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Jocelyn Maslac was the
name most of us knew her by, but before she was
married it was Kimberly Reina. And that was the name on her passport, which
delayed us learning the news we dreaded. I first met her as Juliet in the
straight Romeo and Juliet, in which I played Friar Lawrence. Eventually she
joined the mongers, and we wrote her faire family history into my faire
family as part of the large and prosperous Bright family (originally started
by Richard Shannon). By 1988 she had gotten divorced and started working as
a flight attendant for PanAm, because she really wanted to see the world.
We knew she was based out of London, but, because of name confusions, her
name did not initially appear on the list of victims of PanAm 103, blown up
over Lockerbie.
At her funeral, those of us who knew her were invited to eulogize her, and I
told the story of that first Faire together (we'd both worked Faires before,
but our paths had never crossed). The actor playing Romeo was in his first
Faire, and perhaps was a bit intemperate in his habits as well as his stage
behavior. His blocking was off, and his grief (in character) at Juliet's
death sometimes led to painful drops and bruises for Jocelyn. So I spoke of
the only time she did anything I thought might be in the least mean spirited
(though in my opinion justified).
At the last show of Faire, Romeo decided
to show all the main stage crowd how great an actor he was. He improvised,
he ran all over the stage, he emoted, he did perhaps inappropriate and
mildly injurious things to his late wife Juliet's corpse, and most
importantly, he ran the show over by several minutes. What could they do,
fire him?
The Celt show was already late in starting, and we could see
their unexpected forebearance at the top of the audience in not just chasing
us off the stage. Finally, as Romeo climbed the stairs needlessly for the
second time, I walked on stage prematurely as Friar Lawrence, rolled my
monk's robe's sleeve up to expose a highly non-period wristwatch, looked at
Romeo, looked at the watch, and walked back off stage shaking my head, to
some of the biggest laughs I ever got. Romeo got the message and died.
Juliet/Jocelyn in due course awoke, I entered to deliver my line "Your
husband there lies dead", and Jocelyn (who'd been lying in pain on that hay
bale for way too long) verified this by picking his head up by the hair and
then releasing it with an audible thud. As I said, the only mean spirited
thing I ever saw her do. If you'd seen her bruises, you'd have forgiven her
as well.
She would want to be in the list of absent friends, and probably as Jocelyn
Reina.
-- Richard Aronson
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