Waiting

Whenever I feel that time is "out of joint" I think of The Glass Bead Game -- Hesse's book about an intellectual elite, about a university of the future whose students have a need to find out more about the world, about themselves, about the workings of the universe. An ideal (idealized?) world where professors have something to profess and everyone -- both disciples and masters -- have time to think. I miss the days when time was patient. I long for a moment of respiro -- not a holiday, a celebration, a break, but real time to think, to figure out what it is I have to say, to stage plays not just to add a line on my CV (any crappy production will do that), but to actually invent something -- a new gesture of affection, a way to show an overwhelming sadness, a fracture in one's soul. I was talking about this in class today -- the need for a new language in theatre -- and as I spoke I thought of all the terrible plays out there, all that wasted energy, all that work going nowhere. There should be a tax -- a tax, a test, a fee, a punishment -- something that would prevent the prostitution of the stage. There should be a law...

I know I need a break when I think about these things as I lecture (let's call them "parallel thoughts"), when I am capable of talking about one thing while thinking about another -- panic education, panic everything. Four hours of sleep, ten minutes for a lecture, (panic about the lack of mics on the stage), one hour for independent study (panic about KRVS interview -- totally unprepared), one hour seminar (panic about the end of The Happiness Machine, that forced happy ending, as if life were ever so simple, so accommodating, so kind...)

Dan came to talk to me after class and I told him about the new ending. "I have to nix the happy end, Dan. It just doesn't make sense." "That's harsh, Dayana..." Dan identifies with Larry (of Habitat Radio) a little too much. For the play, that's a good thing. I'll worry about Dan's soul later...

In the meantime, I'm waiting. I need four lapel mics (that I can't afford to rent ); I need a better ending; I need to be on the stage (but Fletcher is not available until Friday); I need to change what Conni's doing in the second half of the play; I need to change the wedding scene (a bride who falls out of a Zeppelin shouting in the direction of the groom: "Steeeve...It wasn't meant to beeeeeee...") I need to think. I need time. I need time to think.