The Curious Savage by John Patrick (1990-91 Fall)
September 9^th, 2003

In this play, I had the most fun. It was easier to do, as the costume changes only took place over the breaks in the action. My character played the violin...horrifically...while other characters on stage pretended to like it.
And, whenever the curtain fell, we could take a leisurely pace getting ready for our next entrances. I just can't get over that aspect! The costume changes in The Dining Room were tough, man!
In this one, I played a patient at a … well … as the playwright put it … “Home.” The idea of this play was to show the audience how the world outside of an “asylum” can be saner than life on the outside, and how the people on the inside are nicer!
The story centers a lady, Mrs. Savage, whose rich husband has died. He left her his entire fortune, and three grown step-children.
After the death of her husband, Mrs. Savage decides to embark on all the silly, impulsive things she had missed out on while being a housewife. While doing some of these things (and spending a great deal of the estate in the process) she decides to set up a fund which will give money to people who “have a desparate need to be foolish.”
The three children fear that their father’s entire estate will be liquidated through this fund. In fact, Mrs. Savage had already locked a good portion of the estate in cash bonds, and hid them in a secret place (much to her step-children’s chagrin.
In order to get the bonds back, and save the estate so they may divide it up amongst themselves, the children have their step-mother put in a place called the Cloisters.

I played a character named Hannibal. And, yes…this was after the Silence of the Lambs. My castmates were constantly ribbing me over that, and I …err… ate it up.
“And, what does human flesh taste like, Hannibal?” I remember someone asking.
“Chicken,” I replied. It was one of those times I got a big laugh from a simple, one word response. I remember there being a section of a movie that spoofed the Silence of the Lambs where the cannibal character gave that same response. I’m thankful I had seen that movie, or else I would not have had a response ready. (I think that movie is “Loaded Weapon 1,” but I haven’t seen it since, and I’m not certain if that’s part of the movie. I could be getting it confused with something else.)

As far as the behind the scenes stuff went, I remember this one going off without a hitch. In other words, totally boring after the fact, completely intense as we were going through it. Everything was where it needed to be, and if there were any miscues, we were actually quick enough to cover for each other. This cast had worked together in large part in the previous play, so we all pretty much knew each other’s personalities, and therefore how to react to spur memories of where we were in the script.
In fact, the only miscue that I remember in this play was during a scene in which I wasn’t involved. The children had in turn tried to get their step-mother to tell them where she had hidden the bonds. She told them each very different, and very public places in which the bonds were hidden. They each made total fools of themselves, one of them even wound up injured, and all three made headlines in newspapers for their insane attempts at finding this lost bounty.
When the Savages came back to visit their step-mother, they all stand in a doorway glaring at her. The two actors and actress were wrapped up in the moment. Their body language was absolutely perfect…facial expressions were priceless…but someone had a line to be spoken. They held their positions, and expressions for several beats too long, until one of them hissed the line “Can see what you’ve DONE?” very loudly.
I’ve just looked over my old script. That line isn’t even in there…but it went with the tension of that moment perfectly, and the lines, as they were written, started to flow once more.

Sometimes I wonder what was going on in our director’s mind at moments like that. I never got the chance to ask. One of these days, if providence intervenes and I get the opportunity, I would love to ask her what she felt as we blew our lines…even if the audience noticed or not.