There are lots of Christmas plays in the area this year. And I am in one of them. I didn’t learn my lesson last year, so here I am again. The experience has been much better this year than last; better show, better director, just better all around. The part that is worse is that the play runs two weekends, including the one right before Christmas where last year was one weekend, earlier in December. Also, last year, Christmas dinner was not at my house, this year it is. And lastly, last year I was not trying to work through the pain of a back injury. I just need to learn that once and for all, a Christmas show is too much for me!
When I think about it , maybe any show is too much for me. I have been so fortunate to have pretty large roles in the last two shows. After the last one, I decided I needed to retire. On the night before the final dress, I still felt unprepared and I was so overwhelmed that I cried on the entire drive home after dress rehearsal. But the show went well and I then took a long break. But when this show came around, I really wanted to do it! There was a lot to learn- the first words uttered are from me and I talk for a long time- just me! I am such a perfectionist and such a stickler for honoring the words written by the playwright that I drive myself nuts. I go to sleep going over monologues and lines. I wake up going over monologues and lines. Yesterday as we were riding home from delivering one of Tim’s art pieces in Georgia, Tim asked me a question about something on the radio. I looked at him blankly and he said, ” Running lines in your head??” He knows me so well!!
Beside my chair in the living room is a stack of magazines I haven’t even opened yet. Why? Because if I have a free minute, I study my lines. If I look at a magazine or write a blog post, I feel guilty! I take this way too seriously I know, but it isn’t just that I don’t want to look like a fool on stage, but I don’t want to be the one who lets the team down, who missed a line or a cue and throws everyone else off of the tracks! So I practice lines as I cook or do dishes or make the bed, as I drive to rehearsals or performances, as I drive home from those same rehearsals or performances. If I have a busy day when I don’t sit and study, I panic that I have forgotten everything! (The other day I tried saying the lines from the show last summer and I still knew them. I stopped myself after a while so as not to get confused, but obviously a few hours off won’t make me forget everything! I can be dingy, but not THAT dingy!)
So I am thinking that for my own sanity I need to return to what I thought I liked best all along- small, interesting parts where I can learn my lines and then delve deeply into a character. I have proved that I can learn page after page of lines- my first story in this show is 7 pages long! My brain can learn all of that, I just don’t handle it very well! Being on stage from start to finish, talking incessantly, and feeling so overwhelmed right up until show day is more than my psyche can handle! I am an old woman, I need old woman characters! Let me step on stage, cuss someone out and leave! That is more my speed.
So one more weekend of holiday storytelling and I am free to rest my injured back, and my overwhelmed brain! Well, not really. I have to get the house clean, decorated and food ready for the family meal. O’ tidings of comfort and joy!
