Sunday, February 28, 2010
As I glanced in the mirror friday evening, I saw far more than a concealer-caked face, sticky, aqua net curls, and an unnaturally rosy complexion. Behind my contemplative and remote expression, my distracted laughter and anxiety creased brows was my past.I saw the giant microphone taped on my ear, that made me feel oh so professional and authentic as I prepared for my seventh grade role and my first ever solo, my tear-mascara streaked cheeks after an especially stern lecture from Mrs. Poletti during Charlie Brown crunch time, my fever sweats and child-induced headaches of Peter Pan, my wide, naive, and bewildered eyes decked with too much mascara as I listened to the big eighth grade girls during my 5th grade play talk about boys and makeup and microphones and ALL the lines they had to memorize, my frustration as I studied through tedious Our Town rehearsals, my pin-curls unfurling as I cackled and giggled and gushed to the point of tears during the most chaotic yet fulfilling and vivacious Musical Comedy Murders performance as we reminisced on successful improv and our crazed and captivated opening night audience, I saw layers upon layers of aquanet, pin curls, drama drama, hugs, tears, fevers, flushed faces of shame yet secret enjoyment as we accidentally insulted, offended and flashed the audience, caricatures in dry erase on the dressing room mirror, off-key a capella of RENT, Spring Awakening and Glee, inside jokes, gawking at creepy cast guys, crushes on cast guys, endless songs, endless laughter.
Yet the nostalgia I felt as I glanced in the mirror that evening wasn't the pleasant revisiting of plays past or scrolling through theatre Facebook albums. It was wistful, premature, and far more bitter than bittersweet. I felt an encroaching end, that simply felt surreal. I continued to stare vacantly and introspectively reminisce, mechanically curling my hair. My only connection t realty of the tech crew calling time, time until my last opening night and the senior circle. It didn't feel sad though. Just, unfulfilling. No overwhelming feeling of nostalgia, no clinging to every moment or just missing it, but lack of satisfaction. I just felt sort of upset and jipped. I wish I could relive it, and I wish I could do it differently. Whether the times I stressed over scenes when I struggled with timing, dropped out because of stress or succumbed to my parents' haranguing, I feel too detached. Even if by random strokes of luck and opportunity I manage to involve myself in theatre still, it will never be like this. My parents will never go to my shows and my friends that watched me stress after long practices or shine after successful performances will never make me paper flowers, I'll never have a plate of Perkins pancakes awaiting me afterwards or an evening of insiders and discussions of crappy audiences and missed cues and funny improved bits with the people that I've grown so close to, through amazing shows, snow disasters, unpleasant parts and triumphant solos. No one will understand the utter creepiness of the "Humble" ritual, the remarkable success of a fragmented compiled civil war script, the caffeine-induced hysterics of musical comedy murder late-nights. No matter what communities that I identify with, immerse myself in, dance, sing, act, laugh, and cry with, they will never equate to St. Mary's Theatre, where I found a voice, and found a family.
“I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.”
-Oscar Wilde
Measuring life in love at.7:54 PM
