"I have of late, wherefore I know not..."

I don't normally talk about this sort of thing here, but for the sake of honesty (and honestly, I've nothing else to talk about right now) I'm going to indulge today. Because it does have something to do with theatre, and because I need it.

I've been feeling pretty down lately. Not all the time, but I have definitely been going through a general malaise for a little over a week. There's always a little sense of post-show depression after something you've done has closed, but it usually doesn't start for a couple days after the final curtain falls and you slowly begin to realize that you have nothing to do with your time. It happens to most professionals in any field, but actors--whose personal identities are so tightly woven up with their job description--are often left with struggling to define themselves in a world where they feel they can't refer to themselves by their chosen job title unless they actually have a gig. That being said, this is not what has taken hold of me this time. It's is something else.

It started a couple days before the Festival opened. I was feeling anxious for seemingly no reason<--That statement strikes me as ridiculous, seeing as how I had plenty to be anxious about: my final performance for my master's degree was going up in a matter of days, and was still very much working itself out; I was waiting on Loukia to make sure everything was going through for the room in her flat; I was debating whether to or what job to pursue this summer; my loan check that was made out in US dollars and could only be made out to me was traveling over the sea to be deposited in a bank stateside by Brian, and I was waiting to hear that it had gotten there safely; and finally, and something I discuss reluctantly here, I had an audition last Friday at the Old Vic that I was incredibly nervous about. The overlying sentiment behind all of these pressures is that sense of seemingly chronic waiting, where I had no power over the majority of what was happening and simply had to hope for the best. I hate that.

Then last Tuesday we had an invited dress for the show, and afterwards I went out with my ensemble and the participating guests for several drinks. I woke up the next day around 4AM, and couldn't fall back to sleep. So I decided to make the most of it and go for a jog down to the Old Vic, partly for inspiration and partly so I'd know exactly where to go on Friday morning. So at 5AM, I was out on the street, running from my home down to the Thames, past the Southbank Centre and the BFI and the National, finally ending up at the theatre. (Let me just take a moment to say I feel incredibly lucky that I can get up and jog to the National-fucking-Theatre. That amazes me.) 5AM in London is quiet--like New York on Sunday mornings. It's great, but you still have to get up at 5AM to see it. But I digress. As I jogged along, I started thinking about theatre, and living for art, and all that really deep stuff, and I came to a somewhat bittersweet conclusion, one that I've come to before: that no piece of theatre is actually fulfilling to me because it's just artificial.

Now, let me say: yes, this statement seems pretty obvious. And this sense of artifice is actually what gives theatre all its power. To paraphrase Peter Brook, if a play is completely naturalistic, then what is the point? If there is nothing heightened, nothing distorted in the reality, then why stage it? I mean, in a simply practical sense, if I see a play with no element of theatricality in it, can't I just stay at home and watch my own life and get the same effect? Surely--and I'll save money doing it. No, you go to the theatre to of course suspend your disbelief and for a couple hours sit on the outside of life to reflect--a reflection aided by various theatrical devices. In the end, however, this is not the artifice to which I am referring.

No, it's far more simple than that. It's just all fake. You show up, put on your make up, do a tap dance for some people who are hopefully paying you, then get off stage, slap on the cold cream, and go home. Nothing has really happened--you just "acted" for two hours, and then went home and may do it again tomorrow. Nothing has really changed. I mean, there is more to it than that. But then sometimes, there's not.

I'm usually far more idealistic about the theatre. Don't get me wrong--I think it can still change things, still alter people's perspectives. Look at Angels in America. Look at The Laramie Project. Look at Waiting for Lefty--that audience on opening night all standing up, yelling "STRIKE!" to the actors on stage. (Every day, I wish I was reading Odets. I miss him.) I guess what bothers me is that those examples are so rare, so, so rare, and in the end are so fleeting--again, one of the things that makes theatre theatre is that it needs an audience to exist. A film can still be projected onto a screen without anyone watching it--it still happens. But theatre does not. And then it's there one moment, and the next: POOF. Gone.

This consistent sense of transience that has pretty much accompanied me through the past twelve years of my life (half my lifetime at present, it should be noted) has caused me to consider over the past few years what really matters to me--what I really want. These things include, but are not limited to the following:

1. A husband
2. A house (Own outright--not rent or mortgage)
   
3. A baby

Two things should be said: I know that actually acquiring any of these things will not guarantee happiness, and I also know that these are not necessarily things that should be established on a check-list of the things to get in before you die. I also don't believe in living my life on a timeline, ala, "I have to be married by the time I'm thirty!" Why put so much pressure on yourself?! These things will happen when they are meant to happen, not a moment before and not a moment after. And considering the era we live in, I'm a little too young to be preoccupied with the thought of becoming a crazy cat woman. Yet, I am now strangely impatient. And thinking again about the ever-ephemeral theatre, I find myself desperately clinging to these things which are somehow meant to last. And of course, that's a big fat lie.

My friend Mauro told me over dinner tonight that it was because I was turning 25. He said he went through the same thing then, and something similar when he turned 30. It may be that impending adulthood is causing me to wonder about the future. (I see it, there, at the end of that long tunnel--don't look directly at it, or you'll turn to stone!) But to me, there is also a sense of needing to re-evaluate what I'm doing right now--and what I may not be doing is making enough room for a life that expands outside my job or identity as an artist. Consequently, my work and art loses all of its value, practically and personally.

Which brings me to something else. I found out that a friend of mine that I'd grown up with's father died on the 9th of this month. I didn't find out until 21 June (Father's Day, of all days). I hadn't spoken to her in a while, but she's still someone I had been terribly close with at a time, had always been there when I needed a friend, and is one of the few people from my hometown I try to always see whenever I'm back in that neck of the woods. I found out because of the Facebook, because I got to thinking about her, pulled up her profile, and there as her picture was a tree with a ribbon tied around it--a memorial for her dad. I couldn't believe that this had happened and I hadn't heard about it sooner, and am confused that I ended up finding out about it because of the Facebook. I felt many things--that I should have known sooner, that I should have kept in better contact with her, that someone should have told me, and that I was a bad friend because I hadn't known and hadn't been there for her when she probably needed someone. I can understand the rational argument against this sense of guilt--that I am an ocean away, that we hadn't talked in a while, that we are no longer as close, and that our families weren't close enough for my parents to know this happened (I called them when I found out, and they hadn't heard about it). And still, I feel badly. I feel like that relationship, that so many relationships, was left untended. You can't keep in contact with everyone you know all of the time, of course, but surely a larger effort to let people know that you're thinking of them and they are important in your life is a good thing. I don't know if that would have changed this specific situation, but that's where I'm at with it.

Aaaaaahhhhh--this entry has gone on forever, and has been full of only a single and somewhat vague connection to the theatre! How about this one: to accurately convey something on stage, one must have a sense of life that exists off stage so that one has something to offer. I want a larger definition than just my job title. So for the sake of being a better actor, I have to start taking better care of my life outside the work, because that's what'll make the work valuable anyway. And besides, you can't take an audience home with you. Right? I mean, I guess you could take some of the audience home with you. Hopefully they're worth it.

I know, I know: life's just a bowl of cherries, and I need to let go-go-go. In the meanwhile, it's wicked late, and I'm headed to bed.

"And as for me/I made my mind up back in Chelsea/When I go, I'm going like Elsie..."

I can't really believe Natasha Richardson is dead. With all the rumors flying around the past couple days, I had been hoping to discover that she had turned around and would soon be on her way to a full recovery. It was such a freak accident kind of thing, and so unexpected. I'm reminded of mine and my friends' reactions back in New York last year when Heath Ledger died, just as unexpected, and just as seemingly unfair--though more unfair, of course, to his family and friends than to the masses. Still, there is strange sense of loss to the acting world, and particularly to the world of Central, where Richardson was educated, and whose name I walk over ever time I mount the steps to the front entrance to the school (as evidenced above).

The saddest thing to me is that she was still so young. Forty-five is really nothing, and considering how much she'd accomplished in her career already, I think most of the world was excited by what she would deliver in the latter days of her life. She was also a woman not to emulate solely in her career, but in her personal life: she had a husband and two children, and somehow balanced that while working. These are things that I want for myself, and to have someone embody those ideals so well, and with so much class, talent, and poise...it's just hard to see that dissolve in a moment.

It's sad losing two alumni this academic year (first Pinter, now Richardson), and especially two alumni who did so much for the industry. As I post this, the school has yet to make any kind of formalized statement to the student body about how they will be honoring the passing of Richardson. I for one will try to be there for whatever it is they do. And until then, I'll probably be listening to the Cabaret soundtrack nonstop.

The longest pause...

Harold Pinter died two days ago. I only found out last night from my news feed on the Facebook, of all places. <--Why is it Facebook seems to be the only way to know what is happening in people's lives? Recently, I had yet ANOTHER friend announce their engagement there before I heard it from them. What is that about? I confess to being just as addicted to the social networking site as much as anyone else, but for frak's sake people, pick a phone already. I want to hear it from you directly, not just because I spent my afternoon stalking you online.

Anyway.

I love Pinter, and I can honestly say that he was the second playwright to actually make me think about what theatre can do, and more specifically how text can shape an entire show/performance. I first read The Homecoming my freshman year in college, and before him no playwright had really left an impression on me other than Shakespeare, who by then I had been acquainted with for about six or seven years. Reading that play blew my mind, and for one of the first times I actually started thinking about how modern theatre could do exactly what classical theatre did for me, but in an entirely opposite way. They say that with Shakespeare the characters live on the line--most classical has this reputation, that there's no "internal life" necessarily, because everyone is running around telling the audience exactly how they feel all of the time, usually using beautiful imagery, etc. But then came Pinter and his pauses, where he showed you exactly how a character was feeling, but in a completely different way: by having them say nothing at all. Or by having them talk around what was happening, about things that didn't seem to be connected to the plot or stage action at all (which may have been one of the reasons The Birthday Party only played eight performances). Actors have to be completely grounded in those characters so it makes sense to them (and hopefully at least some of the audience) why they can do one thing on stage while saying something else. This seems like an obvious point for anyone who's had any kind of acting training, particularly when we talk about any play that we respect as having subtext. But I submit that often, especially with a writer like Pinter, this doesn't happen. Or doesn't happen fully, because he's pretty tough. (Another writer this happens with easily is Mamet, who by his own account seems to completely dismiss the actor in terms of the play, other than being a vessel for his {Mamet's} words. I think that's unfair: when Mamet's plays are done well, it's usually because the actors are smart enough and talented enough to actually understand what to do to make his text completely comprehensible to a spectator's ear. Otherwise, it could turn out to be a real mess. {Sorry Mamet, but fuck off.<--It's okay, he'd find that endearing.}) But when it does, oh what theatrical magic! What resonant moments that can happen on stage! What interesting stylistic choices! I just love it.

A more personal reason for lamenting the loss of Pinter is that this past October he was named president of Central, having also been an alumni of the institution. In a way, we belonged to him, and he belonged to the students who were running around in his old house, so to speak. We are meant to carry on the reputation of the school, part of which he established, and we thought he'd be around to shepherd us a bit. I'm sad we won't have that opportunity. I am interested to see what kind of memorial or tribute the school pays to him when we get back--he already has his name on one of the steps, so I'm sure that won't be it. I also wonder if his passing will re-inject his theatrical sensibility in any of the work my peers and I come to generate. Maybe the most fitting tribute would just be subjecting an audience to watching two characters stand in silence.

He might.

Like.

That.

There's been a slight glitch in the system.

News came from former roommate and fellow London a-journey-er Heidi that Central sent us our packets regarding registration, etc. One of the first things she said: "You're going to be pissed."

It turns out that Central's registration for international students is on the 3rd. I was scheduled to fly out the 4th, post wedding and hour of cocktails. And my housing doesn't actually start till the 5th. So come Monday, I'll be e-mailing frantically to see if I can come at the time I had originally planned, and if not I'll be changing my flight, paying some kind of fee for that no doubt, and then seeing if I can get into my hall a couple days early (there is actually a chance that might happen). All in all, it sucks. But that's life, I guess--one curve ball after another. I'll be sad to miss Kate's big day, though. And I was excited for bridesmaid-dom, though perhaps foolishly so.

In suburban news, Pirate caught a bat tonight! This happening reminds me of the old adage,

"Bats are just mice with wings, little girl."

It also reminds me of what a bad ass my little Pirata is. Oh, Hai dao, I will miss you!

(Can I just say, it's quite the slow news day, when I'm reporting the prey of my cat. Just putting that out there.)

Above, the victim of Pirate's assualt.