Backstage Confessions

A production of a play is made more by what you don't see than what you do. When you go see a play (as I'm sure you often do, since all readers of my blog are cultured and intellectual), you don't see the hours and hours and HOURS of rehearsal and discussion and preparation the cast and crew gave to put the show together. You don't see the intricate web of movement and interaction I can only call "the backstage dance." It's made up of all the cast members not currently on stage, as well as stage crew and costumers, moving about to get into position for an upcoming scene, prepare a prop, discuss the progress of the show and the audience's reaction, flirt, or talk about things totally unrelated to the play. As you get comfortable in the routine of the show, you find yourself in the same place with the same people at each point during the play. It's really quite a remarkable feat of collaberation and cooperation. Each person in a group of twenty to thirty people has their part to do in putting on this show, and every single person's part is indispensable. If somebody were to suddenly decide not to do their part, the play would collapse and so we are all acting on trust and faith in each other.

The cast of a play is like a bizzare family. By the time you see a play performed, every member of the cast has developed a relationship with every single other member. Some of those relationships are stronger than others but you can't spend that much time collabarating with somebody and not develop some kind of relationship, even if its a negative one. Tensions and arguments flare up, like in families, but if you've got a good cast you work through those and come out even stronger. You all share a desire to make the performance a good one, and to avoid looking like an idiot. You bond even more when others uninvolved in the process are predicting your failure. What makes the situation all the more complicated, however, is that each cast member has not just one but two relationships with each other cast member. They have their real life actor/actor relationship, and then a totally different on-stage character/character relationship they have been developing to make the show real. These two relationships are often at odds with each other. The two guys with little to no stage interaction may be better friends than the two guys who are best friends on stage. The cute couple who end up together at the end may each actually be attracted to somebody else in the cast. The coolest, most social guy on stage may actually turn out to be, to your surprise, a huge Dungeons & Dragons nerd. The flamboyantly gay character could have a big crush on the leading lady. Only members of the cast know all this information, and only they see this hidden layer behind what is happening on stage.

I don't really know why I'm writing all this, except that it is on my mind. I'm finishing up yet another play, and realizing that, like all the others, in a few weeks it will all just be a memory, and our little family will break apart. We'll all still have special feelings for each other, but it will never be the same. Theater is immediate, it is always in the "now", and when its over it can never be revisited. Recordings never do a production justice. I'll miss the complicated relationships, the strange double personalities, the synergy and collaboration. I'll even miss sitting quietly offstage listening to my cast mates, my family, tell a story; and watching as, hidden from the view of the audience, the leading lady flirts with her lover's best friend's servant in the wings - her feet on his lap, his hand on her leg, laughing softly together until its time to go on.