Abbie Fest 2014: Day Two

This was our day. We premiered our new piece called "Shimmerings." I blanked early in the show. Got to a line, and then blanked.  I know it happens, but it hasn't happened to me very often. I knew the script. I was well-rehearsed. The lines were in my head. Somewhere. But I got to a line and then stopped.  Dead-cold. My head was completely empty. I turned to my partner on stage, and luckily she bailed me out, started to do an action that triggered the line. I didn't jump, didn't panic. I righted myself, the line came, and then the rest of the show pretty much rolled out without a hitch.

The audience was with us. Surprise! It was first night. And maybe the last. That has been the pattern. We do a show at the Fest, it sees the light of day, and then vanishes.  It's a sort of Zen-type thing. It's our special brand of r&r theater. 

Before the show, I sat in the dressing room, facing a large mirrored wall. It was sort of like that scene from Raging Bull, Deniro channeling La Motta.  I tried to meditate, tried to ground myself, the waiting really is the hardest part. I couldn't help looking at myself in the mirror. It's not something I often do anymore.  I usually just check to see if I'm still here. But don't really want to linger on the details.  The years, the scars kind of accumulate. So, anyway, I looked in the mirror, and saw my father looking back at me. I realized, for the first time, that I really do look like my father, the way I remember him.  The same eyes, the same facial structure. But it was more than that, it was like he was with me, in me.  I really felt inhabited. It's been 8 years since he died. He died in August. And there he was, with me, in me. That was another surprise.

Oh yeah, we saw a few amazing shows last night. 

Mary Arrchie did "Hellish Half-Life" Shorter works from Samuel Beckett.  Powerful, disturbing, perfectly realized.  It was almost too real, too good, too perfect. Elemental. Hellish. Oh yeah, it's about us!

The Living Canvas presented "Abbie Hoffman Died for Our Skins." What to say? Breath-takingly great. Amazing. Beautiful. Captured the spirit and embodied it! So good. Words fail.