I'm not referring to being a husband or a parent. I am confident that I have some goods and not-so-goods as both. But here I am thinking of actual dramatic roles, on an actual stage, before an actual audience.
I started well. I portrayed Jesus. It was in the Pimlico Baptist Church. I was about five years old. I didn't really understand the play or the role. I was some sort of Christmas spirit. I entered carrying real holly wreaths on my forearm. They didn't hurt. I think I was wearing a long sleeve sweatshirt. I don't remember lines or on-stage actions. I probably just blessed others by appearing among them. I don't think I was on stage for very long but I am confident that my holiness, my sacred presence was revealed when I left the stage because a wide cross was sown on the back of that shirt. I remember very clearly that a leaf fell off a wreath and I stepped on it. I was barefoot and the leaf clung to the sole of my foot. It didn't hurt at all but my nonchalance impressed people.
My second role was in junior high. I portrayed Bertie, a dude cowboy, in what I remember as a lackluster musical set on a dude ranch. The word "dude" has ungone some changes in meaning and use over my lifetime. I first learned the word in my comic book years. It usually referred to a beginner, often notably inept. That is often the sort of male who is most intent on looking sharp and impressive. Here is what Wikipedia has to say:
The term "dude" may have derived from the 18th-century word "doodle", as in "Yankee Doodle Dandy". In the popular press of the 1880s and 1890s, "dude" was a new word for "dandy"—an "extremely well-dressed male", a man who paid particular importance to his appearance
As I remember, I was a mild character and not very important to the story or the show.
My third and final role was Capt. Queeg of the US Navy ship "Caine". The role was played by Humphrey Bogart in the movie, "The Caine Mutiny." The movie and the play in my senior year of high school was about the captain Queeg. I just looked and the author Herman Wouk received a Pulitzer for the book of the same name. Wikipedia describes the character Queeg as "unstable" and that is the key to the story of a captain showing increasingly insane behavior in the command of a US ship in the Pacific war. Queeg (Bogart) is famous for deteriorating in court on the stand. He is well-known for two ball bearings which he holds on one hand and massages over and over while going nuts. I may have a special talent in going nuts.
