Leave me awhile to myself

One of the really interesting parts of this journey has been my solitude. I mean, I see my fellow artists at rehearsal and around the apartments, but for the most part I am by myself most of the day. I feel a strong ambivalence that comes with this solitude. I am grateful that I have a place to myself where I can work and spread out and don't have to negotiate having roommates and all that entails. However, not talking to anybody for most of the day, or rather, have anyone talk to me makes me miss my family even more. I am living in a world of silence I haven't known since 2001. But largely, it's been refreshing to have the quiet I need to work on the text and to freely go about all my worldly needs on my own. 

I find myself with three days off in a row this weekend as they tech "The Tempest." Jason (who plays Othello and I are meeting daily to go over our stuff though). Fortunately, Rusty (who plays Roderigo--and is my favorite person here...you know how I am, I always have a favorite) bought me a wonderful book for my birthday. (for those of you who are looking for a great fantasy-genre trilogy, pick up "Jade City." I tore through it in a couple of days and finally got the second book today.) With reading that, and bingeing Succession, I have been able to take some mental breaks from Iago with these beautiful distractions.

The show is in that awkward stage, where everybody is finally getting comfortable in the roles, but just finishing getting off book (aka the end of my career stage of the process). These sorts of rehearsals can be frustrating for all involved. The person calling for line is frustrated for not knowing that thing they knew a few hours earlier when they thought they clearly knew it, and the one in the scene with them is frustrated because the one part they really know and ready to crush is being hindered by the one who doesn't know it. And, fun fact, we alternate between being both people. But the bones of the work look good. The cast is really talented, kind, and giving. It's remarkable that a group of people, most of whom didn't know one another, could come together so quickly to form a company.  

 There are some stark differences in my Iago from the last time I played him, and I love that. Our director (also Artistic Director) is setting out to decolonize Shakespeare and make sure the work and company are clearly anti-racist. So for his first season at the helm, he chose to take on Othello and The Tempest. Two of the top three Shakespeare plays that focus on "the other." That which is not homogenous. And that individual is looked down upon as something less--this other--simply for being other. I can't speak to how that's going in The Tempest because I'm not in that show, but for Othello this is being tackled by rooting out the sad tropes of racism, to make the world of the play look more like the world in which we live. One in which overt racism is still prevalent, but subtle racism and the benefit of white privilege are clearly seen. Shakespeare wanted us to hold up a mirror to nature, and the mirror we are holding up looks a whole lot more like our world today than that of his time. 

How successful we will be, I will leave that to you to discover. 

To read more about decolonizing Shakespeare, here's an article: https://medium.com/the-sundial-acmrs/decolonizing-shakespeare-toward-an-antiracist-culturally-sustaining-praxis-904cb9ff8a96

Troubled with a raging tooth, I could not sleep.

 

We are in our third week of rehearsal and I am happy to report that we are going to have a really good show. The cast is outstanding, and Tyrone has been great about letting us explore and create. I love playing Iago so much. It's just delicious! I've found lots of new things and been able to go deeper into exploring him. That is one of the benefits of returning to a role after several years. There's already a foundation (and I have found rereading this blog to have been a great resource...kudos to that version of Patrick, who knew what he was doing for the most part). But since it has been six years, there is enough distance to create the moment to moment work of the play completely from scratch. And, of course, it's an entirely different concept and cast...so it can't help but be different. 

Omaha is still trying to kill me. I woke up with terrible tooth pain the other day, and after avoiding doing anything about it for a few days, I finally broke down and went to the dentist. Turns out that the tooth I had that emergency root canal on a few years ago needs to come out. Yup, I'm getting a tooth yanked and a bridge put in. I guess I can't blame Omaha for that, and my dentist is super cool, but week one I was sick, and week two I find out this. 

And even more upsetting is that I come home the other night and get out of my car, and my sunglasses fall out of my pocket and slide into the sewer. These sunglasses were part of my very existence. They were perfect. Fit my face comfortably, looked good on, had the perfect darkness. I had them for over ten years and I babied them. Public works did come out and open up the sewer for me a couple of days later, but they were long gone from an intense storm we had.

So that's the update. Show good, health bad, sunglasses RIP. 

Also I'm super homesick and miss my family something fierce!