yin. yang.

The first weekend of the show simply flew past.

The opening night left me in a bit of daze. Going out for drinks, appetizers, and inadvertantly the twentieth anniversary of Nirvana's Nevermind record capped off the show's coming out soiree. I leaned between blissful enjoyment and deer in headlights shock that the presentation as a whole didn't fully meet my desire. The second night was brilliant. The audience was on fire, the difficulties only I saw on the first night were ironed out, and I finally got a glimpse of damn near the show I soldiered to put on in the first place.

And yesterday was our matinee. Few involved with this dark, twisted, adult show felt the theatre should have scheduled us for a post-church hour matinee, but there three of them sat on the schedule of our mere nine show run. The house was miniscule. For a bit I was beginning to worry we would have no one show, because the rain would keep them away, all of the other conflicting events would pull them elsewhere, or that the thought of mid-afternoon erotism amidst all of the Blue Laws would have them running for the hills. Though the audience was quiet, they were mostly pleased with the show. I saw plenty of soft bits of laughter, smiles, and pleasurable tittering. Everyone put on one hell of a good show, despite the turn-out.

There was even one old, crotchetty man who stuck it out. He moved seats after intermission and sat pouty and full of grimace. Most people dealing with his level of discomfort, displeasure, or disappointment - whatever it was - would have left during the intermission. The rough shows I have done are well-known to lose people during intermission. Assessing the room at the start of show offers plenty of chance to figure out who it might be. I can't for the life figure out why he hung out. I take it as a badge of honor that he took the opportunity to tell one of my show's personnel that it was 'the worst play' he'd ever seen. Extreme response demands emotional impact. I am not in the least offended. I just know I did my job. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I arrived home to discover an on-line review that offered overall glowing, albeit brief, observations about the show, including one that referred to me as 'amazing'.

Now I have the chance to bring life back to a sense of normalcy, slowly declutter the apartment, and pull all focus away from the art of the thing and instead take some of this freetime to promote the hell out of it. What's the point of putting on such a divisive play if only four handfuls of people are going to get a glimpse?