theatre

Last night was our first dress rehearsal, the first time seeing costumes on real breathing people instead of racks. We had a dress parade, with everyone in Act I standing in various groups on the stage, resplendent with actual stagelights, & Harmony running up & adjusting things & John going "good, good," & the rest of the cast making vaguely burbling happy noises in the dark. Before we ran the act, John tried out the beginning prologue he'd had an idea for, way back before break, which is going to be psosibly the best opening of any show, ever. Last night it was just Orlando & Adam, standing up onstage in the dark--the music starts playing, & then Dave hits the light button & this strobe light starts going, flick-flick-flick all over the place, & Damian & Kristyn are passing her beard back & forth, Damian trying it on, shaking his head, putting it on Kris, who is giggling all over the place--& it was a beautiful thing. It sets up the play perfectly.
& every time we walk into the forest of Arden there's something new on the set--this time felt roots are growing on the ground, out of the trees. This play is very strange, for me--I'm enjoying it, no doubt, but it's such a different kind of enjoyment than Three Sisters. I think I partly abandoned myself in Irina, what with all the realism & emotion & intensity, both in the character's lives & the actors'--it was like we were all thrown into a fishbowl of emotion & growth & something a little out of control. I think that might be how Chekhov happens (I remember Taylor telling me two years ago that for a company to do Chekhov properly, they should all be on antidepressants by the end. I'm not sure I need to be that drastic, but there is a measure of truth in that level of involvement). Playing Touchstone is so far different--it is that, playing, rather than being. John is insistent on that, & I like it--it's bringing out things in everyone that I haven't seen before. & I'm having loads of fun being the comic relief, being silly, seducing a girl far too tall for me, acting like a dork. But I am not involved emotionally in the same way. I don't mind; I like it. It's nice to have a break from that intensity. (& I love watching Cozy play with Rosalind; I love watching people who love their parts.)
I've also been thinking about Arcadia, both about how fun it will be, & how odd it will be, to go back to the Bathhouse, to actually perform there, to prepare in the dressing rooms with the broken mirror (even when it is all fixed & fancy, it will always be the room with the broken mirror), to stand in the strange-shaped wings, to run through the bathrooms to get to the other side of the stage. I feel like I haven't been there in a lifetime. It will be I think a little like going home, when you haven't been home in a long time, & you know things have changed. I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to acting with my old family again, to shouldering the responsibility of everything right on us, the way the Bathhouse kids always do. (I have been spoiled here, have I ever.)

Also I think I know what I'm going to write about for my RHUL personal statement. I thought it had to be earth-shattering & all knowledgeable about what I was going to do with the rest of life--which, of course, I don't know (nor do I really think I should, but that's an introspective journal for another time)--but it doesn't; I just have to make connections & complicate problems. & I can do that.