My last Abbie post for this year. Nothing is ever the way you think it's gonna be. Sometimes. What I thought was a kind of "crappy time slot" yesterday afternoon, wasn't. Surprisingly, we performed our delicate little theater piece for a pretty much packed theater crowd. Some people actually came out specially to see us. Not expected by any means.The Lovely Carla and I were doing a two-person scene called "Funky Spermatoza," a little poetic flight about one person who can "have it" and one who can't. Another in a long line of strange little pieces we've done over the years.
I can't help it, that's just how they come out. I cannot write a straight narrative thing, or an all out comic piece, it always seems I'm working on some other level, the comic elements sort of canceled or contradicted by the tragic, (I know that sounds ridiculous - and really it sort of is), which I can't really explain, and whether I ever actually hit the target I'm trying to hit is really a mystery, especially to me.
We had all kinds of technical glitches, missed light and music cues, and I did some "in the moment," editing. I jumped a line which meant that our little opus was trimmed by a couple pages. The Lovely Carla realized what I'd done, but couldn't figure out how to bring the ship back on course. So we hurtled along, at a breakneck pace.
Our costuming was great, (I was in a pale white face which gave me a truly ghostly aspect), we performed way over the top and got a wonderful response from the audience. It was an inspired performance, (The Lovely Carla was superb!), but when it was over I realized what we'd (the blame is all mine), done and my spirits sank like a stone. We've never really been able to do this piece justice and that's just kind of disheartening.
Sometimes this theater thing is like chasing after moon beams, shooting for some kind of transcendence, which may be (probably is) an overreach, but maybe it's the chase that keeps us going. We've had glimpses, but we never quite get to hold the light in our hands.
