RING-RING, RING-RING, RING-RING...

As if it's not bad enough that the Wednesday afternoon matinee is little more than a warm-up show for the week. Not that it's intended that way, it's simply flexing those muscles again after 2 days off, remembering all the little details and nuances....and trying to ignore the snoring of the little old ladies in the front row. (Who else goes to theatre on a Wednesday afternoon?)

Today, however, we treated the "Dial M..." audience to the CLASSIC stage blunder. The kind one actually expects to see in high school and community theatre productions. It was the murder scene, hardly a pivotal scene in the show, no? I knew something was off then I put my key in the lock and there was no thunder clap until much later than usual. Then, suddenly, there was music much earlier than usual. Undaunted, I closed the door, made my way to the curtains, opened them, began tying my knots in the strangling scarf, all the while listening to the music that is SUPPOSED to be playing AS I'm killing her. I finish the knots and wait for the phone to ring (my cue to hide behind the curtains). I wait. I wait. Wrong music still playing. I do some intense-staring-at-the-phone-acting. I wait. I do some worried-glancing-at-the-bedroom-door-acting. Finally I figure, "Fuck it. Not my problem" and hide behind the curtains. At last, the phone rings, Deb's cue to come out of the bedroom. The phone speaks with that insistent British "ring-ring...ring-ring...ring-ring...". Both Deb and I are madly thinking of way to make the murder really exciting now because our murder music has long since finished. Finally she nears the phone. Ring-ring...ring-ring..."Hello?"...ring-ring ! But did it stop then? No. It rang not ONCE after she'd picked it up, but TWICE. At this point, I just decided to get the bloody thing over with. No point in waiting for my music cue anyway since it passed a good 5 minutes ago.

So, we struggled, and gurgled, and grunted and tried to add in the extra drama that the music would normally supply. I suppose we did alright. And the audience wouldn't have missed the music cue since they won't know it should have been there. They might, however, begin to wonder, "When do British phones stop ringing?".