Noises Off

We used to call him Mr. Hollywood

Jim, our Artistic Director

After Sarah

Sarah was sort of—

Of the people

And Jim was, uh…

God, there’s a term for this

Oh right, he was a dickhead

Jim was a dickhead

But we couldn’t call him that

Obviously

So we called him Mr. Hollywood

Because everything about him

Was flash and panache

You know what I mean?

His first show at the theater

Was NOT his first show as Artistic Director

Because he was helping out

With a film in New York at the time

And by helping out

I mean, doing extra work

And that’ll give you an idea

Of where his priorities were

So the 1987-1988 season opened

With who the hell knows what

And the second show

Was Jim Powers’ production

Of Noises Off

Now, I should tell you

That Jim knew as much about comedy

As I know about Mandarin

Oh sure, I might be able to fake a little

But after awhile

You’re going to see that I’m out of my element

That was Jim and that was his first production

A big fake-out

And nobody bought it

And the thing about Jim was

If his show failed

He wanted nothing to do with it

If a show was a success

He was there for every performance

And if it flopped

He disappeared from sight

Until it closed

In other words, he left us actors hanging

With his failure

What a leader, huh?

He also fired someone

Whenever his work didn’t sell

Or got a bad review from the local paper

So when Noises Off got panned

He came backstage at the very next performance

And told me it was going to be my last show

And that the understudy was going on for me

The next day

I proceeded to take the prop axe

Which was not a prop axe at all

Because back then our props intern

Was a kid from the local high school

Who smoked more pot than everybody in Jefferson Airplane

I took that axe

And chased Jim around with it backstage

While the show was going on

Quietly, I might add

Very quietly

I’m nothing if not a professional

That was my last show at the Orpheus

And Jim’s first firing

And none of my fellow actors said shit

Because they were all just happy

To have survived the requisite transition period

Where a new AD comes in

And somebody gets canned

Little did they know

That transition was going to go on a lot longer

Than one show

As a matter of fact

It never ended

And when it was over

All that was left of that place

Was four walls and a door

But I’ll let somebody else tell you about that

It’s hard for me to talk about that place now, you know?

I’m just glad Beau wasn’t there to see what happened to it

If it’d been him backstage that day

Jim would still have an axe through his forehead