“Earnest” has been stripped, unscrewed from the floors, dislocated from the window bracings…our clothes (still on hangers) were loaded up into the back of a car trunk with all the finality of a coffin lid closing. No more props tables, or muffins and cucumber sandwiches…no more pictures and well-wishing notes on the dressing room walls.
…No more dressing room walls, period.
They don’t belong to us anymore.
…They’ve now been bequeathed to the next guys, along with that “every theater in the world” smell…that aroma mix of sawdust, mothballs, sweat, hot lamps, old masking blacks, paint, Ben Nye face base, and hairspray.
The sense of a full life lived, kept us at peace with it all, though…as all the deconstructing began, directly after bows. We HAD actually won the first bet and sold out the house, the audience was riled and ready to laugh, and our Director was back in the house…coming full circle to how this whole adventure had begun ages and ages ago, once upon a time, in a rehearsal room. With all that in mind, all the last reserve of anything we had left, was pumped into the performance with that extra zing that only Openings and Closings, have.
Bittersweet.
…But before we could get lost in a thick quicksand of regrets, we were off to the stage to work and play, followed by a delight of a cast party hosted by our Lane (and the Mrs.), where much food and drink was consumed, (garden party style) and Croquet and Cards Against Humanity was played.
Sick amounts of laughter can make you forget almost anything.
…Like the fact that next Friday, we’ve no “home” to go to, no costumes to put on, no lines to say.
…It’ll be just an average, ordinary day.
Actor’s don’t really know what to do with those kind of things.
…So it’s good I have a “next” to focus on, at that point. Not that it will be easy to redirect towards.
For now: my theater FB header and profile pic will stay the same. I’ve no interest in making an alteration any time soon. Where before, these things were a press and advertising nod, now it has become a look back on good collaborative work, during an excellent summer run, with a happy company of Anglophiles.
Thanks, friends, for taking the creative blog journey with me while we did it.
Also, “Huzzah!” for bets won.
Goodbye, dearest Gwendolen Fairfax and all the rest…
…And thanks to Oscar, for the Wilde ride.
~D
