"I Had ONE Line. I Forgot It": Return to the Boards

So today I had the pleasure of acting for the first time since between college and law school. It was part of the Anthony Powell Society Luncheon, this year marking AP's 110th birthday. I was asked to play Bob Duport in a scene from Hearing Secret Harmonies--a scene in which the elderly, wheelchair-bound Duport snarls at art not to his taste, preens at having had the sense to hang on to his terrible collection of seascapes until they were profitable, and gloats to Jenkins about that "chateau bottled shit" Widmerpool being knocked out by Louie Glober (not quite; just his specs were broken, Bob's daughter Polly corrects him).

In short, I got to be nasty, plaintive ("Look at me now. Shunted about in a bath chair. Penny for the guy. That's how I feel"), matey, and so absent minded that my ex-wife had to remind me of the woman I'd cheated on her with.

Er, Duport's ex-wife, that is.

The luncheon was excellent, the company better, and my co-stars carried me through. We had a wheelchair, and I donned an elderly tweed jacket and a deplorably moth-eaten sweater that was even worse than I remembered.

I'd forgotten how much fun acting is. And how nervous I get just before going on.