About last night....

So last night was the first night of present laughter... Well let's just say I'm still alive. I think it's fair to say that noel coward's script was fairly butchered! So this is what the main reason for this disaster was, people, fundamentally didn't know their lines. Not putting the blame on anyone but the main character is Gary Essendine and he carries the show and his lines were dropped. Not just one or two but pages! THat just messed up everyone else's queues and fucked it up basically. We all laughed it off because we all did forget lines, but really I have never been so terrified to go on stage in my entire acting life! My first scene, second and third were fine. It wasn't until act 3 that it all went tits up! My scene involves intimate dialogue with Gary Essendine and so when he dropped lines and queues in the first 3 mins and forgot to ring his wife then it just settled into crippling silence!!! Crippling, like pullin teeth! He rambled and asked me a question which wasnt to be asked until the end of my scene!! And i actually said the words i dont know!! On stage! In character came the words "well, i dont know". I couldnt imput anything because I was totally lost when his lines and even intention in the scene was lost and I didn't know where to go! It was awful until he copped on and rang his wife. Then my Braun clicked into action. I made my memory come back and I was on track! I just Went into a monologue because I knew he was totally lost and would just drop he ball of he whole scene so monologue it was and I felt so relieved when his wife enters because we knew we could pick it back up from the floor, from those dreadful silences and from the sadist dentist room floor on which were all the metaphorical teeth I plucked in my silence!!! So tonight, we go on. And I'm terrified! Honestly. I'm about to Do a line run with the cast and I'm hoping we all know our lines and our queues!!! All in all the play although adlibbed quite a bit, the story was not lost and apparently the show was not that bad. We pulled it off despite the slip ups. It also didn't help that it was the first night of Caberet was on at the same time so we had 6 people in the audience! So it just went pear shaped from the start but for our first run on the set and with lights and sound so we did well considering... Anyway tonight should run smoothly! Wish us luck!!