Margaret Fuller would not have left off writing her blog until the last minute. Well, she might have, but I bet she would have taken a bunch of notes. I did wait, and I did not take notes. This is what I recall.
Week One: Everyone and everything amazing! Our whole cast and director are super talented and excited by the play. I am beyond thrilled!
Week Two: I cannot act. Why did they cast me? I am horrible.
Week Three: Glimmers of hope. Everyone else continues to grow. I am just starting to understand this role.
Week Four: More signs of hope, cautiously optimistic.
Week Five: Joy! Happiness! I think I might finally be getting her. I have landed a perfect song to listen to before the show. And although my corset is a familiar torture, working in a hoop skirt is actually a blast. Who knew?
Week Six: We are in tech. The acting part is out the window. Find your light; remember which tiny piece of tape marks where you land for which scene. Or is it this scuffmark? Did I just make this scuffmark? I am not in my light. I can’t find my scuffmark. And my costume is gorgeous, but I cannot breathe. Or lift my arms. I had been warned this would be true, but this is actually true.
In rehearsals, I am a mess. I try to be all playful and adaptable, but my tortured insides just want to know what I am supposed to feel, and how to get to that emotion. And everything, oh everything is pretend. In the rehearsal room, our books of poetry have been three books on pregnancy and the Book of Mormon with a new cover on it. I am to gaze longingly out at the spectacular view, but the view is really just chairs filled with my fellow actors, their faces lit with MacBooks and iPhones. Our plastic cups are teacups, baskets are babies, foot stamps are door slams, passionate impulses are timed. But you squint, you substitute, you fake it, and things become real. The cast slides into this new land as new people, and we gaze at each other with new eyes.
This play is special. It is magical and truthful and utterly fantastical. But this cast is special, too. Jane with her knitting and her impish humor. Max and his sketchbook and his true joy of theatre. Meg, our director, and Andra, her assistant, both of whom radiate with energy and enthusiasm. John, our stage manager, and his success at being everywhere at once. Scott, who seems to see and take in everything (and is brilliant at Word Warp). Carianne, genuinely generous and truly lovely. Jay and his willing and creative spirit. Nick with his glorious and bountiful blue eyes, and the wildly inventive Brik, who makes me laugh both when I am supposed to and when I am not. And there’s me, attempting to be calm. I am goofy and intense and prefer not to wear shoes.
Of course the purpose of rehearsal is to create the world of the play and all that blah blah blah. But we have also created a little family… as needy and dysfunctional as a real one perhaps, but much more entertaining than your average one. We have made up this new reality together, and we can’t do it without each other. And that, to me, is the real and best truth of our rehearsal.
I want to leave this with a little note on what it feels like to wear a corset. You can make one at home! All you need is a marker, a good-sized piece of cardboard, some duct tape and a strong friend. Have the strong friend use the marker to draw a straight line from the bottom point of each of your shoulder blades to your waist. Then, hike up your boobies and place the cardboard around your middle. Next, take a final deep breath, and then have the strong friend duct tape the cardboard around you so tightly that the marker lines touch. Try to touch your toes or even your knees. How funny! You can’t! And now you know what a corset feels like. See the show, and I will tell you the song I have in my head.
