by Rowena Mohr
Monday 22 August 10.22 pm
Yessss! Mandozer got voted off. Not only that, but the mean judge told her that while a lot of singers use sex to sell CDs, dressing like a street walker is only going to get you so far!! Poor Mandozer! I almost feel sorry for her. Not only has she screwed up her chance at national stardom, she won’t even be in Dracula. What a shame!
Tuesday 23 August 10.15 pm
Full dress rehearsal. Disaster! Serena Immas is somewhat more ‘developed’ than Mandozer, and even though Mrs Parisi had altered the costume to fit her, she still nearly suffered a full-blown ‘wardrobe malfunction’ – if you know what I mean. Mrs Parisi had to spend the whole of the first act in the wings with a large towel just in case. Ivan had the opposite problem. He was wearing this giant purple velvet beret that kept flopping into his eyes so he couldn’t see where he was going and he fell off the stage twice. I hadn’t realised how fantastic his character Renfield is – like a cross between Gollum and that butler guy from The Rocky Horror Show. He manages to be both revolting (his natural state) and funny (unnatural) at the same time. And to top it all off, Rami yelled at me in front of everyone for being late for my cue! She is turning into such a nazi.
I am so nervous about Thursday night. I asked Brendan whether he was nervous too and he just sort of looked at me vaguely and said, ‘I guess.’ It is just so obvious that his heart is not in it anymore. But it doesn’t matter because I have a plan!
Wednesday 24 August 4.19 pm
Mandozer was back at school this morning. Just in time for the opening night of Dracula tomorrow night! Fame is so fleeting, isn’t it?
Wednesday 24 August 10.22 pm
I don’t believe this. Mandozer is back in the show! What is Dicko thinking? To start with, it just sets a bad example to everyone else. And, okay, Serena was still having a bit of trouble with the lines – and the songs – and the dance routines – but apart from that, she was doing really well!
It’s just not fair. Mandozer was pretty quick to ditch Wilga Heights when she thought she was going to be famous. But when that doesn’t work out she comes crawling on back – and like the total wimp that he is, Dicko welcomes her with open arms!
Of course, with opening night tomorrow, that meant we had to do another full rehearsal and poor old Serena was relegated back to being one of The Vamps. You should have seen the homicidal looks she was shooting at Mandozer all through the show. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Mandozer suddenly suffered some terrible accident involving, say, cans of hairspray and a naked flame?
Thursday 25 August 10.57 pm
OMG! Tonight was just totally bizarre. And hilarious. And embarrassing. I don’t even know where to start to tell you what went wrong but I guess at the beginning is a pretty good place. The opening number was fantastic. The lights came up slowly to reveal the spooky old castle/nightclub and in the gloom you could just make out the shape of all these bodies collapsed over the furniture but you couldn’t be sure whether they were dead or what. And then the music started and the bodies suddenly came to life and started to sing. Brendan sauntered onto the stage like he owned it and you’d never know what a mess his life really is.
The audience went wild. I could hear the kids up the back stomping their feet and whistling like they were at a rock concert. I was feeling pretty good too so I managed to sing my first solo to Door Matt’s replacement, the Saddam look-alike, without having an aneurism and the show’s powering along and Dicko’s beaming at everyone as he mouths all the words to the songs and then, suddenly, all hell breaks loose.
We were in the middle of the scene where Van Helsing – that is, Creepazoid – is threatening to bust Lucard, when there’s all this noise up the back and the foyer doors crash open and half the metropolitan police force comes charging down the aisle with their guns out, yelling at the audience not to panic and stay in their seats. They might as well have told them the building was on fire for all the good it did. Everyone immediately started screaming and running down the aisles or throwing themselves on the floor.
And then Tony Cuoccolo, who’s in the third row with his posse, figures out what’s happening so he jumps up and is trying to run across the seats away from the police towards the side exit door. But then more cops come busting in through there so they’ve got him surrounded. Meanwhile on stage, Creepazoid has snuck up behind Vince – who’s still acting away for all he’s worth – and pulled one of those nifty tough-guy manoeuvres on him where he’s jerked his arms up behind his back, spun him around and cuffed him all in one go.
I think that’s about when I realised that I’d got it all wrong.
Of course that was the end of the show – not least because we’d lost Van Helsing and Dr Seward who were both on their way to the police station. Dicko was absolutely furious and was ranting on about artistic sabotage to anyone who’d listen. The people in the audience were still trying to comprehend what had just happened and everyone’s shouting and yelling at the tops of their voices and I look over into the wings and I see Mum and she looks like she’s ready to disembowel someone and I’ve suddenly got a pretty good idea who.
Friday 26 August 12.41 am
When Creepazoid eventually got home, I heard Mum shouting at him about how irresponsible he was and if she’d known he was planning to arrest Tony Cuoccolo during the show she’d never have let her kids be involved. He’d put everyone at risk and the whole thing could have been a tragedy – blah blah blah. I don’t think she stopped till about three in the morning.
Friday 26 August 4.17 pm
Another visit to the police station. This time I was taken into a room with Creepazoid – or Detective Inspector Creepazoid as he’s turned out to be – and all these other plain-clothes cops and basically told to mind my own business. Creepazoid starts out by saying that I single-handedly almost destroyed six months of undercover work by warning Vince Cuoccolo about him. Fortunately for me, Vince was so stupid that he didn’t believe me and the operation was able to go ahead as planned.
I started to say that I didn’t see how I was expected to know the whole thing was an undercover police operation when no one had told me, but then this other policeman said that he didn’t understand why I would want to protect a drug dealer. I tried to explain that I thought Creepazoid was a drug dealer too and it was simply a matter of trying to prevent a drug war in Wilga Heights and that they should be grateful I was so civic-minded. Funny, but they didn’t seem to see it that way.
At least I got most of the morning off school.
WILGA HEIGHTS INDEPENDENT NEWS EXPRESS
FRIDAY 26TH AUGUST
ARTSING ABOUT by Bernard Butters
School production on the cutting edge
Wilga Heights Secondary College has done it again. This year’s musical production of the classic horror story Dracula is another triumph of social relevance and dramatic innovation. Who can forget last year’s epic production of Ned Kelly in which the siege at Glenrowan was performed entirely as a shadow-ballet? Or the now-legendary scene in The English Patient where the heavily-bandaged pilot rises from his deathbed to sing ‘Midnight at the Oasis’ as a serenade to his lost love?
Dracula is another insightful exploration of the dark recesses of the human psyche presented in a confronting and unconventional dramatic form that challenges the audience to examine their preconceptions about the meaning of the vampire story as well as the boundaries of the music theatre genre itself. Writer/director Bill Dixon has taken Bram Stoker’s novel and turned it into a musical morality tale set in the 1970s about drug addiction and perversion. Dracula, in a riveting performance by Brendan Russo, has become A. Lucard – proprietor of a sleazy nightclub whose patrons are all addicted to the pleasures of the underworld – and whose mission is to lure as many unsuspecting innocents into his web of misery as possible. When Lucy (a smouldering Marisa Mendoza) falls victim to Lucard’s vices, her friends enlist the aid of drug-squad cop, Van Helsing – played very convincingly by Chris McKenzie
– who goes undercover to bring down Lucard’s illicit empire.
Up until this point, the show follows the Dracula storyline fairly closely but then, in a stroke of theatrical genius, Bill Dixon shocks the audience out of their voyeuristic passivity as the performance undergoes a paradigm shift and an entire contingent of (extremely authentic) armed police bursts into the theatre and begins arresting members of the audience. Suddenly we are no longer spectators, safely removed from the social dangers presented on stage – we too are intimately and frighteningly involved in the very heart of the action.
Abandoning all pretence at a conventional narrative structure, the performance ends abruptly in confusion and chaos and the audience – those who haven’t been dragged out of the auditorium by the boys in blue – is left to ponder the brutal intermingling of art and life, the intrusion of a more sombre reality into the carefully rehearsed patterns of our lives. As theatre, this is exhilarating and dangerous; as social commentary – a reminder that we are only protected from the temptations of vice and addiction by a thin veneer of civilisation.
Friday 26 August 11.17 pm
Tonight was absolutely fantastic! Well, mostly fantastic but I’ll get to that. In a way, I guess, tonight was really our opening night – because last night was just so weird. Anyway, there we all are, ready to go on: even DI Creepa-zoid and Vince Cuoccolo who has been released on a good behaviour bond under the watchful eye of his extremely pissed-off mother. In fact she stood in the wings for the whole show just to make sure he didn’t try anything funny and I even saw her clip him across the ear when he forgot one of his lines. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy!!
So anyway, the curtain goes up and everything’s going great. People are dancing and singing their hearts out and the audience looks like they’re actually enjoying it.
And then Brendan makes his first entrance.
And stops dead right in the middle of the song.
The audience goes real quiet, trying to figure out what’s wrong, and Dicko’s waving his hands frantically at him and nobody else seems to realise what’s happening – except me, of course. Because you see, this was my plan – which was now going terribly, horribly wrong.
The reason Brendan’s stopped is because right in the middle of the front row is Brendan’s mum – staring at him like she’s seen a ghost! It was that damn suit! I’d forgotten all about it and I suddenly thought, ‘Oh no, what if she freaks out completely and starts to think that Brendan is her dead Frank again?’ What an idiot! I can’t believe I didn’t think of that. I’m trying to think of the best thing to do – rush onto the stage and start ripping Brendan’s clothes off? Or jump into the audience and get Mrs Russo out of there ASAP? I’m looking from one to the other, totally paralysed by fear and the audience is so quiet all you can hear is Dicko hissing furiously at Brendan to start singing. And then, something fantastic happened. It was like somebody flicked a switch in Mrs Russo’s head and she realised that it really was Brendan up there on stage and she started smiling and waving at him like a crazy . . . oops . . . like she’s really happy to see him and Brendan’s laughing back and then somebody up the back yells out, ‘Get on with it!’ and the whole audience laughs and it’s like the spell is broken. The band starts from the beginning of the song again and we do the whole show without a hitch.
Wasn’t that a great idea? Okay, maybe it wasn’t but it all worked out all right in the end though, didn’t it? I had to get a bit of help from Mum, of course, to organise getting Mrs Russo out of hospital for the night but it was worth it just to see the look on Brendan’s face and to see how happy he was. I’d really wanted her to come on the opening night but the hospital couldn’t arrange it and I’m so glad now they didn’t. I don’t know how she would have coped with all the guns and shouting.
You see, I remembered that first time when I went to Brendan’s house and I’d said to Mrs Russo that Brendan must have got his musical talent from his father and she looked at me like she didn’t know what I was talking about. That’s when I realised that she really didn’t know – or she couldn’t see – how talented Brendan really was. That when she looked at him she just saw his dead brother and father and not Brendan himself. So I thought if I could get her to come along and watch him on stage in front of all those people that she might actually see BRENDAN – and it worked. You should have seen him after that. It was like someone had given him a shot of super-duper vitamins or something. He was fantastic. Sexy and funny and just awesome. I kept watching Mrs Russo’s face through the curtains and she just sat there with her mouth open as if she couldn’t believe how good he was.
And when Brendan came off stage after that first scene, he came right up to me in the wings and I thought for a minute he was going to tell me off about the suit thing but instead he gave me this big hug and I was so happy for him that I hugged him right back. And do you know what? I suddenly realised how amazing he is. I mean, I knew before that he was sweet and talented and even brave – but all of a sudden I really KNEW it. It’s like what I said before about his mother not being able to see him and I think I was a bit the same. For the first time tonight I SAW him too – and I can’t believe I’m going to say this – but I was suddenly really angry with myself for being so stupid and pig-headed about him and Rami getting together. And I can’t lie – I was sad for myself too. And just a little bit jealous.
Now for the next round of humiliation. I was packing up all my stuff in the dressing room when Brendan came in and sat down in front of the mirror. I can’t be sure but I think he’d been crying. Anyway, he said that he’d spoken to my mum and that she’d told him that it was my idea to get the hospital to let Mrs Russo out for the night.
‘I just wanted to say thank you, Erin. That was such a nice thing to do and I’m not sure you realise how much it means to me . . .’ I thought he was going to start crying again and suddenly all I wanted to do was give him a big hug and tell him how sorry I was about everything – his mum, his drowned father and brother, my own stupidity. And suddenly I did – not the hugging bit – but the other.
‘Brendan, I’m so sorry I said those horrible things about your mum. I’ve got such a big mouth and I say things without thinking and I’m sorry.’
I felt like I was going to start crying in a minute too. ‘And I’ve been pretty awful to you and Rami. Instead of being happy for you, I’ve just been jealous and nasty and I’m sorry for that too.’
Brendan was just nodding his head and not looking at me so I thought I’d just better keep going while I had the chance.
‘And I’m sorry too for accusing you of telling Mrs Parisi about Dad and her having an affair. That was actually my own stupid fault as well because I saved a copy of my diary onto the hard disk in the computer lab and Miss Pavlidis found it and showed it to Mrs Parisi. So you see, you were right. I did jump to the wrong conclusion about that, and also about Mrs Parisi and Dad having an affair – and Creep-azoid being a drug baron . . .’
Before I could go on, I realised Brendan was laughing.
‘What? Don’t laugh at me. I’m trying to apologise.’
‘I know, I know,’ he said, still laughing. ‘I’m sorry, but when you put it all together like that, I just realised that you have been a complete idiot, haven’t you?’
And you know what? He’s right. Let’s face it, if jumping to conclusions was an Olympic sport, I’d be Ian Thorpe!
Saturday 27 August 2.23 pm
Mum took Brendan, Ben and me out for breakfast as a special treat because she said we’d all done a fantastic job in the show. She asked Creepazoid as well even though she should probably still have been pissed off with him about nearly getting us all killed on Thursday night.
It was great. We went to this cafe in St Kilda – you know, where all the seriously cool people hang out – and then we went for a walk along the beach even though it was freezing. And it was strange, because it was like we were all really happy suddenly. Mum and Creepazoid were holding hands and Ben was do
ing cartwheels and playing chicken with the tide and Brendan was walking beside me, not saying much, but looking kind of peaceful and relaxed – like he hasn’t been since his mum went into hospital.
And I felt different too. I think that seeing how happy Brendan and his mum were last night made me realise a few things. For instance, I’ve realised that doing something for someone else – just because you can – is an amazing feeling. And I’ve realised that if you care about someone it doesn’t really matter whether they think you’re an idiot – or whether you’re going to get anything back in return – it’s enough to know that you’ve maybe made their life a little better. At least that’s what I keep telling myself in the hope that maybe I’ll actually come to believe it.
Saturday 27 August 11.25 pm
I don’t even know where to begin to tell you what has just happened because it doesn’t make any sense. It’s like someone is playing this huge joke on me and they’ve got Mum and Dad and everyone else to play along. If this is true, it means that my whole family – my whole life – has been a lie. Even my memories are lies. All those photographs of us that Mum’s still got everywhere, smiling into the future, they’re lies too.
I don’t know that I can write this at all. I’m afraid that if I make it more real by writing it down then something inside me will explode and I’ll just fly off into little bits all over the place.
How could I have been so stupid?
We had a mini tech rehearsal tonight before the final show – checking all the lights and sound and stuff – and I was hanging out up the back of the auditorium trying to avoid Rami when I saw Dicko go up to Dad at the lighting desk. Dad was concentrating on the controls and Dicko leant over to ask him something and as they were talking he just casually put his hand on Dad’s back and left it there – like he’d done it before a million times. Dad didn’t even look up or react or anything, he just kept on doing what he was doing. I know it doesn’t sound like much but if you’d seen it you’d know what I mean. They were just so comfortable with each other – like an old married couple – like Dad used to be with Mum.
