Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Nose cut!

This was the time when I got a nose cut on stage in front of a huge audience! Well..... its not exactly a NOSE CUT. I would call it a "nose fall"! :P But one thing is for sure, I still laugh at the incident each time I think about it! In fact, today morning for some reason, I was thinking about it in the shower and bursted out laughing! (the poor girls who had come to brush their teeth must have got the shock of their lives on hearing this mad girl laughing unontrollably in the bathroom!)

It all started when I agreed to act in a play with smrithi. This was about a month before my 9th standard school annual day. What she had in mind was basically a modified version of the Mad Tea party that Alice attends in "alice in wonderland". She needed a narrator for the play. I accepted it thinking, "ah well.... Its only the role of a narrator. Its not like I am going to have some elaborate costume like the rest of the characters. I'll be fine." I was in for a big surprise.

Smrithi comes up to me and tells me that she doesn't want a "plain and boring" narrator. The narrator has to be like a character in the play. Not just someone who walks up in formals and reads out a few lines. The narrator should act. I should have known this was coming. I remember that every play that smrithi directed, had a special narrator who was almost like a character in the play. She once made the narrator act like a granny who was telling a true story from the past in a comical way. It was always about humour with her. But with me, she took humour to a new level.

I became a clown. A clown narrator. A narrator who was supposed to clown around. A funny clown narrator. (Did I mention that I was the narrator and that I had to act like a clown??)

Practice sessions were not too bad. I didn't mind acting like a clown. In fact my clowning around added a few interesting things in the play. We managed to make the introductions of the students in the play quite funny. It all started when my tongue slipped and I introduced myself like this..

And finally, The clown as Macho girl!!!!!!!

Yeah you guessed it right. Thats how they wanted me to introduce myself.
We used to practice in our school uniforms, so I hardly looked any different when compared to the rest. But then... one fine day... we all had to go and rent our costumes. The moment has arrived :|

Selecting costumes for a play maybe energy consuming. But it is loads and loads and loads of fun. Especially when you take all the characters with you to the shop to try out the costumes. We selected a nice gown for the girl playing Alice and a wig, a rock star costume for our modified Mad hatter (the pants were a nice, bright and shiny pink!), a witch's costume for a character we had added and a few other things. The clown part came only at the end.

The shop keeper searched a few shelves for a clown costume.... And he found one...........

It was not pink (thank GOD). It was a colourful mixture of red and yellow with bells hanging around. It was actually a cute costume. I liked it. I wouldn't have minded just wearing those funny pants and shirt and walking on stage. But the others wanted "the works". (*insert silent scream from me*)

I had a choice for "accessories". I had to either wear a funny orange wig (the "bald clown" type of wig) OR i could wear a clown's hat (no wig) and a big red nose. Now that was a tough choice. I wanted neither! All the other characters wanted to see me in the ridiculous orange wig. But I... I wanted the red nose!!! So the red nose it was!

My nose was not for rent. (ok... that was a weird statement). We had to buy it. It was a spherical sponge like thingy which you could just press on top of your nose. It costed just Rs.5. So I bought it. We were all set to perform on the big stage.

On D-Day, everyone has fun painting my face white, green and a bit of red. Everybody has fun commenting on my shoes (I had painted my white canvas school shoes quite nicely with splashes of red, yellow, green and blue). And everyone had fun taking turns in wearing my nose (another weird statement :|). Before I knew it, it was time for us to go on stage.

I enter the spotlight. I am the opening act for the play.

My lines were no big deal. I had acted in tons of plays before. So I confidently acted like a clown. Then something unexpected happpens.

My nose falls off! In the middle of my lines, I am standing on stage with my nose in my hand!

I was on stage. This was no time to blush for me. Making full use of the fact that I was supposed to be a clown anyways, I added an extra line (while silently cursing all the people who played around with my nose before the play and made it loose).....

Oops! My darn nose fell off again! Guess I'll have to fix it later!


I could hear people backstage (who were in other plays and dances), whispering to each other "was that supposed to happen??" I was extremely grateful that I had a ton of white paint on my face and nobody could see it turn red.

The play was quite a success and went on without any major flaws. My nose was quite a hot topic that evening! :D

Till this day I laugh at my famous "nose-fall" incident. I could have picked the wig.. But no... I had to complicate matters. Well.. good for me! The very thought of incident always brings a smile on my face :) It reminds me of the time when I was being my natural self...

The day I unleashed the clown within..... muahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!

6 comments:

Anusha said...

Clown, indeed! How fitting! :P

//I could have picked the wig.. But no... I had to complicate matters.

Oh, but c'mon! An orange wig? I'd take the falling nose over that any day!! And plus...what excuse would you have been able to make if your wig had fallen off? Huh? Think about that! ;)

Anonymous said...

aiyo so malu!!!! [notice the usage of Singlish ;) ] clueless is right, i would've picked the nose too! i'd rather have a red nose than be fakely bald w an unnatural hair colour :p but then again, maybe you could have taken BOTH the wig and the nose and left out the hat! i love those little incidents that make you smile to yourself. Life would be so boring without them :D
word verification: kcxmwrhb
i hope that's the coded msg that means i will receive lots of money from RHB bank (a Malaysian bank) soon ;)

Macho Girl said...

#clueless
I know.. orange wig is a bit weird. But what the heck! I was a clown in the play!!! Had to do something funny!!! ;)

dunno what i wud have done if my wig fell off... *deep thought*

#ann@
Yeah lah!!! I was so malu-ated!!! Paiseh ya.. i dunno good singlish yet. Relac lah sister!!! (ok.. i think i better stop now!)

Both wig and the nose??? Hmm...... orange wig, red nose and colourful shoes..... So much for good fashion sense ;)

I enjoy these little incidents too!! Can turn boring days to interesting ones! (especially when u start laughing in the shower then realize that there are other ppl too in the bathroom! so malu!!!)

abt ur word verification... if it is some code saying that u will get lots of money soon, will i get a share? i don't want much.. just say... about... enough money to buy myself a nice merc ;)

Anonymous said...

appu..
hahaha.. i know those were the days! i was so embarassed with my pink pants that people thought i had pink powder on my face :D
but then we had fun those days.. didnt u think?i even have those snaps.. will never forget them!

Macho Girl said...

#smrithi
Hey! Long time!

yeah. those WERE the days. I miss them quite a bit. Whether our skits flopped or were smashing hits, i ALWAYS enjoyed all the goofy things that went on before the performance! Practice sessions were hilarious! *sigh*. I miss those days....

U in pink pants.. thats something that will be etched in my memory forever! How often do u get to see smrithi in pink pants???????????? ;)

Anonymous said...

trust me gurl.. NEVER EVER EVER AGAIN WIL I WEAR PANTS LIKE THOSE :)))))