The first time
I stepped on stage, it was a Christmas show. I was in second grade. I don’t
remember the name of the show, but the basic premise was that there was a
Santa’s helper, an elf, I assume. This elf boy was always getting in trouble,
not because he was bad, just because he messed things up. The last mess-up is
when he feeds the reindeer candy. The reindeer all get fat and can no longer
fly. I was a reindeer. I was Prancer. The elf boy then redeems himself by
inventing a reducing machine. He puts each of the reindeer through it and thus
is able to save Christmas.
I don’t
remember the rehearsal process. It couldn’t have been much for me; I didn’t
have any lines. But I remember I was called to the office because somebody
decided I would be the model for the reindeer costume. I was standing there in
a side office being fitted and pinned, when someone else was called into the
office. This boy was not being fitted for a costume. He was there because he
was in trouble. I don’t remember what it was this boy was supposed to have
done, but I remember the principal talking to him. I could hear everything. The
principal got out a big wooden paddle and explained to the boy what would
happen to him if he did it again. The boy who was normally calm and cool, and was
reduced to tears. I felt pretty low myself, like I wished to be anywhere other
than here. At least he didn’t actually get paddled. The costume person kept
working on me as if nothing had happened. I could do nothing but stand there
and be sewn into a reindeer suit. It kind of put a damper on the whole
Christmas play thing for me. But the play must go on.
We had a dress
rehearsal/performance for our fellow school kids, and then an evening
performance for parents and anybody else. When the other reindeer and myself
were supposed to be fat, somebody inflated balloons in our costume bellies. The balloons
were tied off with an ingenious string device that we could simply pull and
deflate the balloons while we were in the “reducing machine” (a big box). We
discovered during the early performance for the school kids that the ingenious
string device didn’t work very well. Most of the kids, including me, could not
get their balloons to deflate. Our teacher, Mrs. Jones, ran across the stage
(to great laughter and glee from the student audience) and into the machine/box
to help us deflate our balloons. The audience may have been laughing, but Mrs.
Jones was not amused. Maybe they should have tested this device first, but what
do I know?
A new plan was
hastily devised for the evening performance. Inside the reducing machine would
be a pin. We would simply pop the balloons. This caused me a bit of anxiety as my
seven-year-old self had a fear of popping balloons, let alone a balloon popping
right next to my body. But then, everyone else was doing it so I did it. I got
through it. This time we got laughs when the audience heard the balloons
popping. Come to think of it, they laughed when they saw us all as fat reindeer
too. I suspect we looked more like pregnant reindeer.
I guess the
show was a success. My babysitter, a seventy-year-old German woman, saw the
show and said I was a brilliant Prancer. So, I must have been.
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