Thrown in Jail
a l r e a d y : hatachi Archives
Thrown in Jail Monday May 1
It is a fact that our school does not have much money. What we do seem to have, though, are connections. The staff has recently hooked us up with great seats to concerts, plays, and cultural events. It's almost an extension of my days of seeing free shows at Foellinger.
Last Thursday, more than half of the students received tickets to go see the "Muscle Theatre" in Yokohama. The theater itself is in Minato Mirai, and thus within walking distance from the Center, so many of us were familiar with it. The show changes annually, but the theme is centered on human strength and endurance. These performers don't just dance, they work: flips, jumps, human pyramids, you name it. Personally, the excellent sound system also helped win me over. So, this year, the theme is "Dogs". Everyone was dressed up in these great dog outfits, and the storyline loosely depicted a stray dog trying to pass all of these challenges so he could become human.
About halfway though the event, eight or nine guys come out in "human" outfits. "That's odd," we thought, "everyone up until then had tails and ears and all that?" They were dressed as construction workers, and they came out with a big set piece that had metal sheets suspended from wires, making a huge, but spartan, vertical xylophone. Then, the guys laid down, and in order, did sit-ups, each time purposefully clanking their helmets into the metal sheets to hammer out the tune. It was wild.
Out of nowhere, one of the guys got up and ran offstage, saying he "had to go to the bathroom". Now, we all had seen in the program beforehand that "audience participation" was part of the show, but no one had anticipated this: the "lead" constructor worker starts looking out into the crowd to fill the absence; they can't finish their song unless someone plays that note. He walks towards the steps down to the audience of about 1,000 people.
The students from my school were in various places in the theater. Jon, Ken, and a few others were in the front row, but on the opposite side of the stage from this guy. Joanna, Val, Teja, and myself were in the seventh row on the side of the stage where this guy was. Val's a big, tall guy. He does martial arts. He's a badass. I swore they spotted him ahead of time and were making a beeline for him.
But it was I who was sitting on the aisle.
"You," he pointed.
And then there's a spotlight on me. People are clapping and cheering. I'm supposed to get up onstage and help these guys finish this song. I hear Jon, Ken, and the first-row crowd screaming out cheering for me. I get up there, put on the helmet, and get in position to do the sit-ups. And then this thought: "Mark, you're onstage with eight muscular, beefy dudes who can do probably eighty sit-ups a minute. You haven't done any sit-ups in probably over a year. This could be a potentially very embarassing moment for you."
The guy who had "gone to the bathroom" had played his part out before, and I had been paying attention from my seat (it was a real simple melody), so I actually knew when to clank the metal. The "song" began again, and I sat up and knocked my helmet against the metal when I thought I should. When I did, they all immediately stop, look at me, and start saying no, no, no. The audience loves it.
"Oh, I get it," I realize. I'm being set up here. They're screwing with me. All right, so if doing the melody right is wrong, I just won't do anything next time. So they start up the melody again, and when I know it's my "turn", I don't do anything. Same reaction: no, no, no, and a roar from the audience. But unlike all good stories, though, there's no rule of three here. I only got two chances. So, they ushered me to my feet after I "failed" the second time, and I was led to stage right, where for the first forty-five minutes of the show, a huge curtain had been covering a set piece.
The curtain dropped, and the stage lights revealed a huge jail cell with a single chair in the center of it; a uniformed guard stood at the back. The door slammed behind me, and here I am, looking out into the bright lights, having no idea what I'm doing in jail, or what I'm supposed to be doing onstage in the first place. I know I hit that melody right. The show continued. At one point, the guard handed me a piece of ribbon on a stick, as I was supposed to wave it around though the bars (which faced the audience) to mimic the motion of the dancers onstage (who were far more graceful).
The hero of the show came onstage after about four or five minutes. Since he's a dog, he can't speak, and the "dialogue" was displayed via projector on screens on the sides of the stage. The only problem was that, well, from my unique jailcell vantage point, I couldn't see what they were saying. Thus, I had no idea that the hero was saving me from prison, or that I was supposed to only "reluctantly" give him the ribbon that was supposedly one part of allowing him to become human.
After I gave it to him, I was handed a complimentary bath towel, thanked, and ushered offstage back to my seat to watch the rest of the show. Unfortunately, photography was prohibited, so there's no evidence of any of this.
After the show, all the students were beaming about how great it was that one of us got picked to go up there. We felt special. Then someone suggested, "wait, we were probably picked because we're foreigners, and thus have an appeal of our own in that environment," which was then immediately connected to the fact that we had gotten the tickets for free (with good seats) through the good offices of the school.
Do you see where I'm going with this? I was set up.
