Today's Cereal: AlphaBits. Lots and lots of AlphaBits.
Current Mood: meh.
Thursday night we went to see my brother-in-law (whom I’ve had a not-so-secret crush on since I was 17) playing MacBeth in—what else?—MacBeth. He did a great job; although it is hard to watch people I know acting. I can’t get past that it is my Jeffy in a MacBeth costume saying funny lines, and not really MacBeth himself. I don’t have this problem with people I don’t know. I’m sure it’s the same way for my husband watching me act.
I have acted with this director at this theatre company before, and have done other shows with her at other theatres. She’s a fun lady, and though she tends to do arsty-fartsy shows, she is a good director.
Except when it comes to her son. He tends to get cast frequently in her shows. Maybe it’s because no one else auditioned who is young enough to fill the role, or else because an actor dropped out of the show or something and he is always available to fill in. It’s
gotta be something like that, because I have a really hard time believing that anyone, even someone blinded by mother-love, can think that he is a good enough to be cast as anything but Quasimodo.
Seriously. Her son was in Jeff’s show last week, and I had to talk to him for a while before hand. That was a REAL treat.
We call him “Garble Boy”.
He got this name because he is next to impossible to understand. His words come out sounding all “garbled”. In addition, he is short and scrawny (let’s see...I think he is 18 or 19 now, but he is my height--5’2”--and MAYBE weighs 100 lbs.) If you can see through the glare off his oily, oily face, you will notice a plethora of pimples (and he ALWAYS seems to have a big gross one in his ear... ew, ew, EW!!!). He’s got big ol’ teeth that barely fit in his mouth--hence the garbledness--and he has very little regard for personal space. Partner that with teenager-stink, and you’ve got one creepy little package. Oh yeah, and how could I forget--he also has a wall-eye. Which eye am I supposed to look at!?!?! Huh?? Huh!??!?
One time I was in a play with him, and my good friends came to support me. They told me afterwards that they thought it was really nice of the director to let “the little retarded boy” be in the play. I laughed and laughed and laughed; and then explained who-—no, WHAT—-he was. That has become a running gag now, whenever we see Garble Boy in any show we say, “it was sure nice of them to cast the little retarded boy!”
He is so icky I immediately decided when I saw him on Thursday night that he deserved a mention in my blog. I wish I could post a picture of him so you could all get what I am trying to tell you. I want to push him down. I know you would, too.
Jeff has worked with him a lot more than I; he has a lot of fun stories about little Garble Boy. Like the time they were doing a play set in the 1700’s, and Jeff was wearing tight breeches made out of silky material. Garble Boy kept feeling his pants, and trying to sit on his lap and slide down his legs. I can’t tell you how creeped out Jeff was by this-—a boy of about 15 trying to ride his leg... This was not an isolated incident, either. Though recent revelations have made it clear why Garble Boy thought this was fun (keep reading).
I know what you are thinking. You are thinking that I am a huge jerk for picking on the kid who’s got a few problems. You’re thinking, “So he’s got a speech impediment—is that any reason for you to make fun of him?” To that I say, “Well...yes.”
But aside from the crippling revoltingness, he’s also a huge jerk, too. (To Urban Princess: think of a mobile Josh Twelves) He talks down to everyone, he is rude and overly sarcastic, and he seems to thinks that because his parents have been in theatre for years and years and years, he is automatically a good actor. Perhaps he truly IS a good actor, but let me tell you-- unintelligibility and stage acting DO NOT MIX. He gets super-upset when his directors (AKA his mom) tell him to enunciate more. He won’t take direction from his mom, and so she often has an “assistant director” give him “special help”. He once condescendingly told the assistant director that he wasn’t going to work with her anymore because he was an awesome actor and didn’t need her help. He is all hung up on the fact that he once won an award for playing Caliban. (In case you don’t know anything about Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’, Caliban is traditionally played as some sort of missing-link type monster. OF COURSE he got an award. They thought he was a brilliant actor, not realizing he was FREAKIN’ PLAYING HIMSELF!!!!) He is a drama-fag to the extreme.
Which reminds me, he also “came out of the closet” a couple of years ago and announced that he was Bi. Probably hoping to double his chances. What this means is, he can stand too close to me and breathe on me and make me try to decide which eye I am supposed to look at when I talk to him and he can try to hug me;
and he can do the same to my brother-in-law Jeff. It’s all cream cheese to him; either way he’s thrilled.
I would like to audition for another show (someday when I’m neither pregnant or breastfeeding...it’s been about two years now...), but I have to admit that the chance that Garble Boy will be in the show too makes me a little hesitant. I think Shakespeare said it best:
"A devil, a born devil, on whose nature Nurture can never stick....And as with age his body uglier grows, So his mind cankers."
-The Tempest, Act 4 Scene 1
