Ghost Sleuthers: The post mortem
So, the play happened this weekend. After all the fear and panic, anxiety and consideration of withdrawal of my labour from the whole thing for fear of making a fool of myself amidst a cast that hadn't really committed to the production, it actually went off well. Really well. At almost the very last minute on Friday my co-star, Rich, and I seemed to hit on a very long-awaited but rich vein of interpersonal chemistry that I think came across really well on stage. I was so relieved that he seemed to be happy to talk to me and touch me during the course of the performance that I was just about as elated as if he'd agreed to marry me after several years of trying to persuade him!
I was still convinced all the way through the dress rehearsal on Thursday that he couldn't stand the sight of me. He and Jacqui, the Artistic Director, have all the way through the production been popping off for “quiet words” which led me to think that they, as two of the founding members of the company, were really cliquey and exclusive. However, on Friday when I arrived at the theatre, Rich nobbled me when I was on my own heading back to the dressing room from the ladies and asked for a word. Bearing in mind that he's not shared more than two unscripted words with me since September when we were cast, I was quite surprised, but of course said yes. We went outside where he shared with me his worries about one of the other cast members who blatantly didn't know her lines and was missing things that cued him which, if left unsaid, made his next line sound stupid. I agreed, him having pointed the lines out, to pick them up if she dropped them and I'm sure that his relief helped him feel he could trust me a bit. But having had that chat with him, and then seeing how he was happy to chat with me relatively comfortably in the dressing room when we were alone but couldn't even speak when others were there, I've come to the conclusion that he is so terribly shy that he can't even talk when there's more than one person there. That gives me a lot of reassurance that he doesn't in fact dislike me and the company isn't as cliquey as I had feared, but it's just his own issue.
Having had the brief chat we did, our interaction on stage blossomed, which gave me the confidence to really throw myself into it. Friday went okay, but whilst we had a full house the audience was really flat and I'm not entirely sure they got it, which means we struggled to put all the energy into the performance that we might have done. Saturday was much better. We scarcely dropped anything at all in terms of lines or key parts of the action; all the bits we were worried about [like picking up feedback from a nearby baby monitor on the walkie talkies when I was alone on stage “interacting with spirits”...] went off without a hitch; the audience, whilst smaller, were much more receptive and responsive and gave Rich a huge amount of feedback when he was doing his “live medium show” scene; and I was on a massive high by the time we came off stage.
After the show we went for a drink, and I think J found the company much easier to get into and on with than most of the Concept lot. They welcomed him with open arms, and he even felt comfortable enough to crack the “Hitler Wank” joke, which went down very well :) I'm pleased he feels he can get on with them. I know that he finds much of the Concept crowd superficial, and I have to agree with him. The longer I spend away from them, the more distant I feel from the planet on which they live. I don't need them as a social club, as some people involved in Concept do, and whilst I would never say never and don't wish to burn my bridges, distance from them is making me feel less inclined to go back.
Yesterday, I hit the predicted post-show low. It always happens, and trying to take recent advice to acknowledge and accept the way I feel I let myself feel a bit glum. J gave me some honest feedback on the performance yesterday, which I found quite hard to take. He felt that whilst I was technically polished, confident and competent, he didn't often believe there was anyone other than me on the stage and he didn't get much of a sense of my character. I sobbed my eyes out like the fragile egotist I am, but eventually calmed down and listened to what he had to say and accept that he was right. The play was built around Rich's character, which he wrote for himself and has been developing for the past two years. In comparison, Katrina Woods was relatively two dimensional, and even though I did what I could to fill in the gaps in her back story, it just wasn't there in the script and the direction fell short in allowing any of us the time to develop our characters. My inner critic, who is as usual in full-on “take no prisoners” mode, still feels that I should have done more, could have made it better, must have been able to compensate for the shortcomings of others, but the rational part of me knows that J is right. I am pleased with the performance I gave under the circumstances as they were. I'm sure there's a few more things that I could have done and I feel I have learned from the experience, but I can take that forward and implement it in my next role.
Speaking of my next role, Amaline came out with their plans for the next production within 24 hours of the death of Ghost Sleuthers. Thankfully after8mink was online at the time the email from them came through, and was able to talk me down from my original post-show blues-fueled response asking for expressions of interest that said “yes! I'll do it! I'll do anything! Sign me up for god's sake I'm desperate for another part!” to something considerably more circumspect, asking for sight of the script and knowledge of who the director will be. I'm almost certain I will get involved, but bizarrely I think that my apparent measured consideration of all the options when I took on this part endeared me to them as someone who takes it all very seriously and gave them the impression that quite professional. Which is just the kind of image that I want to project.
I was still convinced all the way through the dress rehearsal on Thursday that he couldn't stand the sight of me. He and Jacqui, the Artistic Director, have all the way through the production been popping off for “quiet words” which led me to think that they, as two of the founding members of the company, were really cliquey and exclusive. However, on Friday when I arrived at the theatre, Rich nobbled me when I was on my own heading back to the dressing room from the ladies and asked for a word. Bearing in mind that he's not shared more than two unscripted words with me since September when we were cast, I was quite surprised, but of course said yes. We went outside where he shared with me his worries about one of the other cast members who blatantly didn't know her lines and was missing things that cued him which, if left unsaid, made his next line sound stupid. I agreed, him having pointed the lines out, to pick them up if she dropped them and I'm sure that his relief helped him feel he could trust me a bit. But having had that chat with him, and then seeing how he was happy to chat with me relatively comfortably in the dressing room when we were alone but couldn't even speak when others were there, I've come to the conclusion that he is so terribly shy that he can't even talk when there's more than one person there. That gives me a lot of reassurance that he doesn't in fact dislike me and the company isn't as cliquey as I had feared, but it's just his own issue.
Having had the brief chat we did, our interaction on stage blossomed, which gave me the confidence to really throw myself into it. Friday went okay, but whilst we had a full house the audience was really flat and I'm not entirely sure they got it, which means we struggled to put all the energy into the performance that we might have done. Saturday was much better. We scarcely dropped anything at all in terms of lines or key parts of the action; all the bits we were worried about [like picking up feedback from a nearby baby monitor on the walkie talkies when I was alone on stage “interacting with spirits”...] went off without a hitch; the audience, whilst smaller, were much more receptive and responsive and gave Rich a huge amount of feedback when he was doing his “live medium show” scene; and I was on a massive high by the time we came off stage.
After the show we went for a drink, and I think J found the company much easier to get into and on with than most of the Concept lot. They welcomed him with open arms, and he even felt comfortable enough to crack the “Hitler Wank” joke, which went down very well :) I'm pleased he feels he can get on with them. I know that he finds much of the Concept crowd superficial, and I have to agree with him. The longer I spend away from them, the more distant I feel from the planet on which they live. I don't need them as a social club, as some people involved in Concept do, and whilst I would never say never and don't wish to burn my bridges, distance from them is making me feel less inclined to go back.
Yesterday, I hit the predicted post-show low. It always happens, and trying to take recent advice to acknowledge and accept the way I feel I let myself feel a bit glum. J gave me some honest feedback on the performance yesterday, which I found quite hard to take. He felt that whilst I was technically polished, confident and competent, he didn't often believe there was anyone other than me on the stage and he didn't get much of a sense of my character. I sobbed my eyes out like the fragile egotist I am, but eventually calmed down and listened to what he had to say and accept that he was right. The play was built around Rich's character, which he wrote for himself and has been developing for the past two years. In comparison, Katrina Woods was relatively two dimensional, and even though I did what I could to fill in the gaps in her back story, it just wasn't there in the script and the direction fell short in allowing any of us the time to develop our characters. My inner critic, who is as usual in full-on “take no prisoners” mode, still feels that I should have done more, could have made it better, must have been able to compensate for the shortcomings of others, but the rational part of me knows that J is right. I am pleased with the performance I gave under the circumstances as they were. I'm sure there's a few more things that I could have done and I feel I have learned from the experience, but I can take that forward and implement it in my next role.
Speaking of my next role, Amaline came out with their plans for the next production within 24 hours of the death of Ghost Sleuthers. Thankfully after8mink was online at the time the email from them came through, and was able to talk me down from my original post-show blues-fueled response asking for expressions of interest that said “yes! I'll do it! I'll do anything! Sign me up for god's sake I'm desperate for another part!” to something considerably more circumspect, asking for sight of the script and knowledge of who the director will be. I'm almost certain I will get involved, but bizarrely I think that my apparent measured consideration of all the options when I took on this part endeared me to them as someone who takes it all very seriously and gave them the impression that quite professional. Which is just the kind of image that I want to project.