Saying Goodbye to Anna

The King and I closed last weekend. For the first time in a long string of musical theater performances, my initial thought wasn't, "Yay! I get my life back!" I was sad. I missed being Anna.

However, the very next day after the show closed, I found myself at auditions for a summer youth musical (for which I will act as music director), so I didn't have a lot of time to mourn the loss of this alter ego I had come to love.

Happily, I couldn't get away from the role that easily anyway.

I returned to school after my long weekend to students making comments like, "You did a great job in The King and I, etc., etc., etc." or "The dance in your purple dress was so good!" or "My favorite part was when you got all mad at the King and said, 'I shall say nothing more because I have nothing more to say!'"

One parent said her little girl, not quite school-age, kept asking, "When is Mrs. Duggan coming back out on stage?"

And every child loved the tantrum I threw ("Shall I Tell You What I Think") in my corset (or probably more accurately, in my underwear).

The speech pathologist told me there was general buzz in the faculty lounge after the show opened.

"I walked in during three different lunch hours, and the teachers were talking about your performance every time."

This general enthusiasm amongst my school community reminded me of one of the main reasons I accepted this role in the first place - to give my students the opportunity to truly experience the performing arts.

My family and friends had some interesting insights as well.

During intermission, my father and brother apparently had the following conversation (as overheard by my husband, Dan):

Steve: "I've seen her punch a pillow like that (referring to the aforementioned temper tantrum scene)."
Dad: "Yup, I've seen all those facial expressions. And I've heard that 'no' before (referring to the many times I said 'no' to the King emphatically throughout the show)."

Another friend of mine said about the picture below:

"Gee, when I worked with Becky, we all bowed toward her."

To which I replied, "Ha ha! That's the way it should be!"

Now Dan follows me around the house reciting dialogue from the show at the most inopportune times. I suppose that's what I get for making Dan run lines with me for the last three months.

For example, when I asked Dan if my father wanted me to call him "right now," Dan replied, "Now? Now is always the best time!"

During a slight disagreement, Dan said, "This is not scientific!"

I scowled at him, and he responded, "What is this face you put on?"

(If you hadn't already guessed, Dan was quoting the King.)

On a more serious note, this feels like my final goodbye to Anna. I will be 35 in a couple of weeks, after all. Chances that I will look young enough to play the role the next time the opportunity arises are slim to none.

And perhaps saying goodbye to this role is especially hard because every time I heard the overture from my stage right perch, I felt my mom, and saying goodbye to this role is a little like saying goodbye to her all over again.

Diva flowers from my students

For more The King and I adventures, check out:

The King and I . . . and My Hair 

Anna, The King, and I

Anna, The King, and I

For the last three months, I've been living in the skin of one of my favorite musical heroines, Anna Leonowens. Boise Music Week's The King and I opens this Wednesday, and I will be playing the title character (the "I," not the King).

I have been working hard to get back down to what I call my "King and I weight," the weight I was when I portrayed Anna in 2009. I would love to get down to my "Chicago weight," the weight I was as Hunyak. But, alas, I'm no longer in my twenties, and there are no Fosse-style dance moves in Rodgers and Hammerstein to buff me up.

The last time I was in The King and I, the prop master slipped a picture of a chimp in my locket, the same locket that was supposed to hold a photograph of my late husband to which I was supposed to refer, "Oh dear, yes. He was very pretty in face!"

Also during my last stint as Anna, one of the kids in the cast put a remote control fart machine in the principles' dressing room on opening night. We kept wondering who was having digestive problems as we put on our makeup before the show.

At one rehearsal for the 2009 show, the King stepped on my ball gown during "Shall We Dance," ripping the skirt off the bodice. As if I hadn't shown enough skin in that fiasco, I flashed a man whose wife was doing his makeup in my dressing room one night. I was chattering on and on about something completely unrelated to the show. Unaware of my surroundings, I took off my bra, then my spanks. Then I remembered there was a man in my dressing room (who had very chivalrously closed his eyes as soon as the spanks started dropping). I tried to cover myself with my hands while the other women and I ran back and forth in front of the costume rack, screaming in hysteria.

However, I wasn't sure if I would come away from this current production with my typical tales of backstage comedy. After a month or so into rehearsals, I wasn’t nearly as hilarious as usual.

In fact, some of the incidents that occurred throughout the process weren't very funny. After I explained to my husband that I couldn’t break any limbs cross-country skiing over spring break, the King almost blew out his knee jumping off his dais on stage. And I got a head cold, complete with laryngitis about three weeks before opening night. Luckily, I am now fully recovered.

Hilarity eventually ensued though.

My go-to comedic material consisted mainly of: “Wide load comin’ through,” referring to my hoop skirt whenever I walked through a doorway or “Now I know what feeling ‘bright and breezy’ means,” when my bloomers fell off in the middle of a scene.

Of course, as is usually the case, the other cast members were much funnier than I.

One of the King’s wives wore a light-up hula hoop at the beginning of act two the other night. When she prostrated herself in front of the King, it began to blink. And Louis pretended to be a sword swallower with a map pointer one evening.

In Tuptim’s absence, the young man playing Sir Edward Ramsey (who is probably over six-feet tall and sounds a bit like James Bond) filled in, acting opposite the male romantic lead, Lun Tha. Sir Edward was a former student of mine, from kindergarten through fifth grade, and I can still remember when he could hit Tuptim’s soprano-range notes.

I call Sir Edward and Lun Tha “The King’s Posse” because they stand off stage and pantomime “Puzzlement” every time the King sings. The King and his Posse also spent one of our rehearsals acting out “Whistle a Happy Tune” from stage right. They claimed they were trying to get me to break character.

“Ha, ha! You won't distract me. I'm a pro!" I replied.

Then I realized that this sounded like a challenge. So now I am a bit on my guard. No telling what The King’s Posse might do.

Then last night, the directors announced “No practical jokes once we move into the theater!" Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. I wonder if The King’s Posse was listening . . .

Headshot for The King and I, Boise Music Week 2012

Boise Music Week's production of The King and I opens Wednesday, May 9 and runs through Saturday, May 12 at the Morrison Center. Please click here for ticket information.

For more The King and I fun, see "The King and I . . . and My Hair." 

The King and I . . . and My Hair

When I was cast as Anna in an upcoming production of The King and I, I was all too happy to straddle the stage again in a corset. I say "again" because I had played the role once before, and I knew how much fun straddling the stage in a corset could be.

Then at a rehearsal, the director told me I was also going to be jumping around like a toad while singing, "Toads, toads, all of your people are toads!"

"Sounds like fun," I said enthusiastically.

"Actually, I'm just kidding."

I guessed the word was out that I was willing to do just about anything on stage.

Besides practicing my hysterical stage-straddling and toad-jumping, I had been growing out my hair since last summer. I typically wear my hair in an earlobe or chin-length bob, so for me, growing my hair past my shoulders was almost like growing an additional limb.

"What is this on my neck?" I would ask myself, shaking my head back and forth, only to discover flowing, chestnut tresses cascading in waves across my shoulders and down my back.

(This imagery is not exactly accurate. Picture flipped-out ends and a few short, wiry gray hairs sticking straight up off the top of my scalp. This is my hair when it is long. Most of the time, I end up banishing it to ponytail land. These are the moments I envy the very bald role of the King.)

The point is, I started growing out my hair last summer when I first heard about auditions for the show. I figured if I didn't get the part, I would treat myself to a cute haircut in order to prevent myself from wallowing in self-pity.

But I got the part. And I'm not complaining.

In fact, some of my friends seem to like my long hair.

"I notice you haven't cut your hair," an acquaintance observed in January. "Does that mean you got the part? That's awesome. And your hair looks good too."

"How long have you been growing it out? " a third grade teacher asked me.

"Since the summer."

"It's getting long," she said. "Do you just command your hair to grow?"

"I think I like your long hair best," another teacher said.

I must have made a face because she added, "But it's probably a pain, isn't it?"

My husband, Dan, loved my short hair. It was one of the reasons I married him. I was not going to grow out my hair for a man. (A theater production - yes. A man - never.) But he likes my long hair too. It gives him more "material" - you know - for his comedic alter ego.

The other day, he was running his fingers through my newly grown-out hair while I was trying to blog. He caught his fingers in one of the many tangles.

"Ow!" I said.

"Sorry."

Then, he did it again.

"Ow!"

"Sorry."

And again.

"Ow!"

"Sorry."

"Why do you keep doing that?" I asked him, slapping his hand away.

"It's kind of funny."

Of course, as is characteristic of everything I do, I couldn't possibly grow out my hair without being slightly neurotic about it. This particular neurosis probably stems from the late 80's and early 90's when my mother always made sure my hair was in the chronic, chemically-induced staple of this time period - the body perm.

"Your hair is too stringy without a perm, Becky," she would say. "It's just a body perm. It will add a nice, soft wave to your hair, not like the spiral perm you got last year."

I think "add a nice, soft wave" actually meant, "You will look like a poodle and smell like a chemistry lab," because that was always the outcome of my perm experiments. Hence, my hair neurosis.

For example, the other night I dreamed that I had accidentally cut my hair. I thought that the production was over, and then I realized it wasn't, and all of a sudden I had short hair, and I was worried I would lose my role. I woke up in a panic, drenched in sweat.

"How do you do 'accidentally' cut your hair?" Dan said after I told him about my dream. "Trip and fall on a pair of scissors? Oh, my hair's gone, ahh!"

Yes, Dan, that's exactly how it happens.

Now if I could only get down to my King and I weight. But that is a story for another time, another blog.

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