Or not to be

All I have is my work. I don’t have children or a spouse or a house with a sinking foundation to care for. I don’t have funds to manage. I have my work, and it’s my reason for living and for getting up in the morning. My work requires the cooperation of other people. When I am at work on a project, I am focused completely. When I am not at work on a project I am either looking for another project or wishing I was dead. That’s just how my mind works. I suspect it’s how everybody’s mind works and why people fill their lives up with so much to do. Tuesday, I wrote my blog post and then used a factory-made mask as a form to make first a mask out of tape (to see how it would work) and then I mixed up a batch of flour and water, ripped some strips of paper, and laid the first two layers of a paper mache mask. I am trying to save money since we don’t have any. We are using masks for the non-principle characters in the show – partly because some of the actors are playing multiple roles and partly because one of the play’s motifs is that Hamlet suspects everyone of lying all the time. He cannot and does not trust anyone and talks, at one point, about the faces people make for themselves to disguise who they really are. We tried some store-bought masks out at rehearsal last night, and they worked beautifully, but we need a few more. After that, I went over to a friend’s house to post the blog entry, add people to the Facebook event announcing the show, add people to the email list and send them the July newsletter, search to see if the press release had been picked up by anyone, post the results on Facebook, and answer an email from my sister. I don’t have internet at home, so to do anything, I either have to go to a friend’s house or the library. One of my students who waits tables made more money than I did last year. First rehearsal at 1:00 was fight call for Hamlet and Laertes followed by rehearsal for Polonius, Ophelia, and Laertes so that we could work the family dynamic before the run through of Act One that evening. While we were waiting for one of the actors to arrive, I started painting the store-bought masks so they would be dry for rehearsal in the evening and ended up finishing that project while we were working the scenes. It was slow going as not all of the actors are fully off book, but we made some real progress in the relationship between Laertes and Ophelia. There is a two hour break between afternoon and evening rehearsals, so we went for food. When we came back, I worked on the backdrop painting until people started arriving for rehearsal. I hope that someday I’ll live in a world where people want to be where they are and doing what they’re doing. Too often, people seem to me to want to be elsewhere doing elsewhat. Rehearsal time is for rehearsing. I love rehearsing, both as a director and as an actor. Sometimes, often, I feel like I have to push people to do what they came there to do – what they said they wanted to do. In the middle of the work, we’ll suddenly have to stop for some extraneous chat about books, or movies, or tv, or physics, or music. After a break, it’s difficult to get people back to work. Lying around seems to be more exciting and fulfilling. Tuesday, I compared myself to a slave driver while getting people back to work, which comment was not greeted well, but that’s how I feel. When I have to MAKE people focus on the work again and again, I feel like I’m making them do something they don’t want to do. When I have to sit through watching actors flirt with each other during rehearsal or listen to inane conversations that do not relate to the work or watch rehearsal break down because people want to play around, it makes me wonder why they’re there; it makes me wonder why I’m there. We’re doing Hamlet. Even if we squeeze every minute of every rehearsal hour we have and waste no time at all, it still won’t be enough. We finished running Act One Tuesday night, and the actors sat still enough for notes they seemed to resent hearing, and I had the distinct impression that rather than openly accepting the direction, they just let me talk until I was done. After which, guitars came out and they sang a horrid pop song they clearly disdained at the tops of their lungs so that I couldn’t hear myself try to answer a question one of the younger actors asked me. We still had 40 minutes that we could have used to work, but rehearsal was over. They’d run through Act One; their job was done. I did not have it in me to shut them up again, refocus them, and try to accomplish anything. What would have been the point? The scenes where people are solidly off book were excellent, and trying to work the scenes where people do not know their lines would be pointless. Although we’d just had a discussion about lines, clearly no one was interested in using the extra time to memorize. There was nothing for me to do but watch people not care about the work, care more about wasting 40 minutes talking about inane bullshit and plans for the weekend. It made me sad and disappointed, and I didn’t want to be there, so it gave the production the coordinator the key so she could lock up, took out the garbage, and came home, where I put two more layers on the paper mache mask, finished a costume piece I hadn’t been able to finish before because I had to buy some ribbon first, and went to bed where I didn’t sleep well and woke up at 4am. It’s my heart on stage every time. It’s my vision and my risks and my responsibility when people see it and decide if the concept worked, if the language and story were clear, if truth was served and catharsis achieved. But I have to interpret through other people, and when they aren’t as excited about the work as I am, it depresses me. I’m depressed. And now I’m going to go and cut out a dress because these people have to have costumes. If thrift stores didn’t sell sheets so that we could afford fabric, some of them would have to go naked. This isn’t Harry Potter – props and costumes and rooms to rehearse in don’t just magically appear. Hours and hours of work outside of rehearsal have to be put in. Materials have to be paid for. I don’t mind doing it. I like doing it. I just wish the minimal number of hours I spend in rehearsal with actors were as productive as the time I spend alone making things.