The show is over, long live the show.
The last weekend was very trying. We arrived Friday night to find that the air conditioning had been off all week, and since the performing space is in a reconditioned church with the stained glass windows still intact – well, it had been a greenhouse during the week. We were then told someone should have really come in at 8 AM that morning to turn on the AC, which was not exactly helpful. It was miserable both backstage and on, and though I work blind, ie., without my thick eyeglasses, I could see a sea of undulating white blurs in the audience, as the attendees fanned themselves with their programs.
Saturday started a little better. We arrived to find a pleasant chill in the theater. This was, however, short-lived, as the AC cut itself off an hour before the house opened and the atmosphere once again became sweltering by showtime. The air conditioning unit in the backstage area, at least, was quite separate from the rebellious climate control in the theater, so the dressing rooms were comfortable enough. Score one for roles with limited stage time.
My hat is off to the audience members who actually toughed it out through those two performances. It may not have been as bad in the house as it was onstage, with no lights beating down or heavy costumes, but it couldn’t have been at all comfortable.
So I guess the question at this point is – does this mean I’m back? Am I to plunge back into a field that was once my goal, my preferred way to spend my life, my chosen vocation? At present, it’s a very open subject, but the likely outcome is, sadly – very, very sadly – no. Though I came in at, for me, a very fortuitous time frame – a mere two weeks of rehearsal followed by three weeks of performance – the amount of time taken up by this endeavor and The Hated Job is truly daunting. There are a lot of responsibilities that got skipped in that period, and I’ll be playing catch-up for a while. Something would have to
go to continue that pursuit, and since a number of those aforementioned responsibilities involve paying out money to various entities, the thing to go would not be The Hated Job, alas. As the LOLCat says, “I has morgatge.”
Archive photos were taken the last night, and my relatively frill-less digital camera came out, with predictably lackluster results in the low light. These put yet another nail in the coffin; I was under no delusion that I was cutting a dashing figure, but the pictures of me result in a mental disconnect, wondering who the fat guy is with the sword cane.
I’ve never liked pictures of me performing, for just that reason. My mental picture of the character is destroyed by the cold, hard reality of myself.
Past the horrific physical evidence however, it was largely a positive experience. I enjoy acting, and I enjoy being told how good I am.
Fancy that.
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