Wine for Not Wearing Pants, Part II (or, Wine for Making an Entrance)

We left off yesterday with a production of Merchant of Venice I acted in in New York many years ago, in which I walked on stage one night without pants. If only I could say that this incident was the only mishap of the production, but alas...

One night, my Lorenzo and I were onstage, me lying with my head in his lap. We were supposed to be gazing at each other romantically while being serenaded, before being surprised by Portia. At the time I had long hair, and Lorenzo's costume included a vest with buttons. As we gazed at each other, I attempted to lift my head up to kiss him, only to be brought up short. I tried again and then realized that my hair was caught on one of his buttons. He attempted to untangle the hair without being too obvious, but nothing worked. This being a production in a tiny theatre, the audience was basically three feet away from us, and happened to be partially filled with my friends. I could hear them giggling and whispering to each other "Jocelyn's hair is caught".

Finally Portia entered, and knowing that we had to jump up in alarm, Lorenzo took hold of the hank of hair and tore it free of the button in one clean jerk. Luckily this actor had long hair, too, so he understood that he needed to hold on hard to the hair so that I wouldn't feel like it was being yanked out of my skull.

The worst incident of the run of this show, though, was the night that Lorenzo and I completely missed our entrance. In the play, there is a bit of a break between Jessica and Lorenzo's escape, and their re-emergence in another scene. Normally Lorenzo and I would go to the dressing room, which was down a flight of creaky wooden stairs, we would hang out for a bit while he played his guitar softly, until we had a sense that it was almost time for our entrance, when we would quietly make our way back upstairs. A lot of dressing rooms have monitors in them so you can hear what is happening on stage and know exactly where they are in the show, but this being a low budget show, we had no such luxury. Instead, you just had to be on top of things and pay attention.

On this particular night, we went down to the dressing room as usual, chatted, laughed and sang songs. We must have Kumbaya-ed it one too many times, because I suddenly had a very bad feeling that we had been downstairs too long. I jumped up from my chair and ran to the bottom of the stairs to hear where they were in the show, and was horrified to realize that we were supposed to be on stage.

Now the idea, when something goes wrong in a show, is to try to get through it smoothly so that the audience doesn't realize that anything has happened. What should have happened that night is that Lorenzo and I should have quietly made our way up the stairs and waited for an appropriate moment to make our entrance. Yup...that is indeed what should have happened.

But is that what happened? Nooo, it was not.

I went into full-on headless chicken mode, flapping at Lorenzo "We missed our entrance!!!!!" and then plowing full-speed up the stairs. Poor Lorenzo came running after me hissing "Wait for me!!!". But did I wait? Noooo, I did not. I must have sounded like a water buffalo clomping up those creaky stairs at full speed. I didn't wait for a good moment to make my entrance, I didn't wait to make sure that Lorenzo was with me, I didn't even stop to catch my breath. I exploded onto the stage, panting and sweating. There was nothing subtle about my appearance on that stage. I might as well have lit my hair on fire and then run around screaming "I missed my entrance I missed my entrance!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" A split second after I burst on stage, Lorenzo burst out after me.

Everything on stage stopped. The other actors stared at us and we stared back at them, wild-eyed and breathing heavily. For a split second no one moved. Then, as always happens, someone started saying their lines again and the show continued, adrenalin rush and all.

My wine for making an entrance is a Gaja Brunello di Montalcino "Rennina" "Pieve Santa Restituta" 2004 from Tuscany. This wine is smooth, mellow, silky and round with a nose of black cherry, currant, roses and cinnamon with black cherry, tobacco and leather on the palate. Brunello is often considered one of the best wines of Italy, and I could see why. It is the kind of wine you want to have with a rich Italian meal. Who knows, it could even make you feel content, in spite of the fact that you might have recently missed an entrance, lost a hank of hair, or neglected to put on pants.