Unnaturally Green (23 page)

“Sorry,” I said, lightly. “It’s nice of you to tell me I did a good job.”

“Any definite dates when you’ll go on?” asked my dad.

“No. Not yet, anyway.”

“Well, let us know if you hear anything,” said my mother.

“I will,” I said. “Anyway, I think I gotta go.”

I’d finally bypassed the shopping cart jam and arrived at the mall.

“You be careful,” said my mother. “Take your vitamins—including fish oil! It decreases inflammation.”

“Let me know if you need me to prescribe you antibiotics,” said my father.

(Doctor parents.)

“Okay! Love you!”

I’d taken the mall escalator up a few flights to the Fossil store, where I started browsing leather totes. In the calm of the air-conditioned space I was glad to leave all discussions of Elphaba,
Wicked
, and YouTube behind.

Here, it was just me and my wallet. And some hard-earned shopping therapy.

As I picked up a satchel made from distressed leather, feeling its weight in my hands, a salesperson approached.

“Excuse me,” he said.

I looked up and saw a young man with frosted tips and a blue-checkered tie.

“Oh, I’m just looking, thanks.”

Next I moved to a bag that looked like a convertible backpack, only with longer straps. I peeled aside the tag to check the price.

“No, I was just wondering,” the salesperson said as I fingered the snaps, “are you in
Wicked
?”

I stopped.

“Oh,” I said, turning to face him. “Yes, I am.”

His gaze shot up to my green hairline, then back to my eyes.

“I think I saw you this week!”

“Oh, ha ha, no way,” I said, looking down at the floor.

“It’s one of my favorite shows,” he said.

“Me, too,” I said.

I crossed to the other end of the store, where I steered the conversation toward a couple of bags. Together we weighed the pros and cons of more or less pockets, long or short straps, leather or nylon. I draped one over my shoulder and backed up to look in the full-length mirror.

“Let me tell you—”

“Do you think it looks good?” I asked, turning sideways for a profile view.

“I just want to say: you can really belt your face.”

Seriously?

“Hey, thanks,” I said, with a hollow laugh. “That’s really nice of you.”

I decided on leather with pockets, swiped my credit card, and braved the streets home.

Later that evening, I gave in.

Marshall was asleep, so I locked myself in my bathroom, took my computer out of its leather pouch (with pockets), and groped my electronic way to YouTube, with the volume set as low as possible. There I found the infamous video in question.

Defying Gravity – Felicia Ricci | 427 views

I was scared.

Any mistakes I’d made were now permanent. Any flubs, careless errors, unsupported notes that fell under pitch—these were wounds that would be salted anytime someone clicked “play.”

I wanted to watch. But something was holding me back.

I thought back to my conversation with Etai over breakfast-for-dinner—about how musical theater shouldn’t be a pissing contest to see who could be the
best
. It wasn’t a competitive sport. It wasn’t something to be replayed, labeled, and judged. But on YouTube, comparisons were contagious. Often they mutated beyond the comments realm into their own strain of online cancer: the video “contests,” or back-to-back clips of a bunch of Elphabas singing the same part of one song—say, a riff in “Defying Gravity” or the end of “The Wizard and I.” The video’s description would stipulate its charge: that it was a faceoff to determine who was the “best” when it came to riffing, hitting high notes, etc.

Pressing play, you heard only a sliver of each actress’s performance, nearly indistinguishable from all the others.

Funny how a role as complex as Elphaba could be reduced to a mere five seconds.

This bugged me. Plain and simple. But was there something else?

I had played Elphaba. Thousands of people had seen me, Fossil bag dude had recognized me, 427 people had watched me on YouTube (well, 327, since 100 views were on account of my parents).

I guess I felt like—

Like I’d grown up or something.

Wicked
was a fantasy I’d been reaching for since I first unclenched my little sophomore buttocks. In those early moments, I’d set my sights on the impossible dream of playing Elphaba.

Not in a million years,
I’d thought.

As YouTube confirmed, this dream was not only possible, but had already come true. A million years was
now
.

So what did that mean for me?

As I saw it, there were two outcomes. One? I’d watch the video and see that I sucked. This would, in all cases, be awful. It would mean I’d achieved my goal in a truly unremarkable, or even subpar, way. And who wants that?

Two? I’d watch the video and see that, hey—I was pretty good!

This second outcome seemed better. But if I thought about it, it was actually worse.

Why? Because being good meant I—the eternal overachiever—would have to keep going: growing, evolving, working harder each day…and maintaining that high level of performance for the six months that stretched ahead.

Just keep climbing.

Was the thrill of my “greenness” gone? If yes, so was its cushy disclaimer.

(
GREEN
. 5.
not fully developed or perfected in growth or condition; unripe; not properly aged:
a green actress
.)

Mount Elphaba had loomed, and I’d climbed to its highest peak.

But had I also peaked?

I clicked “play.”

15. THE ELPHABA AND THE FURY

A
fter my first unpredictable week, things gradually calmed. As time told, Eden would call out about once or twice a week (usually around the weekends, when the performance schedule was more condensed).

Despite this relative predictability, I knew never to take things for granted. Not after my debut week.

My vow?

LL101:
Always be ready, for anything
.

To stay in tip-top shape, vocal health was my religion. I held a daily Mass of shower warm-ups, with a communion of cold cure-alls, lozenges, and Manuka honey. Every night before bed and every morning when I woke up, I’d pray to the god of the Neti Pot, irrigating my browbeaten sinuses with salty water. (Picture a mini teakettle whose spout you place in one nostril while tipping it over until water comes out the other nostril. The sensation feels like drowning, but way more fun!)

This religion stayed with me wherever I went. Instead of a nun’s habit, I wrapped elaborate tapestry-sized scarves around my head and neck to guard against the San Francisco wind. These scarves were practical, but also symbolic of my state of mind—one wholly dedicated to singing.

If ever I slipped (a glass of wine with dinner; dairy before performing) as penance I would drown myself in Umcka cold prevention syrup, Oscillococcinum tablets, Echinacea tea, multivitamins, and extra C supplements—hoping the evil duo of Phlegm and Congestion hadn’t noticed my lapse.

But there was worthy cause for it all. I needed to be sure, beyond a doubt, that I would never get sick—ever again. 

Not if I had anything to do with it!

(Cue dramatic sting!)

In the meantime, I kept working my alternately clenched and unclenched butt off, improving my Elphaba performance as best I could. Since there was only so much I could accomplish during my maintenance rehearsals—which I did out of costume, without sets or actual props—my standby performances were very much
like
rehearsals. Onstage, in front of thousands, I tried to fix my blocking, rephrase my songs, reinterpret my lines—all while in the heat of battle.

Note sessions with stage manager David and conductor Bryan followed every such Elphaba “battle.” Their extensive critiques addressed all aspects of my performance. Some struck at very basic concepts (“What is your motivation?” “What emotion launches you into ‘I’m Not That Girl?’”), some nitpicked (“Be sure you close your umbrella in time to hand it to Madame Morrible,” “Try no vibrato on ‘
defying’
”), some encouraged (“Amazing work,” “I’m so proud of you”) and some were downright confusing (“You didn’t connect with anyone onstage,” “I think you were telling a different story”). Very little slipped by either of them—but especially David, whose main goal was to keep ushering me within a few centimeters of the Elphaba blocking grid.

Consistency was the name of David’s game; with his mallet he chiseled me to fit the Elphaba mold.

(
GREEN.
8.
freshly set and not completely hardened:
green cement.
)

“I noticed,” David said to me one day during a particularly long note session in the stage management office, “that you took your glasses off when addressing the Shiz students.”

“Yes,” I said.

Wanna make something of it?

He looked at me through a blank stare, barely moving as I shifted back and forth in my seat.  “What was that?” he asked.

I decided to argue my case, explaining that my intention had been to shock and incite the Shiz students by showing them my green skin. I’d taken off my glasses to better display my face, direct and unobstructed, which I thought had made the action stronger.

David nodded, silently.

Sometimes he afforded me glimmers of freedom, but usually he put his foot down. Today, he took a breath and said, “Let’s not do that.”

“Okay,” I said, as I wrote his comment on my sheet of notes. To nail the coffin shut, David added:

“It tells a different story.”

Many note sessions later and I learned I needed to pick my battles. Like every long-running Broadway show, replacement actors across every
Wicked
company had to be derivative of the actors who came before them. Standbys, in particular, were coached to stay within the shadow of everything their principal actor did (for consistency and safety when interacting with other people onstage). In short, unless you were originating the role in a company and working with
Wicked
’s director Joe Mantello, there was only so much an Elphaba could do.

It wasn’t about painting a new landscape; it was about coloring within the lines.

Still, I made the best of it. Each time I was lucky enough to go on, I tried to approach the role as my own—from a brand new perspective—giving it my own touch of
greenness
.

Over time, as I smoothed the edges of my Elphaba statue, the role became more manageable. I kept changing and adapting to apply David’s extensive notes—much like how a weightlifter’s hand sprouts a callus to guard against the chafing, or a bonsai tree curls to fit inside its tiny vase.

And as my performance changed, so did my skin.

It thickened, for one thing.

(
YouTube can kiss my ass!
)

It also changed color.

(No, seriously.)

Green pigment, you see, when applied to pasty part-Irish skin, is like grape juice on a carpet. No matter how much I scrubbed, the green would never
quite
come out. From my put-in to a month after I would play Elphaba for the last time, my face gave off a sickening, almost fluorescent glow, while impossible-to-reach patches clung around my ears and hairline, weathering even my best Q-Tip assaults.

In short, I was a giant coffee-stained tooth, if coffee were green and teeth were shaped like people.

It was a vicious cycle, too, because every time I got close to looking normal I’d get called back into the show—and the greenifying would commence.

“I look like one of those
Toy Story
alien things.”

“I agree.”

“You’re not supposed to agree, you’re supposed to tell me I look beautiful.”

While non-company members usually weren’t allowed backstage after half-hour, Marshall got to watch me in my Elphaba dressing room before my put-in, where he proceeded to snap photos and agree that, yes, with a matte green finish and a wig cap pulled across my volleyball head, I looked positively Martian.

“Or maybe it’s more like a sea creature,” he said, clicking away.

It was hard to believe that this greenifying ritual would have to occur every time I went onstage but, as time told, such was the deal.

Each performance, week after week, our routine began with Elphaba dresser Kathleen—preparing my makeup, turning on my two humidifiers, and retrieving my black undergarments and green mesh jumpsuit. She’d place them next to my lukewarm (by request) water bottle and Entertainer’s Secret throat spray which, together with the cardboard box I stored under the counter (with toothbrush, toothpaste, contact solution, lozenges, extra set of contacts, and deodorant) comprised my Elphaba First Aid Kit.

As the second hand ticked its way to half-hour I would scramble to get prepped in time. During these moments, while I placed my tote in the corner, hung my street clothes on a hook, and swiftly brushed my teeth, I felt kind of like an intruder. Or like I was squatting in someone else’s vacation home. (Mustn’t track in sand or rearrange the furniture!) Because while I was Elphaba for a day, I knew Eden would be returning soon for her extended stay.

And I would get shipped back downstairs, miles from the sun and surf.

During my cautious preparations, many people freely walked in and out of the dressing room—sometimes knocking, sometimes not. These included wardrobe people, cast members, and
Where’s Waldo
Steve, who came to warn me every time he conducted.

“Need anything from me?” he would ask.

“Just, uh, conduct away!” I would reply.

And there was Libby, of course, who would usually peek in for a friendly hello before returning to the basement to work on her Christmas puzzle.

All the activity was in good spirit, but I often wished I could have some pre-show alone time to get my head on straight; as a standby, I sometimes had to go on as Elphaba without having performed it for weeks. But since interruption was the rule, not the exception, I adapted—being sure to (1) warm up, (2) go Number Two, and (3) consume obligatory banana beforehand, all in the comforts of my own apartment.