I think I may be too old for this. I've been writing and directing plays for 25 years. Every year, the two weeks before the production are the most brutal -- lack of sleep, worry, doubt, the need for perfection. Every year I've done pretty well. I've maintained the appearance of sanity, I've managed to teach my classes and have polite conversations with people in elevators. This year everything seems a little more difficult. Mopping the stage before every rehearsal has become less of an affectionate, comforting activity. My back hurts and I have blisters on my hands (painting the stage was not a picnic either...) Finding enthusiasm for my classes requires more effort. Responding with a smile to those who, in an attempt at support, wish me fractures of all sorts ("Break a leg! Break something!") takes a lot out of me.
Responding normally even to requests that have nothing to do with the play has become problematic. Let me give you an example: a student came to talk to me after class, wanting to make sure she wasn't failing. She doesn't talk much in class, but her writing is decent and her presentation was very good, so I found her worry unfounded and I wanted to assure her that there's no chance she might fail. I smiled and said, "That's ridiculous. Your presentation was very good and on those rare occasions when you speak in class, you always have something insightful to say." As I was finishing this carefully constructed (and pedagogically sound) sentence, the student almost burst into tears and ran away. I kept repeating, "You're doing well enough, don't worry," and she kept walking away, devastated. I think it was my face. I was too tired to compose the appropriately mothering smile, and I think the pathetic attempt at a smile that I managed looked like a rictus or -- from the student's point of view -- a mockery of her emotion. I don't do well with people bursting with sentiment ("That's enough sentiment for one day, Margaret!") so this kind of emotional fluidity baffes me. I said "There's no need to worry." I said, "Talk a little more in class and by the end of the semester you can get all your points for class participation." Which of these statements was traumatic?? Cleary, it was my face. I'm too tired to mother anybody over 21. Grow up. Do your work. Stop calling me "Ms."
My schedule tomorrow: wake up (early), reread one 30 page critical intro and 4 plays for the MA defense scheduled at 10 o'clock; go to said defense and have intelligent, meaningful things to say; run from defense directly to KRVS studio to record Dan's opening sentence (Don't screw up, Dan. There's no time for mistakes of any kind.) The recording is scheduled at 11:30. Finish superb recording (Are you reading this, Dan? I said "superb"), put it on a disc (so it can be transferred to the soundtrack), meet the rest of the cast at 1pm and go shopping for white clothes (scrubs, mostly). Finish exhilarating shopping experience and run to hair salon to "get my hair did" (student lingo). No, it's not vanity. I don't have to be pretty before the show, I'm not on the stage, but my hair is getting too long and it's interfering with my daily mopping...Be done with salon experience by 5:30 (my hair is styled by a man named Eve...), run back to Fletcher and start rehearsing at 6 pm. Be done by 9. End of "free day" (as in the day I don't teach).
Why am I complaining since everything is my fault? Well, I'd like to have alternatives. I'd like to have choices. I'd like to be the poet who needs just some time alone, or not even that -- perhaps just a few hours in a crowded cafe to write the lines of his next masterpiece. I'd even like to be the fiction writer who, similarly, needs only work space and some peace to write a story. Theatre is a different beast altogether. There's this nagging idea in your head, this image which refuses to come to life until an entire cast and crew are assembled. You depend on other people completely. Everything is three-dimensional. Plus, you have the advantage of failing (if you are going to fail) before a full house, not in the privacy of your own bed chamber...Yeah. I wish there were alternatives, but it's not like I have a choice. I only write fiction when my life does not allow me to even think about putting 4 months of work into a production.
I think that's why I get so angry when I see bad theatre, when I see the prostitution of the stage. On paper (and, as our resumes demonstrate, we are constantly judged by how we look "on paper"), both productions have the same value: the one that required half a year of work, and the one put together in a hurry by people interested in theatre because it's less work than fiction (to put it more precisely: the word "collaborative" -- and theatre is a collaborative business -- allows you to blame the others if the work tanks). On paper, though, there's no difference. But I guess poets and fiction writers feel the same. There are always those who write and those who merely trumpet their own achievements.
But "England expects every woman to do her duty," (see how useful those two quotes are?) and I have to move forward and worry about lights and sound now. Sound, because something seems to go wrong during every rehearsal and I need some consistency now. Lights, because we basically have half of the instruments we used in the previous productions. I don't want an ugly play. I'm kind of over poor theatre.
I keep telling everybody (including myself) that these plays are my research. This is partially true. I have to constantly try new things on the stage so I can teach playwriting students something. But there's also another reason for these plays: they are my soul. With every one, a little part of the world that exists and evolves in my head comes to life. It's a familiar universe where I am completely at home, like the curator of a rather strange museum...and once a year, without charging admission, I let people in. Some think this is a temporary distraction. Some see it as art, a moment of temporary exile. Few know that the real exile begins when the lights fade over the last play.
A moment of nostalgia here...Careful, Margaret.
Rehearsal in one hour. Clear head. Coffee. Stage dust.
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