I'm rehearsing one show that is in the crazy stage of fine tuning and trying to make it a cohesive hour and clean everything up. The notes are pretty small and it is all about the details. And I'm rehearsing another show that needs huge broad strokes, that isn't even fully written yet and needs to be brought to life entirely.
Both pretty fun, really.
I have been worried about both of them on and off. I worry that no one in the show likes me. I worry that I'm the weak link in the cast. I worry that I talk to much, or don't contribute enough, or am not pretty enough to be in the show, or am generally just this horrible person they are all stuck with, onstage and off. I worry about my career endlessly. I know it's annoying. It drives everyone crazy. And it drives me crazy when other people, who I think are doing better than me, worry about their careers. But it is just a part of me. I worry about the work because I care. I worry about things because I want to have a career and I want to take the steps that will lead to me having the career I want. But more than anything I just really want to take pride in what I put out there and believe in the work I do. And I do with these projects.
As much as I want the audience to like what I do (I wanted Tout Comme Elle to be a smash of such gargantuan proportions that it would become something that changed my entire life. Like, nothing was the same ever because of doing that show. That didn't happen. It was wonderful and perfect, but it didn't happen), I care more about how I feel about my own work. I want Swoon! to be a huge hit at fringe, and for us to make money and to be a part of something that buzzes and makes people excited, to feel like I am connected to something that is bigger than me but needs me. And that excitement comes with an audience, an eager audience that wants to see our show. And I want to create an environment, or an experience for them that is magical, and generous, and all of that. It's true. I thought about that so much when doing Modern Love.
But ultimately, it can't mean to them what it means to me, and they are going to bring their own personalities to the work and they're going to judge it. Because that's easy to do. I do the same when I go see a show. I do the same when I read the Fringe guide and look at shows, and think that some look so dreadful. It's easy. It's really easy to receive the art and slap some opinion on it and not care. I do it all the time. That's sobering. I love theatre and want there to be good theatre in the city I live in, I want the right people to make it and the arts to be so supported by audience dollars that we don't need corporate sponsorship or government funding, and I still come into almost everything with the attitude of 'This probably isn't good enough'.
I'm a bad person, that way.
You don't have to think, to watch plays like that. It's so easy. Because they're never perfect. There's always so much more you can do. And I always push, to the endless dismay of anyone who has the misfortune to work with me, because I don't want to think we wasted any opportunity. It's like being tied to the track with the train coming. I want to do everything we possibly can before we get run over.
So I'm trying to be more open as an audience member and more fearless as a cast member. In rehearsals, it's coming up as to what's confusing and what the audience is going to think, and I care, and I don't. I care way more about how I feel about what we've created.
And right now I think it's pretty interesting and different and has moments of real beauty.Photo credits: Alex Felipe
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