Wow

Our opening night happened last night.

Wow. We had a checklist in our head of all the things that could go wrong, and they did and more. The third sound cue was off. Then, in the first two pages of dialogue, one of the actors skipped two pages. The pace was sluggish. By the third scene, the cue for the video didn't work (the stage manager accidentally hit eject instead of play on the dvd). One of the props broke. One of the actors got really quiet. in the middle of the second act, the live camera went off. The lines kept getting confused. The sound board operator didn't know where the actors were in the script. Wow.

I've actually never seen anything like it. No - that's not true. In grad school, I wrote a ten minute play in which the main actor went up on his lines after the very first sentence and the rest of the performance was a mash of people tossing out lines frantically trying to find the end. That was pretty bad. That was probably worse - though shorter.

Regardless, the actors and technicians muddled through. They picked up the pace at times. Some moments were quite nice. Everything was a surprise for the audience, so they seemed to be intrigued. It's good to get this performance out of the way. Tonight, I expect will be far better. I hope.

I don't know whether the actual production was an enjoyable experience for the audience. It went as well as possible under the circumstances.

I don't know why we do live theater except to teach ourselves that life is chaos and unpredictable and learn how to deal with that fact.

I'm not whining or complaining. I know no one except Emily Gunyou and someone in connectticut reads this blog but its still important for me to say that I'm not complaining. We do what we do. I think the actors succeeded in certain ways. It's just very hard to see the play when you're tracking all the mistakes.

I don't mean to sound like I'm publicly casting aspersions or blame. I don't really feel angry or upset. Too bad there were critics there because they could have seen a better show, but . . . Well, this is what live theater is like. I just can't recall such a nerve-wracking experience in the theater with so many people watching.

I thought I might have been due for a real mind-blowing experience. And I think we'll get one tonight. or we might. We can keep striving for it. Theater is like life that way. Put the mistakes behind you and go forward but wow. All I can say is wow. What an experience that was.

It's very hard play to do. Perfection is impossible. Even though it isn't really a respected endeavor in our culture, I take some comfort in knowing how hard we're working and how hard what we're attempting to do actually is. Create people and stories on stage, three-dimensional truthful things full of passion and hope and drama. And do it right every time. I suppose, right now, now that I've written word here, I kind of get a kick out of how crazy our opening night was. It's funny in its way. Wow. For a relatively small number of people, we put our heart and soul on the line and let the imperfection of life smack us around a little. It's kind of gorgeous in its uselessness. The passionate belief in something that will always fall short of perfection, the desperate attempt to create perfection where you know you will fail, somehow this excites my imagination actually.

Now that I'm typing it, I think this opening night is one I will always remember fondly. Huh. Yeah. Fondly. It's an incredible thing to muddle through while circumstances work against you. It really is. . . Now that I think about it, I couldn't be more proud of the technicians and the actors.

A few nights ago, in reference to something else, I said to Leah "It's not the mistakes you make, it's how you deal with those mistakes that matter." Is that fatalistic? I don't know. i like the line. I like learning it and watching it.

Of course, I'd prefer it if tonight was a much smoother performance but I'm starting to think there is something ennobling about failure. Is that crazy? Fatalistic? Depressive? Maybe I should see a therapist and start enjoying the bright side of life.

Anyway, it was one hell of an opening night.