Unstuck in Time

            I really should rename this journal “Unstuck in Time at The Lost Colony.”

I noted in a recent entry that sometimes I feel like the lead character in Kurt Vonnegut’s novel “Slaughterhouse 5.” That character keeps coming unstuck in time and ricochets back and forth through his life.

            This evening I had a lot of free time at rehearsal. It turns out that Father Martin has not been in Queen’s Garden since the fire a few years ago and thus there is no costume for him for that scene. So I’ve been cut from Queen’s Garden (which is fine by me). Tonight’s rehearsal was a work through of Act I so I had a couples hours to kill between the end of the Prologue/Amadas & Barlowe and my next entrance at the end of the Plymouth departure scene.

            I wandered through the dressing rooms, looking at the scribbles that Colonists have left on the walls and ceilings over the years. I came unstuck in time and hurtled back to the early 1990s and then 1999, and then 2003 – and other years that I was not in the show but lived in Manteo. I saw through the scribbles people like Eddie Garcia and Robbie Gay and Chris Chappel go up the ladder over the years from Actor Technician or Choir or Dancer to Principal. I saw children who grew up and returned as adults. I went boing through time and was hanging out on a part of the old Choir Dock or the concession stand with Stacey Maxwell and Gail Hutchison and Hunt Thomas walked briskly by calling Half-Hour. Then I went into the old nurse’s shack and Olivia (or was it Pat?) rubbed some balm on me because a bee had flown up my shorts and stung me on the ass twice, and pinging forward in time to the new, now burnt and rebuilt costume shop. I wander the breezeways and remember the old rain shelters and the old bathrooms and the way the septic system (which runs through backstage – or used to) would frequently groan and rumble some nights when a thousand people flushed at intermission, and one time the back deck actually rippled like an old monster movie where the creature is burrowing towards you underground..

But I digress…

            The men’s dressing room has been expanded. The bathroom now has two poopers and two pissers! Huzzah! The male Principal dressing room has been widened and at first I despaired that I would not find my own scribbles but I did, up on a cross brace near the ceiling. I dragged a bench over and stood on it. My scribble says:

“Don Bridge Old Tom 1992-93-94-95-96-97 – A. Dare! 1999 – Guv White 2003 – Damn Everything But The Circus!”

That last is my general motto of life, the ‘circus’ meaning live theater, any live theater.

            Wandering to the other side I peered down the hallway of the women’s dressing room. Empty. No sounds. I went in and down the hall to the end dressing room where the female principals dress. I scoured the walls looking for signs of Lisa. I couldn’t find her marks so I called her on the phone and she and I we located them together. Down at the end where Dame dresses we found what she wrote in 1992: “BAAAA – Dame 92.” That’s all, her name isn’t there but it is her handwriting and once I said it she remembered. And unstuck in time again as I saw the names of Jenny Warne, and Mary Ellen Baker and others who have played the Dame.

            Down at the other end of the table by the door where the Queen dresses I ran into Liz Mills, she of the beautiful red hair that needed no wig. It was a delight to see her again as I caromed through time. Likewise Katherine Burke, who played the Queen the year I was Ananias Dare. And other names that I don’t recognize but I saw them onstage when they played the Queen. I didn’t see Barbara Hird’s name but she is there as well.

            Lisa and I continued our scouring of the walls and there it was, tucked under a 2 X 4 beam:

“The August Queen – Lisa Bridge 95, 96, 97……I’m Back! 2001, 02, 04, 04.”

“The August Queen” refers to the year that Lisa came in to assume the role when Barbara went to the Edinburgh Festival.

As I wandered out into the hallway I was confronted by Ashleigh Herndon, a dancer. Caught! Busted! I explained what I was doing and she understood. She has done the show off and on since 2007 and says she feels like an old timer herself and feels the echoes of former Colonists all the time.

In the hallway of the women’s dressing room are two glass display cases with some photos taken in 1994 or 95. I showed them to Ashleigh and pointed out a shot of me, David Miller, Robert Midgette (with hair), Marie Evans and Pete Peterson. As I stare at the image of myself I come unstuck and I am standing there on the dock with those people, looking out through the glass of the display case at the older me. We lock eyes. I am simultaneously then and now and eternal.

Also in that display is a picture of male Indians getting into paint. At the center is my son Max, all painted up except his head, which is shaven. He stares at the camera with a half smile that I know so well. Unstuck again I travel to one late night when we lived in the Beehive and Dad decided to give Max a haircut whilst drinking, which is how he ended up with his head shaved. He was pissed at the time (he turned 12 that summer). Little did he know that a shaved head would become his favorite hairstyle later in life.

Other people in the photos: Marcia Kay Thompson, Jimmy Darmo, Brenden Medlin, others whose names I’ve forgotten but whose faces are familiar. I pass them as Ashleigh and I exit the dressing room in 2011.

Ah ha! It is almost time for me to make an entrance. I go up the Queen’s path to wait with the others who are part of Raleigh’s party entering Plymouth to depart for The New World. John Borden and Simon Fernando are fighting. Borden wins! And we start down the ramp in front of the Queen’s Stage.

With each step I come unstuck in time, walking down that ramp I am Ananias Dare in 1999, then I am Governor White in 2003, I ping briefly to the present (what year is it?) and I am Father Martin.

The ramp stays the same.