Rhubarb on Accompaniment
In junior high school, I had a quirky music teacher (is there any other kind?) who would occasionally launch into monologues on a myriad of topics including, but not limited to: what a loser her ex-boyfriend was; amusing malapropisms from her overbearing opera coach, Hilde; and life “on the stage.” I remember these well because it was the first inkling I had that teachers carried on real lives outside of the confines of school, but also because there were a few key phrases that have managed to remain in my addled brain since. One of these was “rhubarb and spinach.” During rehearsals for our production of Guys and Dolls, the music teacher instructed us to repeat this phrase in low voices whenever we were supposed to evoke a low din during a street or party scene. Our music teacher assured us that extras in movies are instructed to repeat the phrase and that it was a standard acting method. To this day, I can’t look at rhubarb without thinking, “and spinach.”
