The odd-ition, part 2

Happy Tuesday morning, friends. This might not mean anything to some of you, but every single time I call you "friends," I think of Vin Scully, the voice of the Dodgers. He calls us "friends," and I honestly think he means it. I mean it too, but it helps that I actually know most of you. Enough with that, let's get back to the story I began yesterday.

As a minor recap, I joined my friends Jon and Margot on an audition for a show that was supposed to be like Monty Python. After much ado, we found the place and met the guy leading the thing ("Jerry"). He walked us through a couple of his ideas for the show, and they were far, far away from what we had expected. Everyone still on board? Great.

In the comments section yesterday, my mom asked if I then got up and left the audition. Oh no, mother, that would've been rude and reflected poorly upon my family. I would never bring dishonor and shame to the Klein clan like that. Also, I wasn't the one who drove there. So we all stayed there, smiling and nodding, pretending to the best of our abilities that Jerry's ideas were super awesome ones. He clapped his hands and broke us up into pairs for "an activity." I was praying that the activity wouldn't be praying, and I was right. Jon was my partner, and Jerry handed us photocopies of a two-person scene from a compilation book. He told everyone that we had the next five minutes to practice these scenes privately before we were to do them in front of the group.

We randomly selected who would be which character and read through it aloud. The first thing we noticed was that it was a very serious scene and as un-Monty Python as his "Baggage and the Lord" example. I don't remember what play it was from, but I remember it having something to do with the military because I think my character's name was something like "Sarge." I give off a strong, military, drill-sergeant vibe naturally, so this was a good fit. After running through it a few times, Jerry announced with great pleasure that it was time to perform.

A man and a woman went up to the front and started acting out their scene. When they were almost done with the scene, Jerry cut them off in the middle of a sentence. "No, no, no," he said. He walked up on the makeshift stage. "It should be more like this," he said, and he took the photocopies out of the guy's hands. He then proceeded to do the same scene with the woman, but injecting as much "man-I'm-a-serious-actor" vibe as possible into every line. When it was over, he looked up at all of us with a little smile as if to say, "Yes, that's how it's done."

The next two went up, and the same thing happened. Jerry took over, channeled Shatner, and showed us the real way to act. I had the distinct impression that he'd spent a lot of time reading both parts aloud in his bedroom. Whether that bedroom was in his parents' house was still up for debate. Then it was time for me and Jon to perform. We read our scene, and Jerry watched intently. We got all the way through it without interruption, and he made some comment about how we really needed to commit more to the characters. We did it again with a little more feeling (i.e. imitating him), and he just sort of shrugged and called the next group.

This went on for a while, with Jerry inserting himself into the majority of the scenes to teach us the right way to do things. I stuck it out, waiting for the chance to break into some improv games or do some comedic scenes, since I thought that would be more relevant to the premise of the show. That never happened though. Instead, he said, "Ok, that's it. So just write your names and phone numbers on that piece of paper over there and I'll call you guys."

I wandered over to the line, confused and wondering how that was all he needed from us. Jon was in front of me in line, and we were carefully avoiding making eye contact, for that would've been enough to make us bust up laughing. When I got to the sheet, I saw that Jon had given a fake last name. I think he was afraid that "Lichtenstein" sounded a little too Jew-y. I put my real information down, but I'm not entirely sure why. As Margot, Jon, and I walked to the door, Jerry stopped us and thanked us for coming. "I really think we have a good group here," he said with an eerie smile. "Yeah, this is going to be good. I'll call you all." We politely thanked him for the opportunity and walked out of the Reality Room.

Margot's white Explorer was only 20 feet away, but I found myself saying aloud, "Hold it in until you get in the car; just hold it in, we're almost there." We almost broke into a run for the last five feet, unable to hold it in much longer. As soon as the car doors slammed, we all erupted into variations of "What the fuck was that?" The ride home (and the rest of the day), we took turns imitating Jerry's serious acting and re-telling his ideas for sketches. I must have pantomimed putting baggage on Jon a hundred times that day, and it never got old.

Neither Margot nor I ever heard anything from Jerry. If I had to guess, I'd say that no one from the group ever did. I think it's entirely possible that he was just a lonely guy who thought he might have an in with some public access station. He used that hope to bring people in and show off his acting skills, only to have nothing ever materialize from it. Either that or he was a serial killer and we narrowly escaped with our lives. One of those two.

That's my brush with potential fame, gentle readers. It was strange and very awkward, but those things also tend to be memorable. I hope you enjoyed, friends. Got anything you want to share with me? If so, ptklein@gmail.com is the place to do it. See you tomorrow.