377 days - Blog #10.1 - a disclaimer or changing the conversation (inner theater critic monologue)

So my plan for the end of this week is to see theater – definitely two, quite possibly three shows.  I like to see plays.  It is an opportunity to see friends – both on the stage and by my side as we watch friends on the stage.  I don’t go to as many shows these days as I have in years past.  I seem to miss quite a few friends taking on endeavors I fully support and wish to celebrate.  But, I’m going to be honest, I like spending time at home as well – especially when it is the season of the wood stove.  I also like to be careful with how I spend my money – and ticket prices do add up if you go week after week and add in a drink or snack with cast and crew after.

I want to start seeing more shows in this year to come.  Well, it starts today.  In getting back into the theater world, I am keen to pay attention to the business of it.  The money of it.  The sustainability of it.  And (lest I just made all the theater people who read this roll their eyes with disinterest) the community of it.

I think it’s safe to say the unspoken rule is at least half – if not 2/3 of your audience is going to be theater people.    I think it is also an unspoken truth that those are the people from whom we want… and don’t want feedback.  Because they know the art.  They know the agony of tech week.  They get mistakes.  They get the miracle of things happening.  They are also good ears to our laments of everything that got messed up… and know to say (honestly or with kind dishonesty) that they didn’t notice.

But the dishonesty – and well, the honesty – isn’t always kind.  Theater people are often the harshest  meanest critics.  Sometimes correctly… but that correctly isn’t always offered with the best interests at heart.  Of course, I can only speak for myself here.  I know I have that inner voice in every show I see – the director voice, the actor voice, the stage manager voice – the self-critical voice that drives me to perfection when I am in a production – a voice that demands the same standards of everyone else, even if it is completely illogical and unnecessary for the show I am seeing. 

I have learned to rein in my inner critic.  I still fight with her.  She was humbled quite a bit six years ago when the criticism of how I directed a show sent me reeling to the point I decided to give up theater for a while and choose instead to write a novel.  It is a story I tell many times.  Sometimes well – a lot of times awkwardly because I still haven’t figured out how to completely tell it with humility and relinquishing any lingering bitterness.  But I do like to put the lesson into practice whenever I can, especially at my dinner table.  All shows have value.  Even the bad ones, because they are lessons from which we can learn – how to be better actors, how to be better directors, producers, tech, audience, and even just members of society.  Every play is an accumulation of someone’s time.  Time they take away from their families.  Time they take away from sleep.  Away from a job.  Away from health.  Time they make mistakes and fall down, but get up each night to try try again.  Every single play is an attempt to do something magical (And if you don’t get that, I’m sorry.  Really, I’m very sorry because that is the awesomest thing about theater).  

Which isn’t to say some plays don’t have their fair share of suckage.  Because they certainly do.  I can tell you the ones in which I have participated that still make me tense up with a certain amount of physical agony… but I choose not to linger in those moments, just the lessons I learned from them.  And the fact that a certain amount of darkness is necessary to put things right on the stage for the next scene.

Anyway, all this waxing philosophical is a lead in to explain my intention for the next two or three days… and any other weekend when I visit a production.

I need fodder for this blog you see.  And the point of it is ultimately to mull over the events of my day.  So I am going to write a reflective piece on each of these productions.  I’m not a critic, so I have no desire to be critical or give myself any journalistic credibility.  I just want very much to celebrate that time the director, stage manager, producer, and actors have devoted to making that lights up happen.  I want to be a supportive member of the theater community that has been very kind in my feet getting wet the last several weeks.  I want to give back by giving productive feedback that I know people all crave.

Is this a ruse to get more people to read my blog?  Eh, kinda… but if it helps to convince people to go see the show, yippee!  If it helps people to see a show in that more positive light and not the inner monologue of why isn’t this staged the way I would direct/produce/act it, then so much the better.  See, Don Draper?  I’m changing the conversation.  I am also changing how I see a play.

Right.  So that is my disclaimer for the next three entries and beyond.  I figured I would make it a separate entry and not lose the points I want to celebrate of the show itself.  I’ll be back later today, after I go down to the avenue and hear the beat of dancing feet.