When Kate Got Lost On Stage and How She Found Her Way

If I can survive it, so can you.

Too many years ago, I was in a wonderful play, The Other Place by Sharr White.  I loved this play and the woman I had the honor to portray.  She is a scientist who studies early onset dementia.  And, unbeknownst to her, she suffers from early onset dementia.

For this role I was on stage for 90 minutes, an unreliable narrator hoping to find her long lost daughter. The other actors disappear into the audience when not on stage.  My words trigger the next scene.  Or not.

In previews, I lost my way.  Very like the character, I got confused.  I didn’t know which exact phrase, repeated with slight variations, was the cue for the correct next scene: was she wearing a “yellow bikini” or a “yellow bathing suit?” or a “yellow string bikini?” Each led to a different moment in the script. I remember coming to the end of a monologue to see Martyn Kyle, the actor playing my husband, sitting in the audience, slowly shaking his head, “no.”  I had to find my way. The first time this happened, I used my safety net.  It was a preview, after all.  I called, “line!” and after a moment of panic, the stage-manager called out my lines for me.

After the show, the director, Betsy Tucker,  said, “I’m not worried.  You are a pro.”  That absolute trust in me was like a life raft. The next day I worked and worked until I knew every transition and even why my character would choose one particular phrase over the other to link to the next scene. 

Opening night went without a hitch.  I could breathe again.

The next night, though, I got lost again.  I didn’t even have to look at Martyn to know.  This time, I did not call for my line. Instead, I took a breath, repeated the last few lines, and my way forward became clear. The audience may have wondered if it was the actor or the character repeating the lines, but I doubt it. The play continued as written after that.  And no one was the wiser.  Except Martyn.