On the Subject of Doubt

I think I’ve said this before: I’ve been writing and staging plays for 25 years. It’s a long time. I’m not saying that the sheer amount of time (quantity) makes me an expert. (Ok, perhaps I am saying it a little). It definitely makes me a snob. I have seen so many plays – American, British, French, Polish, Russian, Romanian, German, Japanese…it’s both useless and ridiculous to go on. The point is: I’ve seen a lot of theatre; I’ve done a lot of theatre; I’ve worked with all kinds of people – professionals, almost professionals, and amateurs; I’ve been a drama critic for a good portion of my life, I’ve made friends and deadly enemies expressing opinions I cannot hide. When it comes to theatre, I cannot lie: not to the people I’m working with, not to the people whose shows I am invited to see.

I am a theatre snob. I’m the first one to admit it. Not in a contemptuous way (the “oh, darling, how could he have directed that?” kind of way), but in a way that makes me sad whenever I see bad theatre, theatre prostitution, plays staged by people who have no idea what they’re doing, not because they are beginners (this is where the “quantity” argument becomes irrelevant), but because they have no genuine interest in the field, no imagination, no courage, and – what’s worse – think that the purpose of staging a play is the consequent minor celebrity status that is inevitable in a small community.

I guess this is a very long introduction (my apologies) to the following idea: I realize that the intensity with which I work on my plays must seem ridiculous to anyone looking in from the outside; anyone who doesn’t know me very well, who doesn’t know my past or my investment in the field.

I was amazed at the difference between the practice of theatre here as opposed to the prison in the shape of a country from which I originate. Perhaps intensity is what kept us alive there. Focus, intensity, a sense of humor. I realize that, the moment I start working on a play, something happens – a sort of trance during which I am still incredibly functional (just ask my colleagues on the Graduate Course Offerings Committee…), yet capable of inhabiting two worlds at the same time. I go to work, I get things done, I meet with undergrads whose problems I solve, and graduate students whose problems I put in perspective (perspective matters). I teach. I eat (sometimes). I pace. I smile. And yet, throughout all these activities, in my head, I’m directing the play, rewinding scenes we’ve done, dismantling them, changing background songs, adding lines, deleting scenes, having nonstop conversations with “l'homme fatal.”

There is something changing inside this production. It’s not getting away from me (nothing can ever get away from me during the staging of a play), but its mood is shifting. Yesterday we took the rehearsal to Fletcher, just to get a sense of the space and foresee the problems we’ll have to deal with in November. Ah, more the fools, we! The giant air conditioning unit whose constant hum (more like a raging storm, really) drowns every voice; the desolation of the mismatched furniture; the busted bulbs in all the worklights . All of them…I don’t know what I was thinking, bringing people who don’t yet have a firm grasp of the relationship between the characters into a space like this. It’s like inviting people to an art show where the artist has barely made a preliminary sketch.

There was such a lack of connection between everyone on that stage, that at some point I wanted to pack my toys and leave, just get the hell out of there and not look back. My first impulse is always to run: before an argument, before failed scenes; before the possibility of a new connection. Fellow feeling and all that…(“That’s enough sentiment for one day, Margaret!”)

I didn’t run but, in my head, things started changing. There’s something extremely melancholy about this play which, combined with my terror (yes: my fear has escalated) that working two feet away from the audience will be the death of us, is beginning to paralyze me.

Ok, this is what I’m talking about: I realize how insignificant my fears look from the outside. (“Cheer up, dear, it’s just a play…”) But what’s the point of doing “just a play?” These are six months of my life which I won’t get back. This is my new obsession, an adventure of my own making which will teach me to look at space (internal space) and time, and people, differently.  In case the paradox isn’t clear, let me state it plainly: I realize that I work in complete anonymity and that, five, ten, twenty years from now nobody will even remember. I realize that what I do leaves no trace and is, in the grand scheme of things, inconsequential (this is what differentiates me from the local celebrity crowd). Having realized this, I continue to think of these productions as life and death scenarios because to me they are, because their success (the image I have in my head materializes on the stage) keeps me alive, while their failure would kill my soul.

So I wanted to run yesterday after seeing the spectacular lack of chemistry between Night and Chlotilde; after adding little scenes I will later have to delete; after using music that no longer fits the mood of the play, while doing my damnedest  (Damnest? Damndest? What the hell?!) not to suffocate “the talent.” I call the cast “the talent” in an endearingly mocking way because I have to hide the fact that, in my mind, I give them this title in all seriousness. I have to hide behind the joke because laughter hides fear and is often known to cure it.

So will all my affectionate moments on the stage go unnoticed because I collapsed the distance between the public and the cast? Will sharing a space destroy the magic? Can one spectate magic and inhabit its space at the same time? Am I making a huge mistake? Should Night be distant with the girl and truly fall for Death? What’s at stake then? And who will believe that he’d give his life to save the girl if there’s no connection there? Am I complicating things? (Absolutely.) Can Night be attracted to the normality of the human relationship Chlotilde embodies (but how can a relationship with a movie star be normal?) when, in fact, he craves the strangeness of a connection with Death? Death has a fondness for him. (How does a man behave when Death finds him attractive?)

I am a little lost and there’s no one I can talk to. I can’t disappoint the talent, I can’t suffocate the fatal man, I can’t call Susan every five minutes to cry on her shoulder. This is a world I have created. I am my own problem. Perhaps all I have to do to move forward is stop being afraid.

“Cheer up, darling. It’s just a play.”