time commitment

The thing about rehearsing a play is it is impossible to wind down and go to sleep at a reasonable hour. My brain is totally fried so it isn’t ideal for focusing memory on the lines that can’t insert themselves into cognition… or even to devote myself to any other more creative use of words… except this blog. Obviously. I suppose if I really wanted to… I could commit myself. Because I have this stolen hour, this opportunity to do something with the time I have at my fingertips… but all I want to do is drink a glass of wine and skulk on the Internet.

Last night said skulking was reading the newsfeed of Occupy Boston as they awaited the arrival of the Boston Police. I suppose it was heavy on my mind because it was a hot story of Columbus Day – after the unnaturally warm day and the fact that some Ryan Reynolds movie made traffic a nightmare… but we like Ryan Reynolds a lot more than protestors. So the blame on bad traffic can go to them.

Earlier in the day I got in a heated discussion with my father about this protest. It isn’t that he doesn’t agree with what these people stand for – except he didn’t believe they were actually standing for it. It was just a bunch of college kids without focus. So what if it was? I mean… wasn’t he pretty much their age when he threw away his purple heart to protest staying in Vietnam? 

But the argument did get me thinking and attracted my attention at the end of yesterday evening as the story unfolded. But I had to go to sleep and couldn’t find out the rest of the story until this morning. There was a story… or not… depending on what news outlet you read. And I spent much of my day in a zombie like trance, finding devotion to work between sneaking in those bits of Eugene O’Neill. And maybe it’s because I hate O’Neill with every fiber of my being now and I’m just looking for excuses to not put up with him… I really started wishing I had time to go down to the Greenway and do a little occupation.

I’m not going to. Because… well, and this is just the thing… because I’m too much of a sucker to the commitment of this play… that really doesn’t matter as much as the tense muscles in my shoulders would have me think. In two weeks, it will be a memory… and I just hope that the protest won’t be. That I can go in as a second, third, or fourth wave. Hell, I have a tent collecting dust somewhere – and maybe it would alleviate the commuting for a week or two.

Well, maybe I won’t camp out. Maybe I’ll spend a few hours there after the show closes. I hope I can. I think it will clear my head a bit. 

But let’s get back to Eugene O’Neill for a sec, can we? Yeah, this is a rough play for me. There are nine million reasons that different people know from different conversations. It isn’t typical… and yet, I suppose that’s part of my fear, that it is typical. But I digress. I’m not liking the dialogue. Maybe that’s why I can’t learn it. Because it’s tough crow to swallow as a woman. Maybe I’m not seeing it right – but I’m seeing it that I have to get under the lights, on a stage, and say things to an audience that I don’t believe or advocate or… even with my grand theatrical imagination… want to digest.

That’s an artistic thing… but it did get me thinking… to come back to these protesters and my father who said they don’t have a focus. They are saying something. They are saying here we are. I am the 99%. I want a better life, a better country, and I’m tired of the 1% getting heard and having their way all the bloody time. That’s a paraphrase and a generalization. But… the point is… these people are standing up to be heard. Speaking their truths.

I’m not with them. Because I’m choosing to devote my time to learn a script that speaks a message I don’t want to give audience. It adds to the stress of a play that makes me cry at the end of every rehearsal. It makes me think, wait a minute, didn’t I give up theater to pursue things that actually mattered and really had something to do with life and the world? And… didn’t I at some point in the years since the last oh so challenging theatrical experience… learn to better appreciate the power of words and the volume with which to speak them?