You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

-Mary Oliver

Friday 11 July 2008

What to write?

It's been a very full, very rewarding, VERY exhausting week. Fifteen hour day after fifteen hour day since Sunday, each evening a new project to perform, a new world to present. It's a wonderful exhaustion, this theatre-induced fatigue, but it takes its toll: I woke up this morning with a sore throat, and am valiantly battling the threat of illness. And there's still a week to go.

My piece went really well. I'm so proud of my cast and appreciative of all their hard work. I'm so agog at the fact that I can build theatre, that I can see a vision through to some form of completion. Nearly all of the constructive criticism I was given by the teachers was stuff I already knew, and that's a great thing. Thinking back to the beginning of this programme, when half the time the feedback they gave me was in a language I neither spoke nor understood, this is certainly an accomplishment.

And last night, we performed Erin's piece, and brought much of the audience to tears. She is such a fine director, a fine artist and human, with such a lovely touch, and I cannot wait to continue work on her piece (a beautiful meditation on AIDS and dying with dignity, inspired by Studs Terkel's Will the Circle Be Unbroken?). Hopefully coming soon to a fringe festival near you...

And how am I? I'm a bit amazed by it all. It has been so beautiful this week to see the individual projects, to be allowed into the worlds of colleagues and friends. Next week, no doubt, the floodgates will burst and all this wonder and sorrow and joy will find a language in tears, but at the moment, it's all wide-open eyes, wide-open arms, wide-open heart.

1 comment:

Gemma said...

Yay for creating performances! Congratulations on all your hard work. I REALLY wish I could see all of them, especially after getting a small taste of what you all are capable of.

We are amping up for the Fringe here. Though I am not involved in any shows, I am really looking forward to watching other people flail about in the creation process and make it work (or not).

Thinking of you, even though I don't write. :) xoxo