Pavarotti's eyelashes

since a big, fat, whole lot of nothing has been going on in my career lately, I thought I'd recall for you the dream I had last night - and welcome any and all analysis of said dream. here goes.

so, I'm about to go on stage in some show I'm in that's an amalgam - insert comedy/tragedy image here - actually, there were far too many images to choose from, including an infected finger and a Mickey Mouse ashtray (I guess the tragedy of that being dying from lung cancer) but I chose this: as I was saying - the show was an amalgam of a cruise ship showgirl meets downtown warehouse production of Ianesco's, The Chairs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Chaises

oh, that was a lot of set-up. sorry. but dreams are mad complicated, yo! anyway - I'm about to go on stage in full headdress and tail feathers when one of the downtown warehouse troupe actresses, who is short and wears her platinum hair like a little boy's, hisses to me that I need to put some eyelashes on. so I'm all - you betcha! anything for art! where can I get me some? she pushes me into a dressing room and says "just use these - they were Pavorotti's when he last played Pagliacci."



so I dutifully start to try and find the eyelash glue in his (fancier than I've ever had) make-up tackle box. I find it and start applying it to the lashes. my hands are shaking, natch, I mean - Pavorotti's eyelashes? crap! after a few attempts trying to get them on (ain't they a bitch?) I realize that one of them is white and the other is black. so I start thinking...well, this is downtown wharehouse theatre after all, so who's gonna give a shit. but then the disapproving dragqueen on my shoulder that's always wagging it's two fingers at me is like "no you don't, lazy!" and what do you think I did? that's right, queens, I put mascara on the white one and stole the show. yes, maham - STOLE it, nk?

what became interesting to me once I googled Pavorotti and Pagliacci and relived his incredible performance, was the realization that of COURSE one of them would be white - it was from the frikkin clown make-up!!! the other, sadder, realization was how fucking tragic my career feels some days. as in these few excerpts from a synopsis of Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci -- borrowed with the courtesy of Opera News:

"Before the opera begins, the clown Tonio steps before the curtain to say that the author has written about actors, who know the same joys and sorrows as other people...Alone, Canio sobs that he must play the clown though his heart is breaking...Canio cries out that the comedy is ended."

wow. it got really quiet in here. ok, so while I'm not planning on stabbing anyone in the town square - or offing myself, for that matter - it stands to note that my subconscious is quite the drama queen.