One fateful Saturday, Pat and Lisa Greene told their six-year-old son Matthew they were going to see a play. I liked the word "play" so I went along with the idea of being quiet and still in a strange place. It was "Rumplestiltskin" and I was called up on stage when they asked for a volunteer from the audience. And so it began.
We went back to that little theatre several times and I started doing shows at another community theatre (playing illustrious roles like Stewart Little in..."Stewart Little"). In 1998 Lola Agulair, a family friend, took me and her daughter Alex to see "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" at the Sacramento Music Circus. I'd heard about the Music Circus from a number of people, most notably my short-tempered director from numerous productions. The consensus was that I HAD to see a show there. Music Circus WAS (and really still IS) Sacramento theatre.
And so we went. It starred Eric Kunze and Mary Gordon Murray (who had a voice the likes of which I had never heard before)and I was AMAZED. Awed by the talent, delighted by the songs, boyishly in love with Potiphar's wife. If I didn't know it by then, this production clinched it: this was my future.
Fast forward. Double my age. And "Joseph" is back at the Music Circus. I have a degree in theatre and a somewhat impressive (for a 24-year-old recent graduate) resume. I have performed in "Joseph" and many other shows. I have a nametag (three, actually) from Music Circus. I'm on the cast list for two of their shows this summer and listed as an "Artistic Assistant" in all the programs. And I'm back at the same theatre seeing it again.
I know this show backwards and forwards but there are still some surprises. Richard Stafford's direction is whimsical and inventive and Maz Von Essen's "Close Every Door" blows Donny Osmond out of the water and is surprisingly stirring, even to someone like me who things the song is shallow and completely out of place in the show.
Still, my love affair with "Joseph" died out a long time ago. I think it's overdone, indulgent, repetitive, etc. Any "theatre person" has heard the critiques before and anybody else doesn't care. I couldn't help but wonder as I sat there, though, what happened to that bright-eyed kid who thought any professional production was flawless, any professional actor was a demigod or -goddess, and any show with upbeat pop-inspired music was a masterpiece worthy of repeated cast recording listening sessions.
I'm way smarter than I was when I was twelve. I've traveled the world, graduated twice, fallen in love, fallen out, read countless books, seen more theatre than fifty average people combined, and left things like "Joseph" (and "Phantom" and "Peter Pan" and, yes, "Rumplestiltskin") behind me. Way smarter. But happier?
Have I lost something, now that I can't sit transfixed by a sparkly musical? Analytical tendencies and overly-critical attitudes aside, I have to admit that some of the magic is gone. Now it's about creating that magic for others, others who will buy tickets and put food on my table. But to what end? Until they get smart enough not to be fooled anymore?
Not to say I don't love going to the theatre anymore. I'm going tonight. But as the overture began, the house lights went down and the gasp and hush fell over the crowd, I definitely envied the hushers and gaspers their heady anticipation. Half my life ago, I felt the same way, in the same place, with the same show. Now it takes more than colorful costumes and belted power ballads to get my heart racing.
Growing up, huh?
4 comments:
I'm experiencing a lot of the same thing. Once I realized how similar professional theatre people were to everybody else I worked with, it lost a lot of the magic for me.
That being said, sometimes something really cool will still blow me away. The revival I saw of "Our Town" had such an impact on me that during the second intermission, audience members told me that I was as entertaining as anything they'd been watching on the stage that night. But, yeah, the experiences are rarer. And few, if any of them, begin with overtures anymore...
And, my love for "Joseph" returned when I did the show again in December. The director intentionally got rid of all the excess we associate with the show because of the Donny production and brought it back to its original school-day simplicity. And suddenly, when it was just this really simple, raggedy-kinda-homespun charmy thing instead of a Tuacahn spectacle...I got it again.
But that was a tangent I didn't intend on going on. My point is, the magic can still be there. But, I honestly don't know if it's gonna be there as much as it used to. Once you know the Wizard's a fraud, it's hard to take anything he says seriously, you know? The magic's been exposed.
this makes my heart hurt.
But I also understand it. Undoubtedly, you'll find a new magic as you penetrate to a different depth and new angle of theatre. You're experiencing a long drawn out version of the disappointment a scholar, longing to read Virgil in the original tongue, feels when he actually sits down to tackle ancient greek. Or was it Latin? I'm actually not sure---POINT IS, something tells me the perfection of the poetry will find you again though.
that's all.
I think I'm the same. It's sad in a way. But I'll always remember the chills I felt the first time I saw Phantom in San Francisco, when the organ blasted and the chandelier flew off the stage and over the audience. I just got chills thinking about it.
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