So the Saturday of the actual Repo! Live show, everything was pretty chaotic. Props were coming in, last minute decisions made, costumes finished up. Complete and utter chaos. The previous day I had gone up on the wire rig for the first time ever for Chromaggia. Now, we had gone over it a number of times, but with a rather large harness over my Chromaggia costume, and one wire, there was no real guarantee that I was going to remain facing the audience. But a few times over, we tested the drop, went rather successfully, so the next day, we rehearsed my timing of coming down onto the stage to be lifted after Blame Not My Cheeks. I was going to be in the air by the time they lowered me for Chromaggia.
Everything went extremely well for a first show. Thankless Job, an evisceration scene where we see more of the monster come out of Nathan Wallace, played by Tim Meunier, was before my first entrance with Luigi, Amber and Pavi, as well as my first meeting with Shilo. We underestimated just how much blood was going to come out of those theatrical blood packets. It was everywhere. As I step over the body of the "victim" Luigi had just stabbed to death, I about slipped and landed on my ass about three times, both Amber, played by Jessalyn San Gregorio, and I seemed to be having the same issue. With the mostly opaque contacts I was wearing plus the stage lights, navigating about the stage was not an easy task. But that scene was done and went rather successfully.
Before Chase the Morning, my first meeting with Shilo, played by Caitlyn "Catt" Miller, I had to book it up the aisle during intermission. I had mapped out exactly where my family members were and just how I was going to get past them. This was an epic fail, because while I'm huddled at the top of the stairs in the lobby, I look over to see a camera in my face with two friends of my parents who I have known virtually my whole life, behind it. I chatted with them for a little bit, anxious to hear if my parents had left the building or not due to the nature of the show, and hearing that my parents were still there and were actually enjoying it was enough to bring tears to my eyes. So as Who Ordered Pizza and Night Surgeon begin, I'm already pacing. I'm in costume, with the opera costume underneath my Chase coat because there was no way in hell I was going to get that sucker as well as the harness on in time before I went onstage. So beneath the coat, I was wearing both the Chromaggia opera costume as well as the harness. Other people said it worked well, they could barely tell, but when I looked in the mirror what my mind's eye saw was a pregnant reptile. But it worked well, it was pulled off well. Morgana, one of the henchgirls, quickly darted offstage after Night Surgeon in order to escort me as Blind Mag toward the "Wallace House" a.k.a the stage. Chase the Morning has always been a very powerful number, the first meeting between Mag and Shilo, and as I'm supposed to "project" the image of Marni onto the wall on the far side of the theatre, I looked up to see that there was no projection.
Ok... whatever, just work with it. And I did, and delayed a little but it finally flickered to life, much to my relief. The scene took off and went incredible, including Everyone's a Composer where Mag is basically thrown out of the house by Nathan. Once over, I hurried back up the aisle. Grabbing the flower which was on the food counter, I awaited At the Opera Tonight.
The chaos didn't really begin until I rushed back upstairs, thinking I had enough time to put the eyelashes on for Chromaggia, the finger talons, which are a BIG prop for this sequence, and my thigh high boots. Mind you these things are a good six-inches high with a platform on the sole and spiked heel. How I haven't killed myself in these by now is beyond me, but I absolutely adore them for the scene. But by the time we get up there, I'm getting the wristbands, choker, everything, reach to grab the talons.... only to find that someone had moved them and they were nowhere to be seen.
Panic set in. The techies ran amok trying to find the damn things, I'm struggling to get my boots zipped up. Mike, who helped operate the flight rig, was yelling for me to get downstairs. With boots halfway zipped up, I about vaulted down the stairs, prepared to be lifted up in the air. Somehow I didn't meet my mark, so I think, and within seconds of me being barely three feet in the air yet, I start turning away from the audience. As an actor, you're trained to work with whatever happens. Act like there's nothing wrong, and usually you can pass a mistake as part of the show. With the screen displaying Sarah Brightman doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing in back of me? There was no way it could have been passed as part of the show. I went with it, however, and the second I landed figured I'd continue on with my choreography to redeem myself.
I blew it at the end however when I thought I heard one of the techies saying that they found my talons. Or saying to me from the back wing. I moved over in a very Mag fashion, only to be met with looks of "What the hell are you doing?" when I did so. Ok, apparently I heard wrong. So I made my way back, thought, "Ok, just BS the rest of it." And I did, moving back over to the mark for the flight rig, only to be swung completely around by the wire once again. At this point, seeing Blind Mag trying to wriggle her way back around elicited a laugh out of the audience. But it brought a bit of the tension down. It was a mistake, we were working with it, there was nothing we could have done to help that. They knew that. So before my death, I swung around to glare at Rotti Largo with "I would rather be blind." and it just so happened that I was turned around by the wire as I went to "take out" my eyes. It was a cool effect actually, and would have been better if I had been turned back around in the other direction.
But of course, I wasn't. Rather than be dropped on my back I found myself being dropped face first with my bum in midair. I landed, rolled, against the "snow pile" scenery, which was wire mesh on the inside of it, and slowly slid down it for Mag's death.
The show was brilliant on the other hand. Nathan's Repo coat got caught in the wheelchair, which required a techie to rush out and assist. But the rest of it was as powerful as it was intended to be. The reviews were fantastic, and what has set us apart from the other casts is the fact that Mag was actually lifted in the air, as well as the Inopportune Phonecall victim literally hung upside down, poor Trevor. He was a trooper, though, and did an amazing job. I had the easy stunt, though it seemed like he enjoyed being hung upside down. So I'll close this out. For all fans of Repo!, come back out for our February 27th show of 2010.
To bring this to a close, for all Repo fans, Chase the morning, yield for nothing,
and of course...
Everybody, everybody TESTIFY!!!
xx Camille
"Blind Mag"
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