Today I did something that I have been planning for a few weeks.
Ever since Christmas, and my brother introduced me to a video game that isn't entirely unlike not playing a guitar-like instrument-type thing, I've had a little creature nibbling away at my cerebral cortex. The guitar would be a handy instrument to learn a little. You could use it to accompany yourself on folk/cabaret/cafe songs. I've been told that a handful of chords is all you really need to know in order to play 90% of the songs out there, so I thought I'd give it a shot.
After weeks of comparison shopping, getting recommendations from multiple places, and reading numerous websites, I decided to buy it today.
I've been practicing finger work, scales and a couple chords today for a few hours off and on. I think I need to stop for today until my fingertips regain feeling.
The show opened this weekend.
I have already written multiple times about how important I feel this show is, and it is nice to hear that audience members feel the same way from notes and individuals who have approached me after the play.
There is something fascinating, wonderful, and exhilarating about moving people to tears.
I hope I don't spoil anything for people out there with this historical tidbit (PS. The play is called the *Three* Trials of Oscar Wilde for a reason, and in Titanic: The Movie, the ship sinks!)
One moment in the play on Sunday's matinee, just before Oscar is about to read a letter to Bosie explaining his reason for not leaving the country before the third trial, the stage is silent for a few seconds. I speak the first lines of the letter ("I have decided it is nobler and more beautiful to stay. We cannot be together."), and I hear a person in the audience plaintively gasp. Just that little sound almost brought me to tears. I almost choked on the next line because of the tears. But I made it through. And it was reassuring to know that we were not performing to a void anymore. People were out there, and even after two and a half hours of historical documentation being recited on a stage, they were still engrossed in the play.
This show (Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde for those playing along at home) has been eating my life.
And this weekend it repaid me for the time I've dedicated.
I almost had forgotten what it is like to take part in a show that has something important to say. For all of my academic devotion to political and social change theatre, the entertainment and production side in this topic is sadly lacking. The next couple weeks are going to get even busier: tech week, school workshops and matinees, workshops in a prison upstate, and the show as it "officially" is listed on the posters in the theater.
But this past weekend was our first full run that really felt that things are coming together. I've finally stopped worrying about the lines. I'm not saying that I am speaking every word correctly, but the character has taken over and it is no longer just recitation of lines. And I received a compliment from our stage manager that gave me confidence that I am on the right track. There was a point in the second act that drains me emotionally, even though it is basically the 30 minutes where I don't have lines. Wilde is forced to listen to the examinations and cross-examinations of the "boys." I think this is the point where Wilde is defeated. Not legally, since the jury is unable to reach a verdict, but emotionally. He has to hear these people that he admired turn against him, and then see their true colors when Wilde's attorney cross-examines them to expose their seedy natures. A double betrayal. There is no high art, no talk of aesthetics, no defense that Wilde can give. He just sits there and is forced to listen.
After rehearsal last night, I was simultaneously drained and invigorated.
My experience with this play can be summed up by a quote from Wilde (and in the play):
Art has a spiritual ministry. It can raise and sanctify everything it touches, and popular disapproval must not impede its progress.
Art is what makes the life of each citizen a sacrament.
Art is what makes the life of the whole race immortal.