Feeling a teensy bit apprehensive about the morrow, as I have to attend another "management meeting" with Line Manager and New Boss. And I'm not entirely convinced I am going to be able to stay in character....
(Stepford Employee is, you will recall, merely a Coping Strategy I have embraced to help me get through each day).
I've spent all afternoon rehearsing with members of a local drama group for the play we're shortly mounting. In these circumstances, I don't seem to have much difficulty adopting a radically different persona from my own. I suspect this is possibly because I am surrounded my like-minded souls, who are all as eager to ensure suspension of disbelief as I am.
But tomorrow? I will be appearing on a stage populated by The Others - people who are not appearing in quite the same production as my own. Recollections of numerous bad horror films flash through my brain - the ones about an Evil Virus which has caused the population of the entire planet to mutate into zombies, leaving me in the role of the mysteriously unaffected survivor. Who has to shuffle through the streets making groaning noises, so that the real zombies do not rip her to pieces with their teeth....
How to achieve a convincing Stepford performance, when I am going to be under the eagle-eyed scrutiny of Line Manager and New Boss; two people who have already seen Real Woman bare her teeth on several occasions, and are going to be very VERY hard to fool...?
I realise I must prepare for this role more carefully.
Unthreatening feminine frock - check
Hair soft and wavy - check
Make up girlish and meek - check
But I know what the movie's director will be monitoring - the two constant betrayers of how I am really feeling. "Eyes and voice ! Watch your eyes and voice, Katharine !!"
Both must be lowered or Real Woman shall surely give herself away....
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