Those Who Don't Try Never Look Foolish

Almost done. Kind of crazy.

I’ve had a series of not great shows….just messing up little things, or not being as truthful or as funny or as something as I try to be. Weird to have those deja vu moments, especially because on this contract you do the show so many times. Lately I've been doing things I've never done before. I'll sit backstage and realize I'm not wearing the gloves I'm supposed to be wearing. Or that I closed doors in an opposite order for the first time ever. I don't think any of it has happened or mattered onstage, but it's still weird. Makes me feel like I'm a bad actor, or a lazy actor, or something. It’s never enough, I guess, the way to think about things is that there’s always room to grow, there’s always more to do and find, but then when you go down that road, and you make a mistake, it’s hard to not feel terrible about yourself.

Anyway.

I really hate that Star Wars phrase, ‘Do or do not do. There is no try’. I think there is a hell of a lot of try. I try a lot. I do things to, but often times I try and they don’t work out. Sometimes I try too hard and because of that they don’t work out.

I feel myself trying and maybe that’s a negative for me as an actor, because the best people make it look effortless and I think for me, everything feels like, and looks like, a lot of work. For all of the mistakes I am making, for all of the things I didn't do with this character, or this show, or any other show, I still feel like I tried. Maybe it wasn't enough? Maybe there is just always more? Even with this show, I feel I could go back and mine a million more things, and this isn't even a script I love. Maybe that's the difference between 'do' and 'try' and until I stop thinking of myself as 'trying' (HA! Both senses of the word!), I won't be 'doing'. But I don't know. I don't fully believe that. I think the tries are good. You push the tries and they don't work out and some of them do but they don't work everytime so you try them different or better and somewhere in all of that is the doing. But then the doing isn't perfect and the doing isn't something you can hold on to, and maybe that's the goal.

Maybe this is a ‘give it time thing’. But I am not known for my patience.

We’ve been having such a good time in Sudbury that the last week has flown by. I’m getting sad about things being over, but I know that more things will start up. Sigh sigh sigh. Besides, it's not over yet, we have one more show, which, as Geoffrey Tennant would say, is one more chance to get it right.

I don't like goodbyes and I don't like loose endings.

Oy vey. Farewell to Sudbury, one more time.

And in my next post, I will write about THE MOST FUN I EVER HAD IN A THEATRE EVER.