The Quick Change Room

I’ve had many part-time, temporary jobs over the years, but none harder than Costume Director for a small community theater production. I was paid what I was worth (a bag of chocolates, I think it was), so no one really had the right to complain about my performance. But surprisingly, they did.

The play was called “The Quick Change Room,” and my job was to coordinate the costume changes backstage. Whoever volunteered me should have known better: you don’t give this job to someone who is easily distracted, likes to chat, and can’t see well in the dark. Focused, silent, eyes like a cat—these are the stuff. And the more amateur the actors, the more at stake. This particular troupe took great pride in their entrances onto the stage (which were, I’m sorry to say, usually better than the acting they did when they got there).

The job requires precision. Prepare for complaints. “Next time, unzip the black dress before you stick it over my head.” “Leave the top two buttons of the skirt undone—I have big hips.” “Could you just sand the soles of my shoes? I slip every time.” And my favorite: “You need to set the hat eight inches to the left—I’m used to grabbing it there.” There were also dangers. Two actors came to me breathing murderous threats against each other; the issue was (I am not making this up) a shoelace hole. As the saying goes, there are no small parts, only short fuses.

I trouble-shot and fumbled my way through five performances and at the end of each, while the actors were out celebrating, I checked and rechecked zippers, repaired rips, ironed undergarments, hung slumps of dresses back on their hangers, and rinsed out the armpits of the men’s shirts. The bag of chocolates didn’t last long.

Half-way through the first performance, I knew this was not the career for me. There’s no future in a field where you are the personal pin cushion of a prima donna. There’s no workplace pride when a misplaced boot forces an improvisation that ends with an actress in tears.

The irony in all this was that “The Quick Change Room” is a comedy taking place in a dressing room. The setting is a Russian theater. The troupe, and the country as a whole, is transitioning from communism to capitalism. The laughs come as characters bumble and hustle in and out of costumes, agonize over missed cues, and bemoan the public’s changing tastes. In the end, they turn Chekhov into a Broadway-style extravaganza, and the place sells out.

I can’t recommend it for the whole family (there is one scene that has, uh, no costumes and is rather…hippy), but it is a very clever play. And I learned a lot. Some fascinating discussion took place in the (real) changing room. The best actor was a big bearded Italian with a host of family anecdotes and a loud, happy voice. Joe was actually the one responsible for the lost boots (he had left them under his dressing table), and he graciously apologized, which was no small consolation amid the slings and arrows I was dodging. Joe liked to call attention to his orientation. He talked about his “crush on this cute guy at Walgreens," and he liked to describe features of the culture he hung out in. One actress bantered back and forth with Joe about their lifestyle differences. She was the mother of four. So was I. One night Joe said, “Do you know what we call women like you? Breeders.” The actress laughed, and I felt curiously unoffended. I liked Joe. He was nice to me. He was polite about buttons, and he sprayed all the shoes with Febreze. He meant no harm. He was simply offering a glimpse into a social order that he himself didn’t seem to take all that seriously.

To tease out a metaphor: We are in a quick-change room, and rehearsals aren’t going well. It’s not exactly a family-friendly show. Apparently a new world order is afoot and we're all expected to shift a little to the left.

I am a mother (of an admittedly wild brood), not a politician or pundit, and most of my job is done. The hustle and fumble and forced improv was worth it. I couldn’t ask for a better role. I’ll admit that, as the show goes on, I worry. But I have heard that the director is very good and, as he is wont to do, will flawlessly pull it off in the end.

           

                                                        

                                        

The Name's the Thing

I became an English major so that I could read classics and avoid laboratories. I wanted to write poetry, not research plants. I understood symbolism; I didn't understand cells. These were two incompatible worlds, a divided campus, Caliban spurning Ariel. Indisputable theory and playful imagination were impossible bedfellows. Which is why I was intrigued by a recent radio broadcast.

The program combined a touching narrative (a young girl named Claire is enchanted by a bird) with biological insight (the bird's evolutionary purpose). All was tied together with deep philosophical hypothesizing—mainly by me, while driving along the I-15.

The bird is called the honeyguide, and it lives in Mozambique. Its name is sweetly practical: this species actually does lead people to honey. To summon the bird, you must first master its sound, which was nicely demonstrated on the program: a long rolling rrr followed by a sharp humph. You whir and huff your way into the forest and soon, playful as Puck, out flies the little brown honeyguide. Follow it leaf by leaf, and you will discover luxuriant, edible, dripping gold.

According to the broadcaster, “Scientists believe that, billions of years ago, the bird may have evolved an innate desire to lead people to honey.” My first thought was that a chocolateguide would have been just as useful. But then the bird would have ended up in South America, never to be discovered by young Claire.

My second thought was this: prior to honing its innate desire, the bird surely evolved organizational skills and an altruistic instinct. In fact, a group of honeyguides could easily form a non-profit. On their continent, many important causes could be targeted: world hunger, micro-financing, and/or eco-tourism, to name just a few.

Third thought: My son could capitalize on this. He works for a company that helps non-profits to raise funds. By successfully marketing its services to the honeyguide, he could help his company expand internationally. Sam, declaring himself “the fittest,” could then muscle his way up the ranks. This natural selection would mean, of course, a hefty raise.

However, as we have seen, evolution is not without its hitches. There is such a thing as moral devolution, in which a progressive desire for luxury masks itself as biological Necessity. If it comes to this in Sam's case, I will have to keep an eye on him, maybe offering to do research—on, say, an all-expense paid trip to the Mediterranean.

But in the meanwhile, hats off to the honeyguide for sticking around these billions of years to make life sweeter for all of us. As Shakespeare would say (if interviewed by NPR) a honeyguide by any other name wouldn't be nearly as interesting.