then the one who wasn’t a musician (we had two musos and two not) came out with

Wow…who knew that voice could come out of such a little woman! Whoa. And, I’m not a singer, but…some of those notes? Yeah, I couldn’t do that. That was incredible.

And from the other one

I’m already a Kandor & Ebb fan so I’m bais here, but yeah, I was super impressed with your vocal ability, the only thing I would change – and it’s just tiny – is that you could pull back that middle section a bit more so that you have more of a powerhouse for the end. Other than that…wow…thank you

He was right too, I did power thorugh te middle chorus stronger than I normally do, that was purely to keep the nerves at bay, I was half sure that if I slowed down I would fall over.

And then it was over, and I was backstage again, still nearly falling over, and being held up by people I’m slowly starting to consider friends…

And after that? After that it was all about cheering the others on, people who were more nervous than I because at least I have the benefit of having trained long and hard for this. There was one poor girl who was basically there because her boss told her to be, and she was almost in tears from being so nervous, we nearly had to guide her onto the stage – but once she was out there, she was fine, although she herself still doesn’t believe that.

And in the end? Well, crew talent events are never really what most would consider “fair”, there is always a political element involved, and those of us from the entertainment department? We never win. I did however make the winner’s circle, only to be cut at the last minute and come in fourth – and that definitely did crack my heart just a little, because I have a lot of memories of a lot of festivals where we never quite made first, were never quite good enough. But as the organizer eventually reminded me – at least I got that far. And that’s something, that takes guts.

That helped a lot of getting out of my sulks

But I got to go back, for just a little tiny while, I was me again…and it helps beyond words to know that I can still get back to that. Just for one shiney shiney I can still get back to that…

When I was backstage, after my performance, one of our team members wrapped an arm around me and said

You miss it don’t you? You miss it?

And I blinked…

I miss it so much that I can’t think about it, if I think about it too often I’ll break…

Might be the most honest I’ve been with myself in a while…

Here’s to the Cabaret ol’ chum!