In God's Office

It was an interesting Sunday for yr hmbl srvnt. Earlier this year my Lady Wife and I went up to check out the Festival of Short Plays at the Kid's university. She was directing one (which was brilliant) but we also saw another show that jumped out at us. The Kid and I both instantly wanted to do it for the home congregation.

The show is "In God's Office" by Damian Trasler, a 10 minute piece that revolves around a delivery man who walks into, you guessed it, God's Office. What grabbed me was that the playwright managed to combine some funny bits with some uncomfortable, shift in your seat moments into a very nice complete short piece. We decided to give it a spin by having the kid play God. A 21 year old young woman dressed with a slight hippy flair.

She was brilliant.

To be honest I was a little nervous. Since the mid-80's I've only done a couple pieces of theater and I worry a little about my ability to memorize lines. Not that it was ever a problem and it isn't now. I just like to worry about stuff. I actually learned all my lines in less than two weeks time and did a pretty good job of getting them all out in the right order and using the words that Mr. Trasler had so carefully chosen. (Note: Damian is English, living in Canada. His dialogue reads like "English" English rather than "American" English. So we took a few liberties and changed some small bits so we didn't sound like utter yutzes. We hope the author will forgive us).

We got laughs in all the right places, congratulations all round and even a "Bravo" from the local newspaper's longtime theater critic who just happens to be a member of the congregation.

So, yeah, it felt good.

It also means the Kid and I can check one item off our "Bucket List" since we've talked about performing together for a long time now. I'd certainly look forward to working with her again. She finds my pre-performance butterflies rather comical in an annoying sort of way.

Of course it didn't occur to me until the time had come (we did this in place of the sermon) that we'd never actually vetted the script with the clergy! They didn't ask either it should be noted. So they were going on total trust that they wouldn't have a lot of 'splainin' to do afterwards. Don't think that will be a problem.

So that's the last of the "big projects" for the summer. I'll probably take a couple days off this week. Time for the Kid to go back to college for one. Dad's always needed when there's heavy lifting around...

Peace