The Slap
by Celia Jones
It was
1966, and I was a new Drama student at the
University of California Berkeley campus. My
first acting experience was as the lead in an
anti-establishment play, a kind of modern ‘Antigone’. The
play’s writer/director Rosemary
was a tall, elegantly thin wraith with curly,
flowing blond hair and floral, hippie dress. My
recollection of performing this play is rather
fuzzy except for one scene, where the script
called for me to slap ‘my uncle’. Since
I had never before slapped anyone’s face, my
initial attempts in rehearsal were rather feeble.
After
watching a couple of my
limp-wristed efforts, the ethereal Rosemary
suddenly transformed into a fury spitting out,
“You call that a slap!?” In
a flash, she was on me like an oversized Valkyre,
demonstrating on my face:“This is how you do
it. Just cup your hand and hit on the
jaw line so it makes a loud noise but doesn’t
hurt,” giving my mug an almighty crack.
“Bullshit,” I cried, “that hurt
like hell!” “That’s because you
flinched. Let’s try it again,
and don’t flinch,” the harpy growled as
she slapped my flinching face several times in
quick succession. I’d heard that
you had to suffer for your art, but this was
ridiculous as I struggled to hold back my tears.
I thought
I was suddenly in a skit from the TV
anarchic series “Monty Python’s Flying
Circus”, where John Cleese and Michael Palin
are standing on a pier, each with a large fish in
hand. They proceed to slap each other
with their fish in a ballet of military precision
until one falls in the water.
We
eventually got the slap right at the performance;
at least it didn’t hurt me a bit when I
slapped the other actor. Though the
precision of our scene wasn't 'balletic', it
certainly was as nonsensical.
© Celia Jones
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