Fred speaks Frankly

Hiya, chums!

As you know, me and Jack have been rehearsing our socks off for our big Fringe Festival show, The Case of the Limping Platypus! We’re having a swell time learning all the tricks and trades of play acting but to be honest a few of the things we learned sort of shocked us.  So I thought I’d warn you about some stuff ahead of time just in case you’ve never seen a real live play before.

For starters, play actors aren’t very good looking.  Not in comparison to actors you see on TV or in the movies.  I don’t mean they’re ugly or anything, just… average.  Or maybe a hair below average.  The only exception being Mr. Weinhagen and Mr. Scrimshaw.  They look real bad.  Sort of pale and sickly like Hobo Johnny that time Jack and me found him huffing spray paint on the catwalk of the Old Grain Belt Beer Sign.  I guess it’s no wonder play actors don’t get paid much.  Assuming they get paid at all!

Another thing is plays are really, really fake.  Sometimes the sets are made out of cardboard and painted using  ”artistic license” which is just a nice way of saying they don’t look like anything you’d see in the real world.  Sometimes plays don’t even have sets.  For example, in our show, we just have  three big blocks.    The actors rearrange them between scenes to trick the audience into thinking the characters are in a new location even though it’s obvious the actors just took one block away and tipped the other one on its side.  I asked Mr. Weinhagen about this and he told me it was “the magic of theater”.  Sounds a little shady to me. In one scene we’re supposed to be in a cave but instead of just changing the blocks around they dimmed the lights a little to make it more spooky.  I thought that worked a lot better.  It’s neat to look at plus it’s harder to see the actors’ faces which, like I said before, aren’t all that hot.

Tonight I have a stage combat rehearsal.  That’s right, fighting in plays is fake too!   At our last rehearsal I asked Mr. Scrimshaw why we couldn’t just hit each other for real.  As offical amateur detectives, Jack and me get punched all the time.  In the face, in the ear, kidneys, ribcage, even in the funny place we don’t talk about.  It’s no big deal.  Mr. Scrimshaw got real mad and started yelling about how he “can’t work like this!”  Mr. Weinhagen had to take him outside for one of their talks and, well, that was pretty much the end of rehearsal.

Anyway, I hope you’ll all come see our show!  I think you’ll really like it!

Sincerely,

Fred

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