My Old Acting Injury

My knee is really bothering me.  I am thinking it is my old acting injury.  I never played sports so I kinda like that I can refer to this as my old acting injury.  And here’s why.

It was the Spring of 1976.  We were preparing a one act for the New Hope annual competition.  The play was some original one act written a few years earlier.  The part was John Mann.  Kind of an every man type who spent the majority of the play ranting about one thing or another.  I remember one part when he discusses they.  The infamous they.  The they that ban blacks, kill Jews, start wars.  That was the kind thing he would rant about.  Lots of monologues.  Not a lot of action.  Well I played Mr. Mann (years before Misery was even written).  As it was a dialogue heavy play there was a lot of pacing the stage.  Some parts were played off the stage and getting into the audience’s face.  Well at one pivotal moment, I had to drop to my knees, in tears over something or other.  Rehearsal after rehearsal I dropped my 145 pound body to my knees and rehearsal after rehearsal was told that I should wear knee pads.  Ha!  I was what, 16 at the time and indestructible (remember how I didn’t play sports?).  So day in and day out I would drop, do my bit, stand and continue.  That was until the day before the performance in New Hope at the Bucks County playhouse.  The rehearsal was going along quite well.  I was ranting my ass off (not that I had much of an ass back then) and I came to the point where I held my face in my hands ad dropped to my knees and . . . click, that’s what I heard and that’s what I felt in my knee.  And as I attempted to rise, my leg, just slightly, buckled under me.  But the show must go one, so with a slight limp I finished out the rehearsal.  I am not actually sure if I told anyone about this little inconvenience at that point.

To make a long story not as long as it could be, I awoke the next day and lo and behold, my knee was fine.   I walked around the bedroom a bit testing it out and all was good.  I was ready for the trip to New Hope and the performance.  I arrived at school and went directly to the gathering area on the stage.  I proceeded to walk into to one of the risers set up with chairs.  Not just walked into, but bumped that very same knee, hard.  But it must not have been that hard because I was fine.  We went to New Hope, performed, didn’t win (the judges didn’t like the fact that the character yelled a lot at the audience, not notice to my amazing, knee pad less, stunt work).  And then I went on with life.

Jump ahead to the late 80’s It was going to rain the next day and suddenly I felt this throbbing in my knee.  No clue why it just started to really hurt.  Swelled up a bit too.  And then I realized, it must have been because of the fall so many years ago.  Seems I have myself an old acting injury.