WHAT’S SO FUNNY: My 90 seconds of immortality

Laguna’s Pageant of the Masters has been a smash hit for 75 years, staging classic paintings in tableaux vivants. It recently risked blemishing that record by using me as a substitute cast member.

I had requested a backstage pass so I could research a writing project. But it turns out that the Pageant sometimes uses substitutes, and its staff has become adept at fitting them in when called upon.

So in response to my request, board member Anita Mangels and director Diane Challis Davy, after some consultation, asked me my height and waist size.

I was eventually told I would appear on a Thursday night in Charles Green’s “Her First Bouquet,” a 19th-century theatrical painting with 10 people in it. It’s called a “builder” because it is assembled in view of the audience to show how the paintings are recreated. I was assured I’d do fine, but to me it sounded complicated and with me in it, it seemed to have disaster potential.

On the big night I reported to the cast patio at the Festival of Arts, signed in and got my “sub” tag, which is very important. It’s a badge of ignorance, assuring that the bearer will be helped by the backstage volunteers all along the way.

My part in “Her First Bouquet” was that of an aging man about town, and by the time I had been through makeup and donned my top hat and tails, I was a decayed gentleman from head to toe.

The backstage ambience as we waited to go on was very Fellini. I sat across from the Nine Muses. A painted clown filled me in on how we’d be set up onstage. He said to hold on when they moved in the backdrop as it would bump up against me.

In the wings I was posed by a stagehand and supervisor to stand with right hand raised, in apparent conversation with a young ballerina. Our section of foreground, with us in it, was then moved onstage, half-lit, in view of the audience.

The backdrop came in behind us. I was ready for the bump but had inadvertently lowered my right hand, which got pinned against my side. Then all the lights went out. I freed my hand and got it in position just before the true lighting came up.

It was a long 90 seconds. Your instinct when on stage is to do something after awhile, but I managed to refrain. I don’t think I wobbled. And I was conscious of being part of a masterpiece, which is a great feeling. Like John Barrymore as quoted in the Pageant program, “I wished I could have seen me.”

Afterward one of the makeup ladies removed my sideburns and tried to take off my mustache, assuming it was false — a classic bit to end a classic evening.

SHERWOOD KIRALY is a Laguna Beach resident. He has written four novels, three of which were critically acclaimed.