Unnaturally Green (35 page)

(Crowd hisses.)

HOST: All right, all right, let’s not hold it against her. When you first got cast in
Wicked,
you thought realizing a dream would answer some big questions for you. That the “greenness” of your life experience would somehow fade, and you would grow into a new phase of clarity, certainty, and accomplishment. Am I right?

FELICIA: Uh, I guess I didn’t know it at the time, but yeah, I think that sums it up.

HOST: Now, to fill in our viewers at home—what happened there? Where did it go wrong?

FELICIA: Uh, well, with all due respect, I wouldn’t necessarily say it went
wrong
—

HOST: Then when did you stop trying? When did you pull away and fold under the pressure?

FELICIA: I don’t think I did either! My only problem is that I still have questions. Questions that I thought would get answered.

HOST: Questions?!

(Crowd boos.)

FELICIA: Hear me out! It’s just that a lot of people I know in theater seem certain about what they want to do. But I’m not. So I thought, well? There must be something wrong.

HOST: You are absolutely correct. When it comes to deciding who you are and what to do with your life, you need to settle on one thing—and stick to it! Anything less makes for too much confusion, both for you—and your audience. They want a satisfying narrative arc, am I right?

 (Crowd cheers.)

FELICIA: But settling on one way to describe myself to the audience would be lying.

HOST: But isn’t lying for the sake of a pat ending so much more fun than reality?

(HOST turns to crowd. They cheer louder.)

FELICIA: But—I’m torn. I want the audience to trust me but at the same time, I don’t want to leave them without some grand, satisfying ending that delivers them the clarity I keep searching for myself.

HOST: Well, Felicia—now’s your chance!  Now that you’ve reached the final round of What the Heck Should I Do With My Life, you get to choose where your path will next take you after
Wicked
. Are you ready?

FELICIA: Uh?

HOST: Aw, c’mon now! Somebody’s a ’fraidy pants!

(Crowd starts to heckle. “Get a grip!” “Quit your whining!” “Give it up!”)

FELICIA: I’m sorry.

HOST: Hasn’t it all come down to this moment? Since
Wicked
, haven’t you been searching for answers? For a decision on what to do next?

FELICIA: Sure, I guess.

HOST: Then it’s time to decide if professional theater is the right path for you!

FELICIA: When you put it that way, then, I guess, okay.

HOST: You heard her, folks. It’s time…to choose!

(Crowd goes wild.)

HOST: According to the official What the Heck Should I Do With My Life rules, once you spin the wheel, you have to follow through with whatever the arrow lands on. No “ifs” “and” or “buts.” It’s total commitment from here on out. Do you think you can do that?

FELICIA: That sounds like the opposite of how life really works.

HOST: …Which is why this is such a great game! No more uncertainty, Felicia. Just a future, clear and bright. A yellow brick road, straight and narrow.

FELICIA: Have you been stealing metaphors from my memoir?

HOST: We’re still in your memoir, Felicia.

FELICIA: Oh, that is super weird.

HOST: Can we bring out the Future Wheel?

(Crowd cheers, then hushes, as the Future Wheel is rolled out by two leggy ladies in sequined jumpers.)

HOST: This is it, Felicia. The moment of truth.

(Crowd starts thumping their feet on the risers.)

HOST: Here on our Wheel we have: (1) Actress, (2) Housewife, (3) Writer, (4) Salaried Office Worker (with Benefits!), or (5) Unemployed Deadbeat.

FELICIA: Wait—isn’t there some kind of hybrid option? Where you can combine, say, two of the four? Or tackle each of them, one at a time?

HOST: Not the way certainty works, sweetie.

FELICIA: Can I make a pro-con chart, or something? To really figure out what is best?

HOST: Why bother? That’s why we have the Future Wheel. To decide
for
you!

(Crowd cheers.)

FELICIA: Can’t I at least spin a few times, see where it lands, and split the difference? I thought that was an option?

(FELICIA panders to crowd for support. They boo.)

HOST: You couldn’t be more wrong.

FELICIA: But, isn’t it—? Hey, is Life Lessons 101 in the audience? Life Lessons 101, back me up here!

(Silence from the crowd. Somebody coughs. A baby cries.)

HOST: But what does Life Lessons 101 know, anyway? Nevermind that touchy-feely, keep-an-open-mind, life-is-fluid nonsense. This is Life Lessons 201. Welcome to higher learning!

(Crowd starts chanting, “Spin it, spin it, spin it!”)

HOST: You know what they want. You know what you want. Now go ahead. SPIN!

(Felicia steps forward, takes a deep breath, and spins the Future Wheel.)

22. BACK TO SQUARE 101

A
s the Host said in our bizarre Game Show Interlude, you, dear reader, deserve a conclusion. Something that inspires you to venture forth, soldiering into your own unnaturally green adventure!

This, my friend, I cannot give you.

I can, however, submit an account of what happened next—the recent and curious events that led me here, to this moment, as I physically type words on the page.

(Hi, future reader! It’s me, Felicia, from the past! TIME TRAVEL THROUGH BOOKS!)

When my production closed,
Wicked
San Francisco didn’t (as I once imagined) evaporate—poof!—in a blink. Instead, it slowly receded into the past, where it remains a living memory—one I revisit often.

Its people, of course, live on, kicking and doing jazz hands on all corners of the globe. After
Wicked,
Neka was reunited with Nic on the
Mary Poppins
tour, where they “step in time” together and post blissful Facebook photos of their cross-country adventures. Our shoulder-grabbing friend Etai is now playing Boq on Broadway, along with the famously toned-armed Teal, and Tom, my fun-loving Wizard. The lovely and talented Libby is making waves in the New York theater scene, charming the best of them (as she charmed me, those many-odd months go). She and I still see each other often—squealing, gushing, and engaging in other slumber party frivolity.

As for me?

Oh, how I wish I could sum up my life in one sentence.

Felicia Ricci lived happily ever after, with pit stains.

Here is what I do know.

After September 5, I started writing everyday—in between theater auditions, workshops, and concerts. Journals. Blogs. Story outlines.

Slowly, the idea for this memoir took shape, and I began a book-writing adventure that is now just shy of one year in the making. This adventure reawakened the English major in me, my love of writing, and my long-harbored sense of curiosity.

The questions resurfaced, in droves.

Who was I after
Wicked
?

What kind of a career could I have?

What is a career? Is it just one thing?

When should I shut up and stop asking questions?

I’d heard murmurs of this kind of uncertainty for nearly all my life.
Wicked
, I had thought, would be my answer. But it only led to more questions.

What does it mean to be unlimited?

As you might expect, the questioning got me into a bit of a career tangle, at which point I impulsively spun my Future Wheel, deciding it was time to retry my hand at a “Salaried Office Job (with Benefits!)” since I needed some kind of steady income while I wrote my book.

So, I got a job writing for a downtown wedding magazine, where I had my own cubicle and everything.

At first I was excited.

This is just like a chick lit novel!

I soon realized that this was a misapprehension on my part since nothing about the job was at all witty, amusing, or overrun with banter and quippy observations about striking out in the big city.

In the end, not only did Salaried Office Job (with Benefits!) fail to answer my questions, it raised a million more.

With a full-time job, could theater remain a part of my life?

Could I be creative, and still make a living?

I was thrust into an extended bout of Freshman Year of Life déjà vu.

All I kept thinking was,
What’s the deal, Life Lessons 101?
I thought I would have graduated by now.

Why was I still so
green?

In the midst of this questioning, I knew I needed some help.

I needed to get back to my roots.

So I enrolled in a class.

(A familiar one, with a familiar title.)

“In the real world, a mom might tell a kid, ‘No, you can’t have that pony.’ But here you say, ‘
Yes
, you can have that pony,
and
here’s the man who’s going to sell it to us.’ See how that works?” Mike’s forehead was flush from the heat. He was gesticulating with both hands, a man in the throes of teaching passion. “‘Yes, And’ is the driving principle behind all improvisation. Use ‘Yes, And’ to work with your scene partner and get on the same page.”

We all nodded, wide-eyed.

It was my first day in Improv 101 at the Upright Citizen’s Brigade, a famous New York theater and training center that had birthed dozens of comedy greats. Mike, our red-bearded teacher, was a comedian-about-town and one of
UCB
’s best improvisers. He appeared many times each week on their dilapidated stage, sweating and yelling like a big, charismatic Viking.

“All right, let’s get two people up.” 

Today our goal wasn’t to be funny, but merely to apply improv’s core principle of “Yes, And.” The exercise was literally to say “yes,” repeat back what your scene partner had just said, then add the next piece of information (“and”).

Yes
, it sounded simple—
And
yet I was terrified.

What the heck would I do without a
script?

Two boys volunteered to start us off, and began doing a scene about alligator hunting. Even though it was the most terrible scene I’d ever witnessed, I couldn’t help but chuckle. Inside our classroom, humor was contagious; our laughter emanated from a place of support, not judgment.