Uninvited on stage

My play "We Crucify Him" was in progress at the St Joseph’s Convent Hall, St Joseph about thirty years ago. Rita as "Rachel" was in full flight. The audience was mesmerised. As usual, I was looking on from the last seat in the back row when that uninvited "actor" appeared on the stage. In a flash, I dashed round the building and arrived in the wings.

We tried all sorts of sounds to get that pot hound off the stage. We snapped our fingers, asked, meowed and even tried the good old "Mash dog!" thing but he was hell-bent behind the actress following her every step. About five minutes after his entrance, the canine made his exit.

"O my God! I though that dog would never leave!" Rita exclaimed when she came off stage. The five minutes or so seemed like eternity. She never lost concentration but remained in character throughout the ordeal. Strangely, she excelled herself that night with a magnificent performance.

Her sister — Frances Hilary Ashby — had uninvited "guest artistes" during a performance of "Calabash Alley". From the beginning to the end of the play at the La Brea Community Centre, Frances — the original "Mabel", "Papa George", "Danny King" and other players were bombarded by bats diving down ever so often from holes in the celotex roof over the stage.

The actors were terribly afraid of the bats but did not show it. That problem we could not even try to solve but we did tell our organisers about it after the play. They laughed and explained that the flying mammals were not bloodsucking vampires but harmless fruit bats.

"Calabash Alley" was playing to a "ram-crammed" audience in Grenada when about twenty minutes into the play, the organiser placed a chair on the stage next to Danny’s bed and who should be seated there but one of the chief ministers in the Eric Gairy government.

It took a lot of explaining on my part to convince the organiser that only the players should be seen on the stage.

Eventually, she relented and we managed to squeeze him in on the same level with the audience. Of course, I could not tell her that in Elizabeth’s theatre the nobility used to sit on stage.

At the Signal Hill Comprehensive School in Tobago, Lucia Roach as "Olga" in "Calabash Alley" had just completed a stirring speech when a member of the audience went on stage to congratulate her. While shaking her hand, the drinking glass fell from his hand and broke on the floor.

Even Ato Boldon could not have reached that stage before me. I had to stop the performance because the barefooted actresses could not risk receiving cuts. After mopping and sweeping that part of the stage, the play resumed to a round of applause from the large enthusiastic audience.

The time had come for the showdown. The culprit was twice my size. Taking him aside, I accused him of having no consideration for the Strolling Players, the play nor the audience and all his interest was in "gallerying" on the stage. He was very apologetic. I made him promise not to interrupt the play again.

As soon as a little boy returned from a birthday party to which he was invited, his mother asked, "Johnny, did you remember to tell your friend’s mother thanks for inviting you?"

"Yes, mommy, I remember," he replied. "But I didn’t tell her anything because two other friends in front of me, told her thanks and she told them, ‘Don’t mention it’ ".