A Life in the Theatre (sort of)

     “All the world's a stage,

     And all the men and women merely players:

     They have their exits and their entrances;

     And one man in his time plays many parts,

     His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,

     Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.

     And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel

     And shining morning face, creeping like snail

     Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,

     Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad

     Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,

     Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,

     Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,

     Seeking the bubble reputation

     Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,

     In fair round belly with good capon lined,

     With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,

     Full of wise saws and modern instances;

     And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts

     Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,

     With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,

     His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide

     For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,

     Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

     And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,

     That ends this strange eventful history,

     Is second childishness and mere oblivion,

     Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”

                                                  ~ William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

                                                     As You Like It

                                                     Act II Scene VII

There are many things in life that interest me. I live to learn, to experience, to discover, to create. I work, so that I can live. And to live means I am exploring. In the course of this life I have played music, I have written, I have drawn, and I have taken photographs. Truth is, most of these I still do, if only from time to time. 

Theatre (I prefer the English spelling of the word) is another thing that I do now and then. There was a time, many years ago, when I was heavily involved. It seemed as though I was either in a production or planning a production constantly. It was exciting and it served as a way to distract me from the things that I didn’t much care for. However, as with so many things in life, we move on. Things that were once so important lapse into memory - still a part of who we are, but not what we do. 

Except, on occasions perhaps. 

I think that once you’ve experienced “the smell of the greasepaint and the roar of the crowd” there is forever a small part of you that yearns for the stage. We’re drawn by that tightness in our guts as we patiently wait for places to be called. We want that rush of adrenaline as we step out into the light and then the peace that follows that opening speech as you settle into the rhythm of the words. We need to hear the laughter when there should be laughter and the sobs when there should be sobs. And we must hear the applause after giving it our all for two hours.

There are times when I need to break out of the usual quietness that is my life. For me, that breaking out is the theatre. It is the occasional time that I allow myself to be bold, to be loud, to be someone other than who I am. Playing a role gives me the opportunity to become someone else. That someone may be the hero or it may be the villian. The character may be comic or it may be tragic. It may carry the production with endless lines of dialogue or it may have only a few lines in the plot. Each presents its own unique challenge; the former has you spending every free moment memorizing lines while the latter has you discovering how to create and portray a character without much to go on. Both have you digging in and bearing down on who it is you are becoming. 

Questions fill your mind. Why does he say that and not this? How does he move? How does he walk? What is he thinking? What things happened (unknown to the audience) that brought him to this exact moment in time? Is he quiet? Is he loud? What is it, within your own personal history and experience, that you draw from to create and to stir an emotion. These are some of the many things your explore as you prepare. 

But the character doesn’t end with the preparation. There is the evolution that occurs on the stage. These are times that you do things in the moment; on stage, in front an audience, simply because it feels right. A turn, a slightly different delivery of a line, a slight variation in motive. Each, because the process of discovery is ongoing, happens in the emotion of the moment. That, is exciting! That, is theatre! And theatre is live!

When I was really busy, I played R.P. McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Norman Thayer, Jr. in On Golden Pond, Martin Vanderhoff in You Can’t Take It with You , FDR in Annie (I don’t care to ever sing “Tomorrow” again) and many others. Now, every so often I step out. The roles are fewer but they are interesting. I’ve made people cringe as Judge Turpin in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and creating the role of Willie Wainwright, reducing entire theatre’s to tears, in A Scattered Smothered and Covered Christmas. Tonight, I will sing “Tradition” and “If I Were A Rich Man” one final time as Tevye. 

Theatre!  It gets in your veins and is something you can’t easily or entirely walk away from. The characters you are able to play and the size of the roles may change, but still you’re drawn to it. There is that time when you say, “I must do this again.” It is life-giving for someone who wishes to create.

We began with an Englishman of some reputation in the theatre. Let’s close with another Englishman who penned a few classic works for the stage.  

     “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 (1854-1900)

Art, in all its various forms, is how we explore, communicate and celebrate what it is to be human. We pour our whole self into the method that we choose to interpret our humanity. It is our emotional responsibility to the generations to follow. Our art, our music, our theatre, our whatever, is one way in which we say, “we were here.”

In my life, that one moment that someone holds onto while watching me explore a character is one way that “one man in his time" played his part. It is one way that I say “I was here.”

~ Greg