Tales From The Chalkface

As my figure, identity and sense of humour spiral down the toilet of middle age, I can at least report a few  LOL moments from school of late.

The first one concerns some plates.

On a chilly Friday morning, having been absent from my place for work for approximately 24 hours (yes, I do have a day off....theoretically), I was greeted by an extremely anxious older teacher with the news that I was supposed to be doing a play reading with her at lunchtime.

Now usually, I have a fair idea of what I am expected to be doing on any given day at any time so this came at me from left field. I rapidly rifled through the card catalogue of my mind (hat tip to Megan) and  wondered if she was going the way of all 'oldies' and basically forgetting what she had been told?  There are, after all, a number of people with the same   or similar names to mine in our workplace; surely she had the wrong person? And yet, at the back of my mind I knew this was an appropriate question to ask me. My very, good friend, the Drama Teacher, has worked with me before in a semi professional capacity so I knew it was the kind of thing she might ask me to do. But surely she would have asked me in advance?

Deciding that it was a case of mistaken identity, I left the confused older teacher and headed back to my room to start the day. However, as Drama Teacher stuck her sheepish and giggling head around my door jamb, I knew there had been no misunderstanding.

"I'm sorry I didn't warn you," she laughed at my confusion, "I forgot you weren't in yesterday..."

So, exactly what did this 'reading' require?  I wondered.
Drama Teacher filled me in. Two of her Year 12s were stuck on a scene for their upcoming production. Her answer was to give them some other people to 'look at' doing the scene. Curly and I were the appointed two. Sheesh! No pressure then!!

My biggest problem was that I was scheduled to see WildBoy for his weekly 1:1 slot at roughly the same time. As he has been doing really well lately, I decided that I could reasonably invite him along as the 'audience'. I was pretty sure he would be excited by the privilege. Friday morning saw Wild Boy and I heading down to the drama centre to do the play reading. He was pumped! The idea of someone like a teacher playing the part of...anything...was hilarious! He chuckled non-stop all the way to the performance space.

The year 12 students were delightful. They gave us scripts and explained that they were going to do the scene for us first. It seemed they were 'blocked' and needed some alternate input. (That would be us!)

As I watched the scene unfold I was consumed once more by my natural sense of belonging in theatre. It has been 6 years since my tiny feet last 'tread the boards' but I buzzed with the frisant of participation and wholeheartedly embraced the nuances of character. (Why am I not doing this as a job???)

The best bit was that the scene involved breaking plates. The older, uptight character admits to the younger girl that she keeps her sanity by breaking things. She demonstrates this with plates. Younger girl initially indulges the older woman's habits and then joins in ! Drama Teacher said to me as  I mimed my heart out. "Oh, no...we want you to actually break the plate. We'd love to see how you do it...."

I glanced out into the audience as Wild Boy sat back watching me smash a plate to smithereens. The grin stretched his face from ear to ear. But there was no malevolence, no desire to join in; he rolled in the aisles at my silliness. He appreciated the humour. He talked to me about it non-stop as we walked back to the classroom!

"Oh Mrs A, hahahahah, *smash* flip, it went right up in the air!"

I smiled to myself as I imagined the conversation at the Wild Boy dinner table that night: Hey everyone! Guess what Mrs A did today in my lesson? She SMASHED A PLATE!!!!!


More later

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