Love Bomb

"Oh, merry goes the time when the heart is young,
There is naught too hard a climb when the heart is young
A spirit of delight
Scatters roses in her flight
And there's magic in the night--when the heart is young."

-Charles Swain

Detail of the mural in the theater entitled: "Comedy Staying the Hand of Tragedy". (Note the bauble in Comedy's hand)

Yes! When the heart is young. Luckily there are plenty of young hearts to be found in the summer company at Monmouth this year. And for the first two weeks, while becoming acclimated to the new surroundings, the stirrings of butterflies and fluttering of cupid's wings were mostly silent. But after a long week of rehearsing, and the promise of an evening of beer pong, the seeds had been planted . . .

. . . and those seeds bore fruit not three hours after sowing. The majority of the company had retired to their various domiciles after dinner to freshen up and procure libations, and then reassembled at the Grange (our dining hall) to begin the evening, sipping wine and telling stories. The group became larger and larger, until someone finally suggested we trek up the hill to the scene shop to see if the aforementioned game of beer pong had started yet.

So it was, with great merriment, that we headed to the shop with drinks in tow. And upon our arrival found the rest of the company in full festivity: cases of beer, mountains of potato chips, and a giant table in the center of the shop, where the epic game of Beer Pong was being played.

(for the sake of everyone's honor, the players in this romantic farce will henceforth remain nameless. Love is, after all, thankfully blind.)

This game, which usually amounts to no more diversion than that of a quarter hour, had somehow lengthened to the upper reaches of absurdity, and was going-on forty-five minutes in length. The crowd around the table was either deeply invested or profoundly disinterested in the game, both parties using it as an excuse to indulge in more rounds of fortified wheat/fruit juice.

At last the contentious game had drawn its inevitable conclusion, with winners, losers and both sides more than a little in their cups. It was at this point that some of us noticed a certain attrition in the revelers . . . the scene shop was only half full.

"Quickly to the picnic table!" Thought I, as I made my way out of the shop into the tense night air. There was a storm brewing, and the night would not long stay dry. As the party (or what was left of it) moved out to the table, I thought I saw two figures steal into the theater a hundred yards across the street. Could it be? Or was it just a trick of the night, playing games on my unglassed eyes?


As I struggled to discern who might have entered the theater, a light rain began to fall and I heard a rustling from the bushes behind and to the right of our vantage point, and saw a couple absconding into the night behind the building. Before I could decipher their identities . . . BAM! Like a thunderbolt two drunken revelers burst out of the scene shop doors, racing across the street full tilt and over the parking lot towards the theater. Neck and neck, they were making for the theater doors (where the first couple had disappeared) and just before reaching it, one of the runners slipped on the slick asphalt and face-planted in the ground.

(SCREECH! the record comes to a halt)

Everyone at the picnic table held their breath, until a hand was raised from the asphalt, a cry of: "I'm good!" went up and the couple stole (albeit at a more relaxed pace) hand in hand into the theater, as another couple slid out of the theater and into the woods beyond. Before we could make out who that was, another young company member came skipping out of yet another door of the theater (Moliere anyone?) wearing a mile-wide-smile and sat with us at the table. We asked her what she had been up to, she only grinned wider and then tore back towards the theater, where she disappeared again, as yet ANOTHER couple came out of the doors, finally to rest on the picnic table with us.

And at this, the storm finally broke. Rain cascaded around us as we made our way back inside, amazed at the panoply of pairs that had paraded from the portal before us.

Thus the great Love Bomb of Midsummer was dropped on the Theater at Monmouth.

I guess all that rehearsing and memorizing had worked everybody up to a boiling point. The steam was certainly let out. It made for a very raucous night, and a very quiet Monday, with most of the company sleeping it off.

And now, on to our next installment of:

ACTOR VS. NATURE


The Story of the Cheeky Chipmunk
by: Master B. Douglas Bell, Esq.
"Wednesday afternoon I was coming back in from rehearsal to relax a bit before dinner. I retired to my bedroom and was idly surfing the web, letting the 1's and 0's ease me into a lull of delicious post-work-day glazed-eyeness.

I had been at my computer but moments when I detected movement in my room behind and above me. I turned and caught a flash of brown fur and a bushy tail zipping into the exposed pipes above my night stand. I noticed there was a section of the pipe-covering missing and a conspicuous hole into the ceiling that I had not noticed before. I crept over to the pipe covering and gave it a solid kick, and ZOOM! A squirrel shot out of the top of the pipes and into the hole in the ceiling. Another dutiful kick to the wall and I heard him scurrying across the ceiling and away. My accommodations suddenly seemed a lot more rustic than I had at first accounted them.

Well, at least it was a squirrel, I thought, and not a rat. Squirrels are playful and cute, as opposed to disease-ridden and terrifying. So there's that. I figured I would just plug the hole in the ceiling, and then he would not be able to get back in. Problem solved, both of us would be none the worse.

It was then that I turned around, and noticed some bits of foil on the rug next to my bed. They seemed to lead in a trail around the foot of my bed, to the other side of the night stand. The pieces of foil increased in size, until I could plainly read: "Lindt &----" on one of them . . . and recognized the foil as belonging to the Lindt & Sprüngli speciality chocolate bar my loving parents had sent me for my birthday not three days since. Behind the night stand I found its' remains: the foil ravaged and naught but two dime-sized pieces of squirrel-chewn chocolate and an odd hazelnut left of what was once my birthday confection.

" O SQUIRREL! THOU VILLAIN! THOU SHALT PAY FOR THIS INDIGNITY!!!!!!"

I screamed in the night. I immediately took my problem to one Dennis Price: Company Manager, Pied Piper of Monmouth and Bane of Rodents Everywhere. Together we hatched a a high, swift, terrible plan: a cunningly laid rat trap (for that's what the squirrel had become, a rat! A RAT I SAY!!!), beschmeared with peanut butter, left below the pipe-covering with which to slay the beast.

The next day, after having left my door closed, lights off, trap waiting all morning, I returned before lunch, and through a crack in the door espied the squirrel (O Monstrous Creature!!) perched atop the pipe covering, sniffing the air. He had caught the scent of the peanut butter! The trap was laid, and after ten minutes of watching the beast taste the air, I slowly retreated, confident that by suppertime we would have evidence of our plan's success.

But upon my return that evening, what did I find? The room was silent, the squirrel was nowhere to be found and the trap . . . had been cleared of peanut butter!!!!! There was a small smudge left on the trigger, but the trap had not been sprung! O Dissembling Vermin! O Spite of Fortune! The Beast had beat us at our own game. And yet, there was still some peanut butter left on the trap. Shaking my fist in rage at the hole in my ceiling, I retreated again from the room, and closed the door tight.

That evening we rehearsed for the Black Fly Follies, the company's annual variety show which was to go up Saturday night. The rehearsal went well and it promised to be a great show. My heart lightened, I returned to that melancholy vale where I reside, resolute to accept the shame and mockery that this miserable mammal was visiting on me, and to pass yet another night in my squirrel-infested-quarters. I switched on the light and threw open the door . . . . and in the naked fluorescence before me I beheld the trap overturned and a bushy brown tail jutting out from underneath. Tentatively I poked the trap, eliciting no response. At this I knew, the squirrel was no more. Having triumphantly conquered fate the first time, he was unable to resist the peanut butter's siren call. And it had been his undoing.

Thus with a heavy heart, I enshrouded my old foe in plastic and deposited him in the garbage outside. The next day Dennis Price used spray foam to cover the hole in the pipes in my room. I am now resting more easily having survived my own bout with nature. It is not always pretty, but like the heron, we must rise above; and soldier on."



Ahh yes: the wonders of the natural world. Saturday night it was back to the wonders of the theatrical world, as we put up the Black Fly Follies to great success. Many company members were able to showcase different talents that they would otherwise not have a chance to share. There were Liz's songs on guitar, Donte's spoken word poetry, and a very memorable Old Spice parody by the incomparable Mark Cartier. I told a story about my time in Berlin, and Annie's character 'Emily Baines' (an intensely awkward British girl, who could rival any character on SNL) was a riot. There were duets sung and Beethoven played and in addition to the comic moments, a very poignant spoken-word piece by James about his father (the text of some of his poetry can be read here.)

It was a great night, and a great opportunity for us to perform for each other, and get a low-key night in front of an audience in the theater before we open our first show, next week. To that end, I'm off to rehearsal!

Commending you to your own content,

BBell