I keep a tape
recorder in my car so I can make notes for my writing; I’m a terrible
driver and I figure our roads are safer without me trying to find a pencil
and my lane at the same time. But the other day I left my tape recorder on
accidentally and ended up recording the entire thrilling excursion from
Safeway to the drycleaners.
I listen to the tape
afterwards out of curiosity and make a shocking revelation: I talk to
myself. And not in an intelligent Hamlet soliloquizing kind of way, but in
the disjointed, incoherent mumbling manner of insane homeless people
collecting cans in shopping carts.
I also sing. Constantly.
Oftentimes I’ll be
waiting in line somewhere and a person will turn to me and say,
“What a nice voice you have,” or “Do ya’ mind? I’m tryin’
to pee” and I’ll think, “Geez, was I singing? I hadn’t realized.”
I just can’t help myself.
So I was a little skeptical
when I bought a ticket to the opening night of The Sing-a-long Sound of
Music, the new Rocky Horror type of audience participation experience. Every
viewing of The Sound of Music is a sing-a-long as far as I’m concerned.
What’s more, is now really the time for girls (or in this case, more
likely boys) in white dresses with blue satin sashes? I wasn’t sure.
Since I have neither the
time nor the ability to fashion lederhosen or dirndls out of curtains, I
simply cut down some mailing tubes, wrapped them in brown paper, and tied
them up with string over the crotches of my boyfriend Floyd, my friend Brian
and myself. For the record, our brown paper packages measured nine inches
long and would have cost at least four bucks to ship.
We arrive at the theater in
time for the costume judging, hosted by none other than Charmian Carr, the
original Liesl in the film, who is now like 56 going on 57 and, I must say,
still a complete babe. She cheerfully greets some Hitler jugend, a couple of
Baroness Schraeders in drag and some women dressed as the Alps before the
three of us step up on stage and shove our brown paper packages in her
direction. “These are a few of my favorite things,” I tell her. She
declines to hold my package but does let me squeeze the Charmian.
We win first prize.
Singing along with the
subtitles is great fun, although I never realized just how many choruses of
“Do Re Mi” the Von Trapp children sing until I had to do it myself. But
the chief pleasure comes from yelling back at the screen.
As each of the children
exit during “So Long, Farewell” we scream, “You are the weakest link.
Goodbye.” As the nuns gather behind a grill to watch Maria get married we
shout “Free the Nuns!”
I lose complete control.
For someone who mumbles to himself, the opportunity to say whatever I want
for three hours is cathartic. It’s like primal scream therapy.
I get into some kind of
zone and start a stream-of-consciousness rant, providing the interior
monologue for the characters. The Mother Abbess asks, “Maria what is it
you cahn’t face?” and I shout back, “Who are you calling a cahntface?”
Maria kisses the Captain and I say,
“Oooh, that’s not how
the Mother Abbess does it.” Maria sings to him that she must have done
something good to deserve the Captain, and I shout “And now I wanna do
something bad!” I’m hoarse by evening’s end.
But yelling at the screen
also makes me realize how little sense The Sound of Music actually makes.
For instance, when Maria sings to the Captain, “Somewhere in my youth, or
childhood…” the woman in front of me asks, “What’s the
difference?”
And anyone who’s looked
at map knows that if the Von Trapps had actually climbed ev’ry mountain
out of Salzburg they would have come down the other side of the Alps right
into Nazi Germany.
But let’s face it, very
little makes sense in the real world today either, so I’ve decided that
shouting and singing are as healthy a response as any. Sure, yelling at The
Sound of Music feels good, but screaming at the nightly news feels even
better. Talk about therapy.
And whenever the
newscasters talk about the Taliban, I don’t resist the temptation to
suddenly transform into Harry Belafonte and sing “Hey, Mistah Taliban,
tally me ba-na-na…” I’ve even got a little calypso dance I do.
Stupid? You bet. But
singing is definitely one of my favorite things and after doing it, like the
song says, “then I don’t feel so bad.”
So how do you solve a
problem like Bin Laden? I don’t know, but in the meantime I’m going to
cope with the sound of music…and lots of shouting.
And that, my friends, is
The Gospel According to Marc.
Marc
Acito fully intends to follow every rainbow till he finds his dream. You can
e-mail him at MarcAcito@home.com.
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