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David Mitchell
Okay, Bonnie Jonas dared me to tell this one. I think this was junior year??? And I hope this is the way she remebered it - jump in here girl if I miss anything.
(Just bear in mind that I don't think anyone could ever accuse Bonnie of being "understated" in her style and manor. And although restricted to a uniform, she could come up with some pretty exotic accesssories - like two huge plastic butterfly hair pins that stuck out from her head a few inches.)
So, our class play was to be "Pride and Predjudice". One day sister Constantious caught me by my locker and pushed me up against it with her finger in my chest. In a very demanding voice she said, "I didn't see you out for the class play tryouts?".
"N, n, no sister, you didn't". Then with an angry glare right up in my grill, "And why not young man?" "Well sister, uh, I wasn't intending to go out for the play in the first place." "Young man, I'll see you at tomorrow's play tryouts, or else! Do you understand me?" "Y, Yesss Sister!"
So I show up and it was almost immediately apparrent that she had me already cast in the role of Mr. Darcy. And she also made it clear that I didn't have much choice in the matter, so I sheepishly gave in and accepted my sentence. Meanwhile I think she had already come to the same conclusion about Bonnie as Elizabeth Bennet, the oldest of the five daughters, and my romantic opposite. (Am I right here Bonnie?)
Problem: There is a scene where I was going to have to kiss Elizabeth (Bonnie), and I didn't want to kiss Elizabeth (or Bonnie) and the entire cast and stage crew soon realized it. Furthermore, Sister explained that we could not actually do a real romantic kiss on the lips (Certainly not between two "Catholic school children" in front of a live audience. No, Sir-ee! ) So Sister comes up with this awkward technique where we have to stand at a precise angle to the audience and wrap our heads around each other just so, and it would look like a kiss to the audience.
So we get to the first time in practice where the actual kiss is coming, and Sister is going into great detail about how we needed to position ourselves in this odd manuever, and everybody was watching with great anticipation. Just as we got our necks close to the "position" I got a nasty poke in the eye from one of Bonnie's big plastic butterflies and went sprawling on the stage in real pain. Everybody burst out laughing! Even Sister was covering her mouth to hide her laughter. I was in severe pain and not at all amused.
Somehow we got through this and went on to do three nights. BTW, on the third night (with my Mom and Dad in the fourth or fifith row) I completely went blank on one of my lines. Standing front stage all alone and Sister behind the nearest curtain whipsering my lines - and I still could'nt get it! Finally she literally yells out my line and I repeated it and went on. But the humiliation doesn't end there.
At the time, Bonnie was a patient of my dad's and a regular visitor to his office (where I worked part time in back-room clerical tasks). To Dad's partners and nurses, I was practiaclly their adopted child, and they also adored Bonnie. When they got wind of the story they started creating their own rumor of my romance with "Madame Butterfly". Every time I'd go into Dad's office they would ask, "how's Madame Butterfly?" It must have taken a year to live that down. To this day I cannot think of Bonnie without a chuckle - and that damned Butterfly in my eye.
--- Spoken with a snobby English accent - "I caant abide the countryside, One moves in such, mmm, limited company". Love ya Bon (er, I mean, Miss Elizabeth)
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