Part 4
Only up to Saturday night. I either type too much, or I'm just really damn slow. The cast party is tomorrow night and I still haven't finished this thing.
I just realized I shouldn't post this last section on an open blog... moving the last paragraph to friends only.
So, we get rid of the guests, dad gets up, we drop character and prepare ourselves for what's next.... What was next? Sheesh... memory is so fleeting. Maisri and Stuart start wandering back, slowly getting into the role of people who just lost a family member. It's hard to do for an extended period, I'll tell you what. Wait.. I just told you. Hmmmm. Argh.. train of thought was just blasted off the tracks by two co-workers e-mail questions. Where was I going?
Right, we get back to the group, the cops have a little gathering, Maisri has a drink (pivotal, as it turned out), then it's time for some more police questioning. Maisri is a bundle of nervous energy, and a bit tipsy, Stuart is just sullen and not talking (his dad just died ffs!) so the cops give us up as a bad job and start questioning one of Dan Slammer's cover personalities. If I haven't mentioned Dan before, I'm sorry, I would need another 3 entries to cover his antics. Let's just say the actor portraying him has a gift for accents, costumes, and playing a really bad PI who dresses up a lot. He's not revealed as Dan Slammer yet, he's Carlos someone or something. Important to note. Moving on.
At this point, Dan starts cracking jokes to the cops, which sets off the guests, and Gillian. I'm trying to portray sullen and sad, and the laughter is bloody infectious. I finally decided it's time Stuart blows up (I was falling apart trying not to laugh, I had to do something!) so Stuart starts yelling at the rude people who are laughing about his dead dad. That didn't get very far, did I mention that Dan Slammer is also an asshole? No? He is. He shrugs Stuart's blow up off, and keeps rolling. At least I'm back in character now. Sorta. A guest tries to call me on it, saying Stuart isn't really sad, look at him, I bet he killed his dead. Yay! I get to blow up and yell some more! Too fun. Maisri and Stuart are finally dismissed and away we go. We had back to our room to cool down a bit. I'm sitting in my room unwinding and mentally preparing for the upcoming dinner scene, when there's a pounding on the door. Not a knock, mind you, a POUNDING. "we need to be downstairs now"
What the hell? Ok, we trot off and I get the details. Seems Slammer revealed himself while we were gone. He was supposed to do it Sunday morning. Whups! We needed to be there, as Slammer was checking up on Maisri because Jock thought Maisri was cheating on him because he found smudged paperwork relating to the birth of a pair of twins. Jock never knew that Stuart and Walys were twins, so he assumed Maisri had another kid (or kids) by another man, so he sent the PI to check up on her. Remember how I mentioned the PI wasn't any good? Ok, moving on.
We arrive back in the interrogation room and a new scene that wasn't even thought of before now begins. I'm barely holding onto the sad Stuart character, and this scene just about does me in. Well, it really does, but I think I hide it somewhat well. Ok, not at all, so sue me. Maisri confronts Slammer. Slammer can't get a word in edge wise, so he cracks jokes. Stuart is 'crying' (hiding laughter, poorly). Maisri hears me, and just about falls apart herself. Remember those scenes from old Red Skelton shows where Red would make the other actors laugh on stage and how much the audience got a kick out of that? Yeah, this was one of those, we were falling apart out there. Fortunately, it was a short scene. Otherwise it would have just been a disaster. Maisri and Stuart beat feet as soon as possible.
Now it's time to get ready for dinner. Great. A morose, sad dinner, with Maisri heading off the deep end. This should be fun. There but for the grace of God etc., etc. Now, the Inn does a good job on dinner. They may suck at breakfast, but they excel at dinner. I had veal. I never have veal. It was good. I just jumped ahead. Rewind!
As usual, we sit at a table with the guests. We are joined by the three sisters, and the male cop. Sitting at our table is the guest we dubbed Nancy Drew. This woman is totally into solving the mystery, to the point of bringing her notes everywhere and asking all sorts of questions. So we chat. Stuart is a bit sarcastic and, at some points, mean. Maisri is just, if you'll pardon me, nuts. As an aside, I had no problem with the way the character of Maisri was being portrayed. This was a woman who had been ground under the heal of a domineering jackass most of her adult life and was finally free. Plus, she had been drinking, and Maisri was never allowed to drink. So her sudden freedom was shocking to her. And I knew she was planning on crashing after dinner, coming down of the booze and the adrenaline. None of the other actors knew this. I'll explain why this is important a bit later.
Dinner was superb, the guests were fun, the male cop seemed very uncomfortable, for reasons I didn't get until later. After dinner, while we're all just hanging around waiting for whatever is next, Maisri goes away. I didn't know at the time, but the female cop took her for a chat, out of character. Seems the rest of the cast (well, some of them anyway) were worried about the direction of the Maisri character and wanted her toned down a bit. They got what they wanted. In Spades. Maisri came down, and came down hard. Like Oceanic flight 815 hard. After dinner was more lounge time. This was, in my opinion, some of the most fun of the weekend. We hung out in the lounge till 2am. Chatting, drinking, listening to the live music, smoking on the deck (the EMTs brought some nice cigars) and gnoshing on crackers and dip. The actors mostly stayed in character, the guests didn't care, they just liked hanging out, being part of the crowd. After the lounge, some of the cast went back to the EMTs suite (they had a bigger room, as they roomed with Daddy Mack) and had more drinks, before we started passing out from lack of sleep. I was mildly buzzed and totally exhausted when I finally went to bed.
Sunday morning. Great Googly Moogly, I'm almost done with this!
I just realized I shouldn't post this last section on an open blog... moving the last paragraph to friends only.
So, we get rid of the guests, dad gets up, we drop character and prepare ourselves for what's next.... What was next? Sheesh... memory is so fleeting. Maisri and Stuart start wandering back, slowly getting into the role of people who just lost a family member. It's hard to do for an extended period, I'll tell you what. Wait.. I just told you. Hmmmm. Argh.. train of thought was just blasted off the tracks by two co-workers e-mail questions. Where was I going?
Right, we get back to the group, the cops have a little gathering, Maisri has a drink (pivotal, as it turned out), then it's time for some more police questioning. Maisri is a bundle of nervous energy, and a bit tipsy, Stuart is just sullen and not talking (his dad just died ffs!) so the cops give us up as a bad job and start questioning one of Dan Slammer's cover personalities. If I haven't mentioned Dan before, I'm sorry, I would need another 3 entries to cover his antics. Let's just say the actor portraying him has a gift for accents, costumes, and playing a really bad PI who dresses up a lot. He's not revealed as Dan Slammer yet, he's Carlos someone or something. Important to note. Moving on.
At this point, Dan starts cracking jokes to the cops, which sets off the guests, and Gillian. I'm trying to portray sullen and sad, and the laughter is bloody infectious. I finally decided it's time Stuart blows up (I was falling apart trying not to laugh, I had to do something!) so Stuart starts yelling at the rude people who are laughing about his dead dad. That didn't get very far, did I mention that Dan Slammer is also an asshole? No? He is. He shrugs Stuart's blow up off, and keeps rolling. At least I'm back in character now. Sorta. A guest tries to call me on it, saying Stuart isn't really sad, look at him, I bet he killed his dead. Yay! I get to blow up and yell some more! Too fun. Maisri and Stuart are finally dismissed and away we go. We had back to our room to cool down a bit. I'm sitting in my room unwinding and mentally preparing for the upcoming dinner scene, when there's a pounding on the door. Not a knock, mind you, a POUNDING. "we need to be downstairs now"
What the hell? Ok, we trot off and I get the details. Seems Slammer revealed himself while we were gone. He was supposed to do it Sunday morning. Whups! We needed to be there, as Slammer was checking up on Maisri because Jock thought Maisri was cheating on him because he found smudged paperwork relating to the birth of a pair of twins. Jock never knew that Stuart and Walys were twins, so he assumed Maisri had another kid (or kids) by another man, so he sent the PI to check up on her. Remember how I mentioned the PI wasn't any good? Ok, moving on.
We arrive back in the interrogation room and a new scene that wasn't even thought of before now begins. I'm barely holding onto the sad Stuart character, and this scene just about does me in. Well, it really does, but I think I hide it somewhat well. Ok, not at all, so sue me. Maisri confronts Slammer. Slammer can't get a word in edge wise, so he cracks jokes. Stuart is 'crying' (hiding laughter, poorly). Maisri hears me, and just about falls apart herself. Remember those scenes from old Red Skelton shows where Red would make the other actors laugh on stage and how much the audience got a kick out of that? Yeah, this was one of those, we were falling apart out there. Fortunately, it was a short scene. Otherwise it would have just been a disaster. Maisri and Stuart beat feet as soon as possible.
Now it's time to get ready for dinner. Great. A morose, sad dinner, with Maisri heading off the deep end. This should be fun. There but for the grace of God etc., etc. Now, the Inn does a good job on dinner. They may suck at breakfast, but they excel at dinner. I had veal. I never have veal. It was good. I just jumped ahead. Rewind!
As usual, we sit at a table with the guests. We are joined by the three sisters, and the male cop. Sitting at our table is the guest we dubbed Nancy Drew. This woman is totally into solving the mystery, to the point of bringing her notes everywhere and asking all sorts of questions. So we chat. Stuart is a bit sarcastic and, at some points, mean. Maisri is just, if you'll pardon me, nuts. As an aside, I had no problem with the way the character of Maisri was being portrayed. This was a woman who had been ground under the heal of a domineering jackass most of her adult life and was finally free. Plus, she had been drinking, and Maisri was never allowed to drink. So her sudden freedom was shocking to her. And I knew she was planning on crashing after dinner, coming down of the booze and the adrenaline. None of the other actors knew this. I'll explain why this is important a bit later.
Dinner was superb, the guests were fun, the male cop seemed very uncomfortable, for reasons I didn't get until later. After dinner, while we're all just hanging around waiting for whatever is next, Maisri goes away. I didn't know at the time, but the female cop took her for a chat, out of character. Seems the rest of the cast (well, some of them anyway) were worried about the direction of the Maisri character and wanted her toned down a bit. They got what they wanted. In Spades. Maisri came down, and came down hard. Like Oceanic flight 815 hard. After dinner was more lounge time. This was, in my opinion, some of the most fun of the weekend. We hung out in the lounge till 2am. Chatting, drinking, listening to the live music, smoking on the deck (the EMTs brought some nice cigars) and gnoshing on crackers and dip. The actors mostly stayed in character, the guests didn't care, they just liked hanging out, being part of the crowd. After the lounge, some of the cast went back to the EMTs suite (they had a bigger room, as they roomed with Daddy Mack) and had more drinks, before we started passing out from lack of sleep. I was mildly buzzed and totally exhausted when I finally went to bed.
Sunday morning. Great Googly Moogly, I'm almost done with this!