Was sifting thru GD's blog and found a post on theatre accidents. Since I was anyways on this spree of writing about personal experiences from long back thought i would write about one of mine.
WCC had this tradition of having an annual College Play. The play was normally directed by a famous Director or Theatre Group from Chennai. In the final year we planned to do this play 'Necessary Targets' by Eve Ensler. The play was to be directed by Dr. Rajani from Madras University. He earlier worked with Madras Christian College after which he held the Tagore Chair for Literature in the University of Madras.
We were 7 of us in the play and practice sessions were gruelling. There was a scene, when all 7 actors were on stage and was a discussion about their lives. We were all seated on the floor in the form of a horse shoe. I was the first, which meant i was sitting at the edge of the stage. I had and still have this reputation of being accident prone.
This was the first time we were rehearsing this scene. My co actors, knowing my accident prone tendencies, warned me as i was precariously perched on the edge of the stage with my knee half outside. I reassured that i was fine. The scene was going well. The emotions, dialogues were perfect.
My lines were coming up. I was reacting perfectly to what the others were saying. THUD!!! My lines obviously would not come out - I was sprawled on the floor in some contorted position. The Thud was obviously followed by a bunch of 'Oh My God's' and bursts of laughter. It took awhile to disentangle myself and get up.
I stood up, dusted myself and quietly resumed by position on stage. One side of my body was numb and i could have screamed in pain. Silence - i looked around. All eyes were on me. I didn't quite know what to say. I just stared innocently.
A burst of raucous never ending laughter and practice for that day was over!!
Lesson : People who know you watch out for you. When they warn you - Listen!
