Unnaturally Green (21 page)

6.
having a sickly appearance; pale:
green with fear.

7.
freshly slaughtered or still raw:
green meat.

8.
freshly set and not completely hardened:
green cement.

9.
untrained; inexperienced:
a green understudy.

14. I DON’T WANNA GROW UP

Email from Esa to Felicia.

Hi Felicia,

I am a
Wicked
fan and an avid follower of your blog, which, I might add, is HILARIOUS. I was hoping you might have an idea of when you might be going on as Elphaba? I know in a post from last month you noted that you would let us know if you have prior knowledge of an upcoming performance, so I wanted to email you to let you know that I would DEFINITELY want to know when this date may be as I would love to come out to support you!!

Also, in reading through fans' blogs, I heard that you performed for the first time tonight. CONGRATULOTIONS!!!  I'm sure you were fantastic!!

Thank you!

Esa

I
woke the next morning facedown in a wet, green-smeared pillow—my head throbbing, my back in knots.

Fumbling with my glasses, I trudged to the bathroom, where in the mirror a droopy-eyed girl stared back at me. She had a green forest hairline, surrounded by a nest of blonde curly fries, which in the night had sprung up to frame her face in the style of Shirley Temple, if Shirley Temple had ever taken a mug shot for DUI.

Cowering away, I sleepwalked to the coffee maker, where I got a slow drip going. As I did, images from the prior night began to drift back, like the vague memory of nightmare.

Holy crap, it’s a long way down.

Had it been real?

The green in my hair, orbiting my ears, and caked in my nails was evidence that, yes, the worst-case scenario had come true: on my very first day as standby, I’d been called on, mid-show, and—
did I break the broom right before “Defying Gravity?”

As I reached for the coffee to pour myself a mug, I tried to come up with a worthy analogy.

Jumping on as Elphaba, mid-show, on my very first day, had been like…

Climbing Everest.

When I’d only just learned to walk.

Because how could it possibly get worse?

I sipped my coffee as if in slow motion—my grip weak, my arm shaky.

Seriously. You couldn’t make this stuff up.

A moment later and my phone began buzzing.

“David?”

“Great job last night!”

“Oh, thanks,” I said hoarsely. How nice, I thought, that the stage manager was calling to check up on me.

“Also, you’re on for both shows!”

I froze.

“What?”

“Eden will be out for both today, so it’s all you.”

“Wait,
what?
”

 (
GREEN.
6.
having a sickly appearance; pale;
green with fear.
)

“I’ll meet you in the dressing room for notes,” said David. “See you at half-hour.”

I’d asked it, and now I had my answer. How could it possibly get worse?

Two shows. One day.

What. The. Eff.

I hung up the phone and sat on the couch.

Then I started to laugh.

Then I started to cry.

Day One’s Everest Climb, you see, had been a mere primer for Day Two’s endurance test. The itinerary? A matinee followed by an evening show. (Double the Elphaba, double the fun!)

Forget Everest; this was worse. This was Mount Elphaba.

“How does anyone
do
this,” I wailed to Kathleen as we scurried backstage like blind mice, trying to pace through costume changes we’d rehearsed only a few times. “It doesn’t seem possible!” 

As I sweated my way through the matinee, I gulped compulsively from my Nalgene, trying to replenish the dwindling water supply escaping from my pits, while meanwhile I had to incorporate David and Bryan’s many notes from Day One—which they’d told to me while I was getting green, minutes before “places.”

As the curtain fell on my second Elphaba show, not only was I exhausted, but my vocal cords felt like they’d been set on fire. What’s more, there was no real relief—only the foreboding knowledge that I’d have to do my Mount Elphaba climb all over again—in a mere three hours.

To coat my throat and make the singing more manageable, I stuck pastilles between my teeth and cheeks and left them there for the evening show. As I huffed around onstage, wheezing and panting, my mouth began to feel numb, tingling with minty-fresh paralysis, while meanwhile I tried not to choke each time I inhaled.

With fried cords and a slack jaw, during my third pass at Elphaba, I couldn’t help but wonder, Would the Songs of Death live up to their names?

In the throes of self-pity, to me it wasn’t a matter of
if;
it was only a matter of
when
.

Cause of Death: Musical Theater.

Yes, at any moment I would transubstantiate into
Wicked
’s first martyr. Like a green Joan of Arc, with a better singing voice. (Although, who knows? Maybe Joan of Arc could
belt her face.
) At my death, all the villagers would crowd around my lifeless body. “Good news,” they would say, “she’s dead.”

That night, as my wet-haired head hit the pillow, I knew I had to look on the bright side.

After a two-show Wednesday, my second day on the job, how could it
possibly
get worse?

I woke Day Three with a needling pain in my throat. As I moved to swallow, I felt a sea of bacteria envelop my vocal cords, lapping around in a whirlpool of mucus that churned as far as my head, sinus, and chest.

Uh oh.

Why now? Since arriving in San Francisco, I hadn’t taken a single sick day. And today couldn’t be worse timing.

Wicked
had found itself in an uncommonly vulnerable position—with only one person (me) covering Elphaba, as opposed to two. With all the recent casting changes, Alyssa was our new understudy but was still in the process of learning the role—and was, at best, weeks away from being ready.

So there was only one backup plan.

And that backup plan had gotten sick.

I concluded that the bacteria must have done their due diligence. Obviously they’d staged a sneak attack, at precisely the worst moment—knowing that when I’m stressed, one little throat tickle could turn into a holocaust on my cords and, in turn, my confidence.

The smart bastards!

First they’d poisoned my throat; soon they’d poison my mind.

They never should have hired you.

Cannons raging.

Face it, Felicia: You won’t be able to do this.

Incoming!

You. Are. Going. To—

Enough!

I began rocking on my couch in the fetal position, waiting for the heavens to deliver some kind of sign.

Felicia: 11:57AM Any word from Eden on how she’s feeling, or is it too early?

As I waited to hear back from David, I felt sicker and sicker—while the stakes kept mounting higher and higher.

Heck, I needed a miracle!

Since I’d survived the Songs of Death (so far), I hadn’t earned musical theater martyr status (yet)—so to conjure said miracle I’d have to enlist outside help.

By the power of Shoshana? Of Eden herself?

No, other Elphabas hit too close to home. I needed to go back further…to those golden years of musical theater obsession…

Are you there, Douglas Sills? It’s me, Felicia.

When I was 12 I gave you a calendar outside the Minskoff Theatre in which every month was a picture of your face. You gave me a hug, told me you loved it, and that you’d send it to your mom (which I hope you did, since what mother wouldn’t love clocking the forward march of time with the aid of her son’s giant face?).

At final count, my dad and I saw you as Percy in
The Scarlet Pimpernel
ten times (eight times on Broadway, two times on tour) and I can wager with confidence that you never made a single mistake, not even when you belted such absurdly high notes in your tight English revolutionary pants that I thought you might just combust into a flaming musical theater sun—which had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the character of Percy was an incredibly flaming, albeit heterosexual individual. No, your fireball of talent burned bright, independent of all ambiguous sexuality and foppishness.

Indeed, you were there for me, Douglas, in the toughest of times—in middle school when I had lice (twice) and had to chop off my hair; when I fell in love with my gay best friend Patrick, who ran off with my other gay best friend Jon, all in the same year that I didn’t get cast in summer camp; on the dark day you left
The Scarlet Pimpernel
and I saw your replacement Ron Bohmer by accident, who was small and inadequate. (All right, Ron Bohmer was fine. But I couldn’t get behind him morally—due to my allegiance to you and also because of the cover photo of his solo album, in which a long rattail flows down his back. I mean, what purported leading man would willingly have hair like that? Certainly not you.)

Anyway, Douglas, if you’re listening: please help. Teach me to pull through! Teach me to shoulder the pressures of being an actor! Teach me to maintain the tautest of posteriors! (Were your glutes so supple from onstage butt-clench singing, or was it genetic? Because you really did have a fantastic man-butt.)

Lastly, please, oh please, make Eden get better. It is my only hope tonight, since I have no understudy, and each time I try to sing I sound like a bullfrog suffering at the hand of a bigger bullfrog, who is tormenting the smaller bullfrog because she is a terrible singer, even for a bullfrog. If Eden calls out, oceans will rise, buildings will crumble, and/or
Wicked
will have to be canceled. Please don’t let that happen, Douglas! I’m just a lowly, newly turned professional actress, who wants at all costs to avoid being shamed and/or the public enemy of
Wicked
fans the world over.

Please?

Alternatively, if you can do none of these things, could you send me a signed headshot? I’m at 466 Clementina Street, Apt 2, San Francisco, CA, 94103.

Sincerely, Felicia

P.S. For years I have wished you were (1) not two decades older than me, (2) my husband. Just needed to get that off my chest. Because if I don’t take this opportunity to blatantly proposition you, what would even be the point of this prayer?

And, praise Douglas! Four more hours of rocking in the fetal position, and the miracle came—in the form of a text.

David: 4:54 PM Just got word that she is in tonight.

Hallelujah!

(Celebrity obsession
can
have a practical application!)

I felt so happy I could cry. So, obviously I did: big, goopy tears. The kind that comes from your eyes
and
your nose.

That evening in the standby dressing room I went on complete vocal rest, as indicated by the construction paper sign I’d fashioned with magic marker.
CAN’T TALK
, it said, with a frowny face. I held it tightly near my chest as I lay on the couch next to my humidifier, which I’d positioned to blast directly into my goop-filled nostrils. Libby sat on the other side of the room doing a puzzle of Rockefeller Center at Christmastime. We’d silently agreed it was best she kept her distance from me—a vessel of illness and despair.

Like a vulture sniffing out a carcass, Etai soon appeared and proceeded to grab my weenus, trying to get me to laugh. I hated (but secretly loved) this weenus bit of his, so it was a testament to my Joan of Arc will that I resisted.

Once Etai left, through the dressing room monitor I could hear Eden onstage, powering through the songs. She sounded fine. But—

My teeth chattered. Might she call out mid-show—again? This was the demon that lurked in the corner opposite Libby, doing its own puzzle, which, when assembled, depicted: Felicia’s Failure.

But, lo!

Eden pulled through, and I survived the night in one piece.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Douglas Sills!

(P.S. Call me.)

Day Four was anybody’s guess. Would Eden call out?

It was all I kept wondering (and, incidentally, all I would keep wondering every single day and night I spent in San Francisco, as it haunted my standby dreams).

I’d used up my musical theater miracle, and had no other choice but to prepare for the worst—gargling buckets of salt water, hoping I could maybe dislodge the phlegm that was holding my vocal cords hostage.

In the afternoon, I got official word.

David: 2:10PM you are green tonight – please confirm

Crap.

I’d thought I’d reached my peak, but I’d have to keep climbing Mount Elphaba. The trails kept materializing into the sky, and for my fourth show—my third day on the job—I would have to perform slightly sick.

Felicia: 2:11PM Confirmed!

David: 2:11PM Come in a little early for notes and stuff!

More improvements. More tweaks. More trails.

David: 2:37PM looks like libby is on so we need to do fight call as well

My standby wife!

We’d never performed together, so this meant a whole new set of firsts or, through a pessimist’s eyes, things to worry about. At least we’d meet for a “fight call” before the show to rehearse a few choreographed moments.

David: 4:33PM So confirming 6p for vocals and 7p for slap that witch.

“Vocals” meant Bryan and I would do some pre-show cleanup, while “slap that witch” was stage manager lingo for a scene with Libby in Act II, full of wrestle-tussling and—you guessed it—witches slapping each other.

Felicia: 4:34PM Both are confirmed