Red Letter Weekend

Originally posted on www.cbtheatre.org

Of all the reasons I have to love being involved with this show, this week provided me with far more than I could have anticipated.

Friday’s performance included our first Special Guest Star in the person of Brian Babylon who is, among other things, a comic, a radio host, and a regular panelist on Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me. The guest star’s role is to say the line that kicks off the giant brawl in the first act (a line I would say otherwise). This amended our entire fight call rehearsal as we worked Brian into the scene and made sure he could stand on stage and not get punched.

Live theatre is affected by the energy provided by its audience, so of course it was altered in a different way to have another actor join us on stage. My first concern was that I would forget to not say my line, but that turned out not to be a problem. Brian was constantly in my line of sight up to that point, and the training I’ve had as an actor is to notice and be affected by everything that comes into my senses. I was actually a little embarrassed to have been concerned; everything came off without a hitch, and it was wonderful to have our performance fed by another performer.

He even altered (though slightly) a later scene he wasn’t in. In the second act a fight scene takes place between VreD and his wife, and a moment comes with no clear winner. At some point last week I started saying the words (meaning not yet, not yet) during that moment. It became a decent joke partly because it reflects the fact that none of the observers have a clear idea who won the fight, but also because the word (pronounced “wedge”) sounds a bit like “wait”. It’s a moment that brings the audience a step closer to the performance because they don’t need a written translation to understand the word’s meaning. Because of Brian’s association with Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me, our stage manager suggested I then add the word (don’t speak). Since no one in the audience that night was fluent in Klingon it was a joke just for us, but totally worth it.

The joke would have been caught the following night, however.

Saturday’s performance was attended by a few fluent Klingon speakers, who are local and non-local members of the Klingon Language Institute. For this reason the cast was particularly on our toes about pronunciation; they don’t need to read the supertitles for the translation, after all. As if that wasn’t enough of a reason to put on our best performance, Dr. Marc Okrand – inventor of the Klingon language – was in attendance as well.

After the show (which was a matinee) we went to dinner at a spectacular Ethiopian restaurant with Dr. Okrand and the fluent speakers, which was the first time I got to spend significant social time with any of them since we’d met at the annual KLI meeting back in August. It was such a delight to be in their company again, and later that evening the whole crew saw a whole other side of me. My burlesque troupe performed a late night Christmas show with Dr. Okrand and the KLI in attendance.
As if it weren’t nerdy enough performing a play in Klingon in front of the man who invented Klingon and fluent speakers of Klingon, the following morning we all went to see The Hobbit together. There was a trailer for Star Trek Into Darkness, and we all cheered and applauded. After the movie it was off to a Pan-Asian restaurant for lunch, and Dr. Okrand delighted us with the story of how he became involved in creating the language. I can only hope the remainder of my career will allow me to speak of it with as much joy and enthusiasm as he obviously takes in his own work.

All of these experiences alone would have been enough to make this weekend memorable for a lifetime, but there was one other person whose presence made it truly special – my oldest friend.
We’ve known one another for eighteen years now. When I found him I found not only a friend, but someone to walk with me as a fan of Star Trek. We watched TNG and DS9 and Voyager together, and have compared it with other sci-fi and fantasy franchises we’ve come to experience. We’ve discussed and debated the points of plot and character and idealism that made the Star Trek canon what it is. Being a part of A Klingon Christmas Carol is special to me for so many reasons, and this weekend I was visited by the one man who has always understood just how much it means to be involved. His understanding reflects and deepens my joy and passion for the project in a way nothing else really could. And, of course, he got all the Trek in-jokes.

It’s been a great week.