Drama Ministry

Crazy Cousin Jimmy

By Rene Gutteridge


We were doing a fabulous sketch one Sunday morning about accepting all kinds of people in church when suddenly a 250-pound man, dressed in leather and chains with his body pierced in more places than I could count, stands up from the congregation and saunters up on stage. 

Everyone starts chuckling, because the actor was talking about appearances, and this guy just walks up on stage like he belongs there and sits down in an empty chair. I, however, know that this guy doesn't belong up there. I wrote the drama! The guy begins conversing with one of the actors – my husband. The dialogue is so funny that everyone is roaring with laughter...as I'm trying to alert the security team. 

One of the pastors' wives leans over to me and says, "This is a good one!" To which I whisper back, "That guy's not supposed to be up there!" She glances at me. "What?" I repeat myself. Her face turns white, and she looks like I feel.

I tune back into the conversation up on stage just in time to hear the man quote something from Genesis and tell my husband that this scripture is God saying it's okay to use marijuana. Though I can see the strain in my husband's face, he plays it cool on stage and simply says, "Well, I tell you what, dude. Let me finish up here. I'll meet you out in the lobby, and we'll talk about it then." He smiles and guides the man off stage. Then he walks back up there and starts exactly where he'd left off. (His fellow actor on stage amazingly followed along. It was his first time doing a church drama! That's breakin' 'em in!) 

My husband was a theater major and has had his share of unexpected things happen on stage. But without a doubt, he says, this was the most memorable. So, what do we do when the unexpected happens? I mean, is there a handbook for this sort of thing? Hardly. In fact, it's one of the hardest things to cope with on stage. Yet it makes true theater.

The possibilities of the unexpected are endless. Mics can go out. Props can go missing. Actors can freak out. Audience members can freak out. Scenery can come crashing down. That's just to name a few! There are two things that play key roles in being able to handle the unexpected on stage. On the practical side, the greatest defense against the unexpected is to be prepared. If an actor knows his or her lines, then when the tree on stage right suddenly goes toppling over, the distraction may cause profuse sweating, but the lines are stuck to the brain like glue. If another actor suddenly jumps fifteen pages in a script, fellow actors may be able to work their way back to where they should be because they are prepared. 

Unfortunately, the second way to combat the unforeseen is instinct, and there isn't a way to teach that. But it can be learned. The more one is on stage, the more instinct will play a pivotal role in this regard. With instinct comes a practical question that should be asked in every unexpected situation, and that is: How can I incorporate this into the scene?

After the episode with the biker dude, I asked my husband what exactly was going through his head when he saw this gigantic beast of a man approaching the stage. He told me his mind was running with two parallel thoughts. First he was thinking, I'm going to die. But right along with this thought was another: How can I make this work? How can I keep the scene going? And so, praying this man wasn't up there to kill him, Sean worked the dialogue in favor of the scene.

After church was over that day, a lady came up to us, nearly in tears, apologizing profusely for what had happened on stage. "That's Crazy Cousin Jimmy, as we call him," she explained. "He's from New York. And sometimes he just does crazy things like that." We assured her it was okay. To this day, however, there are still people in our church who never knew there was anything strange going on in that sketch. In show business, there's the famous saying, “The show must go on.” With that in mind, not much can keep you from going on! Even Crazy Cousin Jimmy.
 

Posted in: Accidents, Performing

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