Random Surrealistic Childhood Memory

Okay, so since I've done nothing all weekend but work, and since the anecdotes of me alone in an office complex aren't what you'd call super-exciting ("And then I wanted a Coke, but the machine was out. So I had to walk into the next building, and it took almost two minutes to get my Coke and get back to my desk. The horror!"), I'm going to relate a story that I'm pretty sure is true.

I mean, I think it's true. But it happened in second grade, so it's entirely possible that my memory is lying to me about some of the details. You can go ahead and call me a liar, and I don't really have any way of proving that I'm not. But I am sincere in telling this story, no matter how unlikely the details are.

My second-grade teacher put on a big musical production every year. Gilbert and Sullivan. The year before me, they did H.M.S. Pinafore, and for my year, it was The Mikado. Have you seen Topsy-Turvy, the movie about the making of The Mikado? It's great. Now, replace all those petulant, childlike actors with actual children, and you'll start to imagine what this was like.

Actually, strike that. You're not even close. To begin with, second-graders are not, as a whole, known for their singing voices. And at the same time, Gilbert and Sullivan songs aren't known for being easy to sing. It may be "Light" Opera, but that's still a kind of opera, and the average seven-year-old isn't going to do it justice. Unless you're talking about "final justice", which is either a euphemism for murder or a terrible show on USA. Or possibly both, and a Steven Seagal movie into the bargain.

Okay, so sonically it's already not the most aesthetically pleasing experience on earth. In addition to which, you've got to consider the fact that children can't remember their lines, so whenever you don't actually have young children trying to say "Is this a time for airy persiflage?" you have children standing awkwardly while someone offstage whispers (well, shouts hoarsely) "persiflage! Persiflage! Never mind!").

How are we doing so far? Are you picturing all this? Okay, well, I hope you're sitting down (although I don't know why, since I've never seen statistics on whether it's easier to take shocking news in a particular position) for this next part. Because there are really only a few real parts in The Mikado, and because the sort of second-grade teacher who puts on Gilbert and Sullivan plays isn't the sort of second-grade teacher who's going to let a child feel slighted in any way, we had to double, triple, and even octuple up on parts.

I'm not talking about having eight alternates for a part. I'm talking about having four Katishas on stage, walking in unison, gesturing (awkwardly) in unison, giving their lines, well, not "in unison", but in chorus anyway. And then the three Ko-Kos would respond, and so on. "Three Little Maids"? Performed by at least thirteen girls. Peep-Bos to stage left, Pitti-Sings to stage right, Yum-Yums crowded together in the middle.

You don't believe me. Your mind is recoiling from the basic idea that a teacher would intentionally inflict this sort of thing on the world. And I admit, I have my doubts occasionally. I wonder what the parents must have thought, when they were told to applaud their child for performing one-sixth of the role of Pooh-Bah ("Lord High Everything Else", if you've ever wondered where the phrase comes from). I wonder at the mind of a teacher who would do this year after year - did she just do Gilbert and Sullivan? Did she eventually do Broadway? Oklahoma? West Side Story? Cats?

Like I said, I have no evidence that this happened the way I say it did, except my own memory. I've even avoided asking my mother if she remembers it, because I don't know what I'll do if she denies it. I'd probably assume that she had blocked out the memory of her only son embarassing the family line.

You see, and remember I'm still sort of ashamed of this (whether or not it actually happened), I wasn't good enough to be one of the clouds of main actors. I couldn't even make the cut as a Nanki-Poo, and there was plenty of Nanki-Poo to go around. I had to be a narrator. There's no narrator in the actual Mikado, but there were, shall we say, judicious cuts in the play. Okay, so that means the "airy persiflage" line probably wasn't in there. I don't care.

But I do care (hey! Smooth segue!) about the fact that while everyone else was doing what in retrospect was hilarious absurdist anti-theater, I was off to the side holding a script (holding a script! I guess the assumption was that if you have five Mikados, someone would remember the line, but when you only had two narrators (who spoke one at a time and had to actually carry the plot), it was more important that they get the words right.

Of course, rationalization doesn't change the shame I feel that the parents (who were, I imagine, open-mouthed with shocked disbelief) thought that of all the kids on stage, butchering one of the prettiest operettas ever written, I was one of the only two that couldn't be trusted not to do irreparable damage.

So that's my childhood story. If you don't think it really happened, I don't blame you. But wouldn't it be great if it did? I love the idea of a teacher using her position as a molder and shaper of young minds to put on purposely terrible dramatics. Because it must have been purposely terrible, right? No one's looking at this litany of foolishness and saying "I bet that was a taut evening at the theater," right?

This would be a better anecdote if it had an ending.