Introducing Sybil!

Apologies for the lack of blogging over the last couple of weeks. My excuse is that I have been spending my time dressed as a slut, being drunk and loud and copulating with old men. Some excuse hey? Even better, Brad has amused himself during this time by showing his bum to 200 people in our local village…which was nice.

May be I ought to explain…..

Three months ago I joined PVADS (Pewsey Vale Amateur Dramatics Society) and auditioned for their modern comedy “Denim” by Jay Saunders. Originally I was cast in an unspeaking role as a member of a girly-type Birthday party. Meanwhile Brad was cast as…a stripper….which made me laugh hysterically and think “Thank god I got away lightly!” whilst feeling highly smug that I didn’t have to do anything so embarrassing.

However at the second rehearsal the Director came up to me with some interesting news. One of the cast had dropped out and he wanted me to play the part of Sybil. SYBIL???? Oh SH*T!!! That will be the Sybil who has a relatively major part as a drunken nymphomaniac and who has to simulate sex with a pissed old man (played by a 73 year old chap from the village)? NOOOOOOO WAY!!!!!!

I very nearly decided there and then that I had never really wanted to be a thespian and that the role was rather too complex for my liking. But then I stopped myself from turning and running out the door by thinking that this was make or break. I have wanted to act my whole life. As a little girl I spent hours writing little plays in my bedroom and then performing them to my gathered family (not easy when you have to play all the parts by yourself and there can only be one of you onstage I can tell you…)

I remember so clearly the day I was told, at the age of 7, that I had been cast as an angel in the Sunday School Nativity play. I was beside myself and ran out to my Mum afterwards on cloud nine, full of thoughts of wearing a white sheet with tinsel in my hair and angel wings. When my Mum gently reminded me that we would be away for Christmas that year, in the exotic location of the United Arab Emirates (my first ever trip abroad) I absolutely wailed and pleaded with her to cancel the holiday!

At secondary school I had auditioned for the annual musical every single year without fail and never even got a non-speaking part. My school was exceptionally high-achieving and many of the girls there had private singing lessons in the lunch-hour. For some reason they never picked musicals with anything more than a small cast so the only people who ever got to take part were those who were very gifted singers and who, presumably, would make the school look extremely prestigious. Every year I would get so excited when the details went up on the notice board of who had got a part and I’d run up the stairs and stand desperately scanning for any sign of my name – but nothing. The let down was terrible.

When I went to my sixth-form school I joined the drama club and auditioned for the first play that they were putting on. You can imagine my amazement when the teacher became slightly overexcited by my audition and immediately cast me in the leading male role (that’s the trouble with all girls schools!). However this was a bit of a shock to the system after having been turned down for so long and I took one look at the pages and pages of lines I would be expected to learn and panicked.

Fortunately, or unfortunately as the case may be, whilst panicking over how to extricate myself from what seemed an impossible task, I was struck down with an appendix abscess which went undiagnosed until I was so ill that I was rushed to hospital with peritonitis and my parents were taken out of the room to be gently told I might not make it through the night.

Still, it got me out of the play nicely….

So anyway, back to the role of Sybil. I knew that if I turned down this opportunity then I could kiss goodbye to any dreams of acting in the future. I made up my mind there and then that I would overcome my natural inhibitions and play this role as well as I possibly could. Even if it did involve being on centre stage drunkenly singing “Happy Birthday to you, Have a shag cos you need too, shag him twice on the sofa and suck him off till he turns blue!” Seriously! Not to mention being grabbed from behind by an old man and oohing and aaahing as if we were at it. Eeeeek!!!!

Actually within the first few rehearsals I felt so at ease with the wonderful bunch of people there that it really didn’t matter anymore and we all laughed along together. The PVADS members are some of the nicest people ever and are a really fun and genuine bunch. They made me feel so welcome and were very understanding about my CF-limitations. Many of them are smokers but once they understood my problems they all agreed amongst themselves that they would only smoke outside and well away from me during rehearsals which I thought was really sweet since I hadn’t directly approached them about it.

Anyway, after 3 months of rehearsals the play finally opened on Thursday and ran for 3 nights. I’ll write more about it in my next blog entry in a few days time....