9.2.01

yesterday marked the close of the summer season at ISF with the final performance of Amadeus. the play was good, but i’m glad to see it go. it was time. i had this wonderful closing night moment at the end of the play. at the very end, i’m standing backstage, leaning against one of the wings facing toward the back of the theatre, just off the left side of the stage. above me is the central truss from which lighting instruments hang. it is painted a dark green metal and lit by blue footlights, giving it a light bluey-green hue against the black night sky. as the four final chords sound, the stage fades to back; i can tell because as i look up, the truss slowly fades from pale green to black, and then it vanishes and behind it the night sky comes alive, peppered thickly with stars. the final chord drifts away into the stars, and there is that moment – that precious moment of silence, in which the audience, the theatre, the stars – the whole world we have created – holds its breath, and remembers, and then the instant is over. the applause erupts, tears down the world of the play and ends the moment because it is a moment that simply can’t be sustained.

the unique and defining feature of theatre, to me, is its temporal existence. it’s what music was, before we had ways of recording it. every performance is uniquely defined by not only the presence but also the experience of the actors and audience. no performance can be exactly recreated or recorded. archival tapes of plays are made for reference, but if you’ve ever watched a videotape of a staged performance you’ll see that the video is only a skeleton of what the performance was. it’s like looking at a dead butterfly pinned into a case. you can see the beauty, but the life is gone. people frequently ask me if i want to work in television and movies as well as theatre. to me the two art forms couldn’t be more different. in film, the camera becomes this layer of glass that separates the viewer from the experience. to me, film IS the dead butterfly inside the case. its beauty may be extraordinary, but the life, the magic is gone. the temporality is what makes the event so precious, and it’s what completely obsesses me about my chosen career path. i don’t like to use the term career, because that brings to mind a business in which power, advancement, position, salaries, etc are what matter. to me, it seems like a career is something that you do during the day, and at night you turn back into the other person that you really are. i don’t want a career. theatre is who i am. it’s what i do. if i could do anything else, i would, and my life would probably be much easier as a result. but this is what i was put on this earth to do, at least for the time being. i’ve had to make some difficult choices recently w/ regards to my career and my personal life. and i’m aware that there will be many more to come. but the way i see it, it wasn’t me who chose theatre – but rather, theatre chose me.

the funny thing is that my approach to relationships and the people in my life is so completely opposite to that of theatre. i can love a play because i know that the fact that it won’t exist forever is part of what makes it precious, but i’m incapable of doing the same when it comes to the important people in my life. knowing that the moment, the relationship, the good will and good times and friendship and companionship can’t last forever hangs over me in a little black cloud. i want cling so fiercely to the special people in my life. yet the irony is that in the end, it is theatre – temporal, inconstant, unpredictable theatre – that remains a constant part of me, and the friends who move in and out of my life. perhaps theatre is meant to teach me to be grateful for the special people that i’ve had the opportunity to encounter in my life, rather than trying to catch and preserve those friendships, like the butterfly in the display case.