So, I said goodbye to my cow, and much more than that tonight.
Tough night.
I will miss this inanimate object.
I loved him/her.
Why I say this is that the cow that got delivered to us was a male cow! The prop designer had to do some brainstorming to figure out how to build up the udders over the cow's fake penis. They forgot one detail...Milky White still had his testicles, which hung near the tail. So...this was quite the sexually confused cow.
She/He also had 3 other major surgery procedures while receiving a somewhat botched sex change. She had jaw surgery (they had to cut into her jaw and insert some sort of hinge device to make the jaw open and close). They also had to cut open her chest to make an escape hatch for the crew to get the shoe, hair and cape out of. She/he also had wheels inserted into her hooves. All operations were a success, but she/he did have some side effects after recovery: sometimes for no reason at all, her jaw would randomly drop open. I said backstage, and well out of her hearing range that she was out there mugging for laughs by doing the whole jaw bit. The heifer even had the nerve to drop her jaw right as I sold her one night, and right before I sang "Goodbye Old Pal" to her, I shut her jaw for her. She did develop quite the comic timing...
Another after effect of the surgery to her hooves was...well...she was sometimes difficult to guide her certain ways. If she didn't want to go a certain way, she would let you know, and end up rolling the other way. She/he was really evolving into quite the diva.
During tech week, she tripped on a bit of tree trunk and ended up breaking her ear off....I felt awful...this cow was purchased from an outdoor nativity company and cost a pretty penny, and here I am guiding her onto stage in tech week no less, and she does a roll job and loses an ear. In hindsight, I think she fell on purpose to try to get more attention, but I'll let that go.
They fixed up the ear with liquid nails, and she was good to go for the rest of the run.
Until this weekend. This cow did NOT want this show to close.
Closing weekend, every time the cow and I exited after the Witch's transformation scene, her wheels would catch the black fabric masking that was hung in vom 3. The fabric would rip and get caught in her wheels. It was as if she was clawing at things to keep from leaving the stage.
She had not done this the entire run. It was bizarre.
Then it happened. Saturday matinee, Dan Cooney as the Baker and I were in our scene where we were fighting over the cow, and then there is her big death scene, where we make it look like she keels over. Well, I was NOT grabbing her by the ear, but somehow I must have nudged the ear and it just fell off in our struggle. I somehow caught the ear in my armpit and when on fighting with Dan over possession of the cow. I thought to myself, I'll just keep the ear in my armpit and not acknowledge that it happened...then thought...that is ridiculous, everyone in the audience knows that her ear just fell off. So we guided her to the ground, and instead of me doing the usual business of checking her heartbeat, I just held up the broken ear at Dan and said, "Milky White is dead!".
I don't think that she liked me making fun of her condition like that. I carried her offstage and she was quickly spirited away to the backstage crew, who used white gaff tape to tape the wayward ear back on for the time being.
After the show, she was glued again, and the ear was held on as the epoxy hardened by a bandage. She looked like Van
Gogh.
She was very difficult to deal with after that, even the closing night, when I entered with her at the top of the show, I put her where I wanted her to be, and her wheels shifted, and she moved 2 inches over. (More into the light).
Diva.
All of this considered, she was not just a fiber glass cow from a Nativity company, she was another actress/actor/actron? in our show, and I felt sad taking the photo that you see at the top of this post.
That photo was taken after the final bow of the closing performance, and I ran back on and got someone to take a picture of me and she/he together.
After the picture was taken, I said, "Well...I guess this is goodbye old pal..." and then found myself welling up in the eyes, like a 10 year old.
Why????
I don't know.
Every time I looked at this cow onstage, I looked at it as if it were my dearly beloved dog, Buddha. I guess I just projected so much emotion onto this fake cow that I actually felt sad leaving it.
What is her future? I guess that she will sit in Signature Theatre's prop storage for an indeterminable future...(until they need a cow again..?!).
I secretly hoped that she would be trusted to me to keep her until the time arose that Signature would need another cow (meaning probably never), and that she could grace my backyard till then. (She was built for the outdoors anyway).
But, alas, she will be somewhere in a dusty corner of a storage unit pining for her return to the stage, whenever that will be.
I will always be fond of my wayward, diva, transsexual cow, and her many whims. She forced me to be a better actor, because she never let me relax in a scene with her, as she was never predictable. I thank her for this.
She was truly "the best cow".
Love,
Stephen
