The Rest is Silence

 It's Friday night.  The show I directed is currently closing at Pt. Fermin Park.  I am not there.  I couldn't return to the literal scene of the crime.  Instead, I am experiencing FOMO.  When we opened, I told the cast that I was excited, not for that day, but for the day when this show returned from tour, all grown up, a bit beaten and battered, but mature and tight.  I was part of that cast.  Until tonight.  Last night, I took my final bow with SBTS at SOKA University in Alisa Veijo.  I played Toby one last time, with my Illyrians.  I didn't want to make it about me, but Steph had different plans.  She had flowers and champaign and a speech.  I wept a bit.  I hate not being at closing for these shows, and yet, I would have hated being there more, or rather would have been scanning the park for the guys who held me at gunpoint and beat me when I couldn't fight back.  But I am grateful to Greg D. and Jonathan for taking on the daunting tasks of playing Toby and Claudius (respectively), while I sit here at my keyboard contemplating what is next.

(Me trying to hold it together one last for one last bow).

But before I tackle that, let's look at the past week and a half.

Wednesday the 26th, we were in Beverly Hills.  Roxbury Park.  It was Hamlet.  It was a good show.  I was very aware of the people that were there, some of whom I respect a great deal, and I think I allowed that to affect my work.  I wasn't great, and also, I forgot to bring out the cup I am supposed to poison in the final scene.  I went off and got it, and we missed a line or two, but I felt like crap. A familiar feeling for me these days.

Thursday, we traveled up to Encino.  We were in a whole new park this year.  It was really beautiful!  We did Twelfth Night, but since it was in the triple digits, we decided to only put up part of the set, as we had done in Long Beach.  It was the right decision, but it doesn't feel the same to have most of the action on the ground where people are sitting.  Aside from the stifling heat, we could literally see pollen falling from the trees like snow.  My allergies haven't been the same since.  

Friday, we were back in South Pasadena. We had maybe our best Hamlet of the summer for that wonderful audience. I saw one of the kids I had briefly taught back in 2016.  She's all grown up and going to college now.  One of the things I love about this, and will miss terribly, are the connections I have made.  I have seen generations of people come through our summers.  

Saturday and Sunday we were in my hometown of Torrance.  We had an immediate setback as one of our actors got hurt and had to go to urgent care.  However, the doctor left, and they ended up coming back and doing the show.  But being a hand down, set took longer to build than anticipated.  I had really wanted to do one last "stage side chat," to say hey thanks for all the years.  But it wasn't meant to be.  Torrance is a funny park to do comedy in, because the audience is seated on a hill that rises up from the stage area.  And there is this phenomenon that I noticed long ago about people being uncomfortable about laughing when they can be seen.  The audience was so exposed, that they didn't really start laughing until the sun went down in the second act.  But those laughs we got in the first half, those were hard earned.  We had a good Hamlet on Sunday.  I thought I'd get through the whole week without something that triggered (there's that word) my PTS, but that wasn't meant to be.  I don't really want to go into it, but I sort of sleepwalked my way through the last few scenes after it happened.  I did remember the poison cup though, so that's something.

This week, we started in Cerritos.  It was hot.  It was Hamlet.  It was sort of a mess.  We are all a bit broken at this point of tour.  The show is always good.  When I talk of things that weren't great, it's only relevant to those of us who are there day in and day out.  I had one of those shows as an actor that we hate.  Like Nina in "The Seagull," I was so aware of my hands.  I was aware of every single technical thing I was doing.  I didn't have one authentic, "in the moment" moment.  This makes me very sad, because as most of my 4 readers can recall, I love the final performance.  And that was my final Claudius, and it was actor self-aware and technical. There was also a problem putting Ophelia's dead body on the stage.  It was one of those actor nightmare things where no matter what the people involved in it tried, they couldn't do it.  This led to some corpsing among some of the actors.  I was too concerned about the well-being of my friend to find anything to laugh about, but I can't really blame those that did.  It was absurd.  We also had some angry words exchanged at the end of the night by some people.  The whole night made me sad.

Yesterday we were at SOKA for my final Toby performance.  The audience was great, and after Steph announced to the crowd that I was retiring from SBTS, I had a number of people come up to me and tell me how much they have enjoyed my performances over the years.  I have actually heard that a lot this year, and honestly that connection with the communities was one of the things that brought me back again and again for more than two decades.  I also had a lovely compliment from a woman who said that our production had achieved the kind of diversity she always dreamed was possible but had never seen.  I simply cast the best person for every role in their role.  It's a beautiful world that we have created in Illyria.  There is no racism, homophobia, toxic masculinity, or hate.  There are just humans doing their best to live and love.  I have a pair of twins that look nothing like one another, they are racially very different, but I didn't let that stop me.  I trusted the audience to go along with the convention that everybody thought they looked alike.  Sure, I moved the first scene around a bit, so I could have them both onstage at the same time, and I contrived a crossover by Sebastian being chased by Malvolio, only to see Viola and wonder if he was seeing double.  There are challenges in diversity casting, but there are always answers to those challenges.  It is so rewarding to know that at every single park we went to, the audience understood and howled in laughter at the mistaken identity.  

Tonight, Twelfth Night is probably wrapping up right about now.  I'm not there.  I'm sad.  Tomorrow, Hamlet will wrap up at about 10:30, and I won't be there, and that makes me sad too.  I'm sad for what those guys took from me.  They didn't get my car.  But they took away something far more valuable. They took from me San Pedro itself.  My stage for 21 years.  The place where I have said the most beautiful words for thousands of people.  And they took from me the false sense of safety I have in a country that has no gun control.  

So, that's the blog for this summer.  I don't know what's to come.  I am retired from Shakespeare by the Sea.  I may be retired from theatre altogether, if I can only think of anything else I'm capable of doing and making a living at.  

Thanks for going on this journey with me.  Thanks for all the support and kindness.  Thanks for the memories. 

All the rest is silence.