Playing in the sandbox

Tuesday night Oct. 4--

My worst show thus far. Let's start in the a.m. though...

I woke up Tuesday morning and despite a day off, I felt like a train hit me. Immediately I worried about how I'd get through the show that night. I was a bit confused as to the reason for my exhaustion...after all, I haven't partied, had a drink, gone out, seen my friends, had a life outside of Piazza for 6 weeks! Why should this morning be a killer? Perhaps I needed more rest yesterday (Monday our day off) and shouldn't have walked around the city with my parents? That's crazy though right? I'm supposed to hole myself up in my apartment and not move whenever I have a chance to rest?

I laid around on my sofa feeling shitty until I rallied a friend to go see the invited dress rehearsal of The Odd Couple. I hoped getting out of my apartment would wake me up a bit. No such luck. It was just gonna be one of those days.

I got to the theater and dreaded going on stage--I really didn't know if I'd be able to get through the show. At about half hour though a little adrenalin kicked in and I started to think things might be O.K.. And looking back on that show--that's all they were--O.K.. Unfortunately that's not good enough. I know in a long running show I'm going to have good shows and bad shows, but this show was just UGH! I found myself praying to G-d in the middle of Passegiata that he get me through the number...I just felt like I was fighting my body and my voice the whole show. Thankfully, nothing major went wrong, but I wasn't very good. And, being pretty tough on myself, I beat myself up for it.

Let's cut to today--nearly a week (7 shows) later. Things are great. It's my day off and I finished the week with 4 very strong performances this weekend for sell out, fantastic crowds. Why the swing in my luck? Is it luck? What changed? I'm still exhausted (as I feel i may be as Fabrizio until this show closes :). I think I know...

Thursday night my long time acting coach came to see the show. I was nervous knowing she was out there and that I hadn't had a good performance since the week before. After the show we talked and she felt although I was "great", that I was tired, over-working the material a bit, and thinking too much up there. These are things that probably only a few people would notice, but Joan and I both knew she was right. I was determined to get out of my slump, but how? I had been trying every way I knew how since Tuesday's poor performance and couldn't seem to shake it.

As fate would have it, before the show on Friday, Vicki came into my dressing room to chat because she had finished getting ready early. In over a month of performances, this was a first and a nice surprise. She just wanted to see how I was doing, etc; I told her I felt like I was in a funk. That I was still getting last minute notes from our director & some cast members that I felt were difficult to work on minutes later in a performance. That I was tired. That I was frustrated...Vicki smiled...she said, "Can you think of this whole thing like playing in a giant sandbox? We're just kids out there playing."

Something clicked. It's sooooo simple! But so true! I was working too hard because I wasn't really playing out there. I was thinking about notes and pushing the material in certain directions instead of letting it pull me around the stage. I was determined to go out Friday night and just 'play in the sandbox'!

And by golly if it didn't work!!! The show was effortless and fun again! I lived Fabrizio without having to work it. I just let things go as they wanted to. I was so much more in the moment and playing with my fellow actors having a GREAT time telling this story. My voice relaxed and appeared less tired, my energy flowed, my mind cleared, scenes were different...it was a revelation!

And I played in the sandbox all weekend to similar results. Thank you Vicki!!!

What's great is that I've always been able to recognize when something isn't working in my performances, when I'm overworking or overthinking things, but I've never really been able to fix the problem. Now I have a solution. So simple. I had worked so hard in rehearsal and on stage for a month with Fabrizio, it was time to just let everything go...there was no more need to keep working things so hard....only to play...to play in the giant sandbox!