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Captain, Chef, and ShadowW. Scott Smootan excerpt Acting always makes me hungry. Cold fettuccine before rehearsal, double-cheeseburger on campus, but near midnight, I'm rumbly. Late to bed, early to rise, makes a teacher red in the eyes. I want to be first in line at the Xerox tomorrow, or else it's eighth grade drama with no scripts and nothing else to do. Certain death. But I want to eat. Crossroads should be closing now; maybe the guys'll box me up a snack. Maybe it's Captain Keller that's hungry, not me. He got a workout pounding the desk. My inner captain. I'm supposed to "get inside" him, so I'm his inner. Pound. "This discussion is at an end!" "This discussion is at an end!" Pound. "This dis-cussion," pound, "is at an END!" "Do it again, do it again, it's not the line, it's the line that builds up to the line that isn't there, y'know what I'm saying?" But these undergraduates on stage have to build with me, you clown. His chatter, his affected inflections, his hyper gestures: Am I such a Bozo when I direct my students? "And Helen! Listen, Christine, Helen Keller was blind but she wasn't dumb, I mean not stu-pid dumb. Don't pant like a dog, look determined. Helen wants attention but you can't steal the scene, y'know what I'm saying? Take it again, from before where you pull the papers off the Captain's desk. Let's see the tension build, build, build!" Crossroads Café dark. Must be slow on Tuesdays. Midnight on weekends, we'd still be scrubbing the kitchen. This summer, if I added just Tuesdays, it'd be forty more a week, one-sixty a month . . . . If Jeff'd take me full-time for the summer, I'd be half out of credit card hell before teacher workshops. Wonder Waffle a possibility. Fifteen minutes, seven dollars, a waffle and omelette with cheese, and diced ham. Enough fat content to add another pound. Okay, so long as I don't make a habit of it. I have to get up early. But I'm so hyped up now, I won't be sleeping soon anyway.
"This isn't Wonder Waffle," Jeff the Chef said to me my first night at Crossroads. "People don't come here for the same thing every time. Use your imagination, make every plate different." He was teaching me salads. "It has to have height," he said, "so, use less dressing, or it'll droop. Fluff it up. I'll put this one off-center." Northwest on the platter he lifted his hand from a precarious mound of greens mixed with fronds and leaves violet and yellow. "Still needs color," he said, "so try diced tomatoes for red, or -- ah! cabbage!" His left hand brought up from the refrigerator below a half-globe that looked velvety purple like pansies and set it on the cutting board. "Make a claw like this with your left," he demonstrated, "and cut with your right. When you feel the side of the blade against the flat of your fingers, you won't lose a knuckle." He sliced a thin sliver off the globe and broke away the white inner part. Now he chopped the ribbons of purple leaf into fine confetti. He took pinches and sprinkled a violet crescent southeast of the greens. "Maybe a purple onion, too? It has to build." He tossed a ring on top. "Voilà, your first salad!" "And I didn't even touch it. Pretty easy." "Now, you do better. You're in theatre, you should get the hang fast. Make 'em say 'wow' when they see it." He waved behind us to the fire blazing in the pizza oven, then up to the shadowy high ceiling, and across the room, an old train station transformed into a candle-lit restaurant. "It's not just about food; it's a theatrical experience."
I stand very courtly, very captain-y, offering my arm to young Annie Sullivan. I stand at the door to her bedroom. No real door there, we have to pantomime. Bozo wants me to go into her room. But a Victorian gentleman wouldn't even look in a young lady's bedroom. He might see her unmentionables. "Well, we can't play the whole scene in that door, can we?" To read more, close this window and link to the author at "contact me" on the navigation bar. top |
