This was quite the theatre weekend! On Friday I had dinner with some friends and a big portion of our conversation revolved around theatre. On Saturday I abandoned my plans to attend 3 plays during the course of the day. I was going to go to Birmingham Children’s Theatre to see a friend in a “wee folks” play and then stay for The Secret Garden. Then I was going to Montevallo to meet friends for dinner and Big River. At first I was having trouble getting anyone to go with me to BCT and than I fell into a funk and just decided to skip it and go to Montevallo. Dinner was fun and I saw lots of people I have missed terribly. Then we walked to the theatre having heard great things about the play, but I had no idea what was in store.
Let me say, there is no way you could walk out of that theatre in a funk, no matter how far down you were when you walked in! Big River had everything- laughs, tears, excitement and love. Finally a show was cast at UM that made sense to me. People were singing in their range and doing what they were meant to do. Everything about it made sense. I have to give the credit for that to the director. He picked the right show, at the right time and put the right people in it. I saw some underutilized faces and a lot of the “regular suspects” but in unusual parts. The whole show was done a bit “outside of the box”, a standard for this director, but in a way that made perfect sense. The last big musical I saw in that tiny theatre was a joke. I can not imagine this show any other way.
In the second act when Jim, the slave (played by my good friend Korey Wilson) sang with two other slaves, a mother and daughter who had just been sold to different owners and were about to be separated, I knew I had never heard and would never hear anything quite so overwhelming and beautiful again in my life. The sound was amazing, the power evident and the emotions overwhelming. I looked across the play area and saw a friend who had such emotion on her face that I became even more overwhelmed! I was sweating,(it was 120 degrees in there, my one complaint, but I would have been sweating at this point anyway) crying and had goose bumps all at once. I did not know where to look or if I could breathe. That, my friends, is good theatre! It doesn’t always happen, but we should always strive for that!
Another interesting aspect was the almost total blindness to race and gender. In the beginning, the cast passes their hats from person to person as they sing, giving you the idea that different roles will go to almost anyone. You believed a girl as Tom Sawyer. You bought a blond, blue eyed girl as a slave. You didn’t see color when a black man sold someone as a slave. It all somehow worked.
I knew that these friends I started school with four years ago, left behind last year when I graduated, and was now seeing doing their senior projects, were true artists. Because no matter how right the director was in every move he made, these “kids” were the reason the show moved me the way it did. He motivated and worked them, they brought it to life. All I can say is Bravo! If the theatre was bigger and the show not totally sold out, I would grab everyone I know and take them to see this production! I am just glad I got to see it!!
Today, however, was the kiddie musical I helped with at church. I did not teach them the music, they had their choir directors for that, and it seems every plan I had either got scrapped due to lack of time, lack of ability or lack of cooperation. I felt very defeated by the time show time rolled around. Trying to keep 35 or so first through fifth graders on task when about 3 of them are really interested in being there is nearly impossible. At our supposed “dress rehearsal” on Wednesday, I realized all I could do was smile and say “That’s fine” to each time I got second guessed or just totally ignored. Never did I have the entire cast, usually I had about two thirds of them. Baseball or Scouts always took precedence. I felt defeated and went into today wishing my name was not on the program since nothing in the play had anything to do with any vision I had. Don’t get me wrong- anyone who has been in a play I directed can tell you I am as collaborative as they come. It is never “my way or the highway”!! But being totally overruled and ignored on pretty much everything was a new and not very fulfilling experience!
When I got to the church this afternoon, someone totally uninvolved with the play was rude to me not once, not twice, but three times. I thought to myself, I want to get this over and go home asap! I helped set microphones, gave the kids their minimal costumes and then prepared to do the opening narration. Then I knew the lack of structure and rehearsal was about to embarrass us all. As always seems to happen with children, something magical occurred when they got in front of an audience made up of their parents and grandparents. Instead of having to jump up and down to give them their cues and then being ignored, I merely pointed and they went right to their spots. The four boys who acted like hoodlums the whole process, pretty much did their parts. And the whole show went off without a hitch.
After getting the props and costumes and taking down the mics, I slipped out the back. I wanted no conversation, no accolades. I had done nothing and deserved to slink off in obscurity. Something bigger than me took over and made the little kiddie play, Who Turned Out the Lights what it was.
So it was a very surprising and emotional weekend of theatre. I am exhausted. But this is what makes theatre what it is. You never know what to expect or what might happen. I had several of the cast members in Montevallo tell me that their experience with Big River had reminded them why they loved theatre in the first place. It had made them fall in love all over again. I have to say it did the same for me as an audience member. And today made me realize how much I love just being involved, even when some people act up and nothing goes your way. Somewhere, that joy, that passion, still comes through! Can’t wait to keep watching, performing and growing.
