... And into the Final Week

Remember when I said I would be peeling off the front as writer, and perhaps our bike woes were behind us? Well, it seems I spoke too soon.

Rehearsal on Tuesday began with one last adjustment to the bike: removing the old pedals, and replacing them with new (old) clip pedals from Pete. With little effort, I swapped the right pedal. The ease of this procedure, stands in perfect contrast to the epic struggle which began when I approached the left pedal. I had loosened the first with little difficulty and installed the clip pedal in only a minute or so. Attempting to repeat this on the other side would consume at least half an hour. Allow me to cut to those final, futile minutes of exasperating effort: me, or Ryan, with our foot on the pedal in question, a gloved hand clutching a towel-wrapped wrench pulling on the Gordian knot of pedals, while Ryan, or me, held down the bike, the brake, and the rear wheel to provide resistance and perhaps achieve the necessary torque. Sweat, curses, and WD-40 filled the air. Fine. So be it. Let’s rehearse.

Well, not so fast. First, I put on my writer’s hat (Good God no, I don’t actually have a writer’s hat—that’d be ridiculous; but I do have a writer’s shirt, desk, chair, mug, and glasses, and Pandora station—anything to get the words on the page.), and we got to work editing the middle section of the play—the least coherent and most difficult for Ryan to memorize. Thankfully, Mary had mentioned we might address this section, so I came prepared with cuts to be made and my personal interpretation. And then we dissected the scene, trimmed the unnecessary bits, focused it, and moved on. I’ll admit, in a rather disconnected play, this was the most disconnected section. Max Richter bonks hard, and grapples with the combination of a failing body and mind, so I tried to convey his increasing exhaustion and pain, and his deflating sense of reality and confidence. Thus, I let his stream of conscious meander wildly over the floodplain. While I may be able to fill in the jumps and gaps, I need to consider the experience of the audience. I can’t afford to lose them for any amount of time, in any part of the play—especially as things come crashing down in agony and unchecked synaptic wandering for Max.

And so we ran through the play, re-writes and all, with Ryan on the bike—sans one clip pedal. And slowly, various issues and concerns piled up in my head. And slowly, I began to freak out. Not of course in any way discernible to my team, but I became seriously worried. I had lists and notes, but somehow when they went from the page to my brain, the tasks and concerns swelled to a numbing, overwhelming haze. So on a Harlem street corner, I tried to compose myself. Music, and a long train ride home certainly helped me chill, but I still felt nervous—there was too much left uncertain, and would it come together?

Oh, yes, I forgot to mention, that afternoon I recorded the voiceovers for the British cycling commentators, Phil & Paul with Ryan’s delightful friends.

And the following evening, I went to Harlem for a recording of Ryan’s inter-personal monologue. That was Wednesday night, exactly one week from opening.