The danger of working in a very immersive, salaried job is that you will drown in it.
Theater tends to be this way- everything must come together in relatively short order for opening night. For the show to come off, you just plow through the work, and time very quickly ceases to have any meaning. You are working in a space with no natural light, so day and night pass without making much of an impression. Weekends are simply a cultural artifact made up by unions, and in many places in the world, aren't an entitlement. Vacations, likewise. To get through the work, it seems critical to just let go of those markers.
So when I am in the throes of directing, if I want to be joyful in the process, I have to get pretty philosophic- to run full tilt at Humanism. I work to stay present in the moment, to be happy in the company I am keeping whether I chose the company or not, to see all challenges as enrichment. My props master has been asking me in all seriousness how I do what I do with the community without going mad, and without getting mad: hard-headed philosophy (and ruthless optimism) is my trick.
I've worked with directors who screamed and used sarcasm, either out of temper or as a tactic. Good product can come out of harsh rehearsals- but I suspect that works best with advanced students and professionals, not with young students and untrained community members looking for a healthy way to while away winter hours. Yelling at people is not something I have ever seen bring about joy, or build confidence. Sooo... not in my theater. Also what is pretty keen about leadership is that people will take behavioral cues from you. If the big (albeit rather small rather youngish) kahuna doesn't yell, no one else gets to. Except Tinker. Why she gets a pass, I am still... not sure. It's a work in progress.
My working theory is that you can get to quality work through kindness. To execute the theory requires that I breathe and blend (very basic) Buddhism and Christianity. With a soupcon of folkloric delusion bent to my needs. It may well be that I never bring my community actors to the brink of greatness, but for our group, the goal is met if the audience leaves entertained, and we've created something we can be proud of.
So I put in the hours. I practice my patience. I remind myself that good ideas come from anywhere and everywhere, and that as director, I need to stay open and above all, be approachable. I have to actually believe in people. As a community theater director, I am a teacher, and teaching is a two-way street (if it isn't you are doing something wrong). I am pretty much the Anti-Auteur. There are basic mantras I rip off from people smarter than me, who I can not remember but will quote...
"Here. This. Now."
"Only connect."
(okay, the latter is E.M. Forster, and I prefer to use ! sparingly(ish) so make it my own by thinking of it with a gentle full stop, instead of with his punctuation)
The upshot is that I spend 10 weeks or so, consciously existing in the moment with a large group of people ranging from age 8 to age 80, and working with great care to create reasonably good amateur musical theater under humane conditions.
Now when I go about creating the humane conditions, I am creating them for everyone but myself. My production team tends to do this as well... they also put in the insane hours, to make sure that when the whole crowd is in the theater the machine works with some degree of smooth efficiency. Blessed are the stage manager and props master (and the main builders) for they are also so committed they should be committed.
The project becomes practically my whole world. I constantly have to assimilate info and make and communicate decisions, or delegate them. My focus has to shift with speed from the music, or dance timing to lighting cues, sound issues... all of those pieces that have to come together. It's a Zen ADHD: people come at me with questions regarding their specialty, and I have to provide answers on the spot. Which means I really do have to listen to them. It takes all of your powers of concentration to split your focus like that.
I start seeing the work in aquatic terms- fluid dynamics and folkloric biology.
First- I am a surfer. All of the group's input, the questions, comments, observations, ideas... that's the wave, constantly in motion in multiple dimensions. Either I go with it, pay attention, and make allowances... or I wipe out. So much for the succinct metaphor. On to the painful and extended one...
Second- I'm a drowning woman. The work has engulfed me, and there's no surfacing until the show is
over. I remember one night alone in the theater, as I was in the stage right wing thinking about my to-do/priority lists and how many hours were ahead of me and how they would not involve quality food, sleep, or a home life... and that none of the work could be shirked or procrastinated... the only thing ahead of me was work and then more work. This kind of realization can lead to many responses- hysterical weeping and hyperventilation, quiet stoicism, a quick and indefinite trip beyond the nearest international border... in this particular case (I was pretty tired), I just thought...
If work is water, it's way over my head and there's no escaping it... I am just going to grow some motherfucking gills. It's my imagination, bitches. I'll be a management mermaid if I want to, breathing all the questions that need to be answered, and breathing out answers and decisions. And it's okay that I am not breathing fresh air outside the theater, because I have transfigured. Done.
WEIRDER THINGS HAVE HAPPENED.
So yeah- for the final three or four weeks, when people came up to me with bizarre detailed questions that I had to answer, I was totally imagining it was all being filtered through gills, and that I no longer needed actual fresh air... "wheeeeeeeee! I am a mermaid!!!! Or a Selkie!!!!!" Darting from back of the theater to the lighting booth to the dressing room as needed... Work? I BREATHE THAT SHIT. IT'S MY ELEMENT.
Okay, while I didn't get mad, I might have gone a little mad- but as a tactic. Incidentally, theater mermaids exist on a diet of mocha frappacinos, pepperoni pizza from The Galley, and nachos to survive. Also fresh water to ingest. And Shirley Temples. With Ricolas, chocolates, and candy canes as important dietary supplements. It's fairly hunter-gatherer. Thank god it was chocolate and candy cane season in the theater.
Jesus had beatitudes, Buddha had his eightfold path, we all need useful ways of thinking. When something has got to give, and the circumstances won't change, your thinking has to. So in order not to drown in my (let's face it- deeply ridiculous) work, my mind morphed. I was so surrounded by work, I felt like I couldn't breathe, so I chose to go with it, and to just believe that I could just breathe the work.
Personally, I also need humor, so rather than a profound vision, I had to get more than a little stupid.
And then the show closed. The work was finished.
How do I breathe now?
Dammit.
No comments:
Post a Comment