Hidemi’s Rambling No.503

The drama club to which I belonged when I was a junior high school student had two school plays a year, for the homecoming entertainment and for the welcoming new students party. The casting would be done by a seniority system. A handful of senior members appeared on the stage and other members worked backstage. New members usually started from the stage props staff, then were promoted to the scene shifter, the spotlighting, the curtain drawer/prompter, the stage lighting, and finally, the cast member. My fellow five new comers had quit within a year because they couldn’t take this slow promotion toward cast members, and I was the only one left among those who joined that year. Since there were so many members who were one year my senior, it seemed the day I would be cast in a play would never come in this seniority system. But once I begin something, I don’t quit easily. When the twice-a-year school play came near, I would work eagerly backstage while seeing some senior cast members whose acting was much worse than mine rehearse on the stage. I started as the stage props staff. The first play I took part in was a Japanese drama. Some cast members had trouble putting Japanese sandals very quickly when they stormed out of the room in one scene and complained to us. From then on I had stretched their sandals carefully before the scene for the cast members to put them on quickly. As the spotlighting, I learned to move a spotlight just as the cast member moved on stage and to keep the light above her chest all the time. Every once in a while in rehearsal, I made a mistake to follow the cast’s quick movement and my light missed the position slightly. In that case, the play would come to an instant halt and everyone turned to me. I would stand straight beside the spotlight and yell “I’m so sorry!” to the whole production. Dreaming of standing on stage someday, I resigned myself to working for drearily trivial things so hard in the total shadow of the glittering stage glamor…