Strange Days

Spent the night yesterday throwing up and trying to get rid of an unbearable stomach ache. If I were Jean Laliberte, my vegan-revolutionary-disease-plagued character, I'd think stomach cancer, naturally. Deep down inside, I am Jean. On the surface I'm trying not to be him. My first stomach troubles (yes, my theatre friends, now you'll be subjected to intimate gastroenterological details...) started a few weeks after my father's death. I wasn't feeling well, I wasn't feeling ill either -- it was a combination of the two, triggered by food. As long as I ate toast and bananas, I was fine. Real food destroyed me. Since then, I've had these episodes a few times. I'd eat normal food, get a terrible stomach ache, throw up, go back to semi-normal. Perhaps my head and its problems have moved into my stomach. Perhaps I think with my colon.

Around 2:45am, I was thinking if it was possible to cancel the rehearsal. At 4 I managed to fall asleep. At 7:30 I was up and not in pain. I made a huge quantity of  tea, poured it in a thermos, and went to Fletcher to get ready for the longest rehearsal to date: the first lighting rehearsal. Jamie arrived with a lot of instruments borrowed from the theatre department. We had a moment of internal celebration until we realized that 6 of the 10, I believe, borrowed instruments didn't work. We did a runthrough and, of course, sound troubles began. As I was telling Matthew (our sound guy), I have this love-hate relationship to Fletcher. I love the space, I HATE the equipment. Everything is faulty. This time, it was feedback from Dan's microphone. I was ready for a small breakdown when Matthew realized the feedback was coming from two giant speakers on each side of the stage, speakers we thought were dead. Well, they're alive and useless, and they make strange noises. We turned them away from the mics and then Matthew had a second brilliant idea: to replace Dan's shitty wireless microphone with a regular one. We did, and Dan's voice came to life. No more problems with the last monologue. No more difference in intensity between the left and the right side of the house. Rehearsal continued and, as it did, I could not believe what was happening, how tremendous everyone was.

I can't even talk about Dan. Dan is insane. It has to be insanity, to be able to manipulate the same sentence so many times -- different inflections, different meanings every time...The interaction with Ellie has never been more alive. Seth is beginning to improvise (the sign that the play is ready for it its public). I remembered a production I saw about 25 years ago back home. It was the equivalent of the art students' "senior show" here: theatre students and their professor (a well known Romanian actor) staged a scene that was a rehearsal of a play. At a certain point in the scene, the main girl turned to the professor/director and said, "I don't know what to do. I feel like slapping him, but that's not in the text." And the professor said, "Excellent. Theatre begins the moment you 'feel like' doing things nobody told you to do."

Absolutely true. When actors get completely comfortable with the space they inhabit on the stage and with their part, they start adding small things: an inflection, a gesture that wasn't there before, a pause...That's when I know they're ready. And we are ready for public.

After the runthrough Matthew had to leave and we began the slow process of hanging lights and checking to see what works and what doesn't. I say "we," but I mean Jamie. Jamie is extraordinary. She's done lights for me for 10 years (for free) and I would have a hard, hard time working with anybody else. Some people learn things and then produce these...what shall I call them?...these "correct" lighting schemes. Jamie invents stuff, mostly because we don't have much to work with and I always want things to be beautiful.

But here we are in Fletcher, with its strange bathroom-like floor that reflects light in the most uninspiring manner, missing tons of instruments, trying to make do. I'm so tired of this poverty. I want a fully functional lighting system. I want colors and I want subtlety and I want nightmare scenes with nightmare lighting and awesome fades and dramatic endings. In my dreams, my plays have all of these things.

While assisting Jamie, I told Dan that every woman there had a crush on Larry Tarkovsky. Dan was beaming and I didn't have the heart to remind him that Larry is the character...On the other had, Dan identifies with the character so much that, for another week, at least, there is no difference.

The cast had lunch, and Dan and Ellie started talking. I sat in Larry Tarkovsky's chair and watched them talk, and joke, and do combat moves, and have a great time. I have never been able to explain to an outsider the chemistry, the camaraderie, the amazing understanding that develops between the members of a cast whose ultimate goal is the show and not the cultivation of their own egos. It is amazing to watch. There's never too much sentiment. (After that perfect runthrough, I said, "I have no notes. That was crazy good. I hope you can do it again...Dan. I love you. I have no idea how you're doing what you're doing, but Larry has evolved beyond my wildest hopes." I should have said, "I love you all," because I do. I should have just quoted myself, because Larry says it in the play: "I love you, Gabe...and you, Dominique, and Jean...I love you all,with your problems, and your dreams and your absurd need to make sense of the world...")

We did a second run through (mostly a speed through) and roughly sketched a lighting scheme. For a first lighting rehearsal it was great. For the actual show...we need many more lighting instruments.

At some point during the hours it took to test the existing lights I took inventory of the cast: Seth, looking awesome in his white scrubs (did I mention he went to Subway dressed like that?), taking a nap on his -- now familiar -- prison-striped cot. Conni sunning herself outside, enjoying the gorgeous weather. Mikey admiring his freshly (spray painted) white shoes, occasionally stroking his pet baby scorpion, Jake. Dan...Dan is not on another planet: Dan is another planet...Ellie talking to everyone at the same time, laughing, having a great time away from...I guess, away from reality. Theatre is an admirable escape. You create your landscape, you light it the way you want it, you add its sounds, its soundtrack, its inhabitants. As a director, the world is under your control. As an actor, the simple fact that, for a few hours, you get to be someone whose actions have no consequence in real life is extremely liberating. Outside the door of the darkened room that has become our refuge, reality bides its time. It will get us in the end. But not today.