When ‘doers’ watch ’n’ drift
I am an incredibly distracted audience member. I watch a lot, and yet “drift” a lot.
There are two groups of theatre people in the world. One does theatre, and the other watches theatre. It is virtually impossible to do both. At least not at the same time, or time span. Yet I valiantly try.
As an avid theatre goer and doer, I often find myself in this conundrum. Recently I have been touring with a play for six weeks, and I realised I hadn’t watched a play since early March. Not that I haven’t wanted to. We live in a time where plays happen every weekend. The choice is wonderful. The papers are full of ads, the Internet is full of e-zines, and Facebook is full of invites. And yet finding the time to actually “go” to the theatre when you are working on a show is almost impossible.
Part of the reason for this is pre-occupation of the mind. Working on a play is often an all-encompassing experience. We do it because we “want” to, not because we “have” to. Therefore it consumes us entirely. Even when not in rehearsals, the conversations are all about the play at hand, no matter how many shows it has completed. A good barometer of whether a theatre company is in rehearsal, is if a group of theatrewallahs all burst out laughing at something innocuous. That’s probably because someone just quoted a line from the text that they are currently working on.
It is very difficult to sit watching a show and not think of your own show. I have caught myself on numerous occasions wondering about a particular scene that is soon to be staged in the same venue. Time inside a theatre building is always treasured, so watching someone else’s work serves as a “venue recce” of sorts.
Then there are the negative emotions. The obvious jealousy that someone else has performances on; and that it clashes with your own performance dates. But soon that develops into the regret that you have a show that clashes with other peoples, particularly shows that you might want to watch.
“Why couldn’t they be next weekend?” shifts to “Why couldn’t our show be next weekend?”
So in an ideal world, the best time for theatrewallahs to go to the theatre is when they aren’t really working on anything; which is what I decided to do last week.
Sure enough, as soon as I met the director, who is also a dear friend, he commented, “Oh so, catching up huh?” What he meant was that I was finally catching up on his four plays that have opened in the last year. During the play, I watched unencumbered by the distractions of tour planning, or staging, or actor delivery of my own play. I have no shows lined up. Therefore if I wanted to access theatre, all I had was the show in front of me. And what a liberating experience that is. There is no agenda, just the talent on offer.
I love the theatre. There is no place in the world I would rather be than sitting in a theatre working on a show. But sitting in a theatre watching someone else’s show, does come a close second!
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