bite me

Halloween lurks just beyond the other side of the weekend. It breathes across the nape of my neck, offering itself inside out and exposed with chills and the allure of things forbidden and dark. My beloved and I have been devouring more than our share of the unsettling, the offensive, and the creepy, given both our propensities toward the strange, the dark, the twisted, and the visceral. This cinematic marathon has been a welcome change of relaxation, though heightened and enticing, following the close of the play. My literal season of theatre, drooping end to end across the full length of summer has been gnawing at me ever since we closed.

This part of October offers the opportunity for many to don a mask, a costume, or a disguise. Often times the inner beasts of our souls come out, as quiet waives bare their inner whore, I.T.s show off their true comic doppelgangers, executives' ties becomes nooses, and others merely continue to speak from alternating sides of their mouth.

As the third show of the season opens at the theatre, the larger picture of the behind-the-scenes dramatic flow is evident. The first show received much notice, as it launched the season and was directed by the promotional chair of the theatre and was easy to swallow Jell-O for the local blue hairs and nostalgic set. The new show has gotten additional press, promotional push by the aforementioned idiot senior who shat all over mine, as well as the theatre as a whole who seemed bewildered and distracted while mine was in production.

Watching all of these primarily under-appreciated cult classic films, my recent play experience feels akin in many ways. Frankly, my small core team and I put on one hell of a piece of theatre. The fact that so many people missed it is a loss I am resistant to remedy, even though I did film two of the best performances. There is a call to share it with many of these folks at a favorite local hang-out, but my figurative middle finger goes up in response.

This show didn't need to be the commercial bomb that it ended up. The common expression leans toward a ball being dropped, but in this case we were on the loosing dodgeball team, getting constantly plummeted. So, much like the hasty manner in which we were instructed to tear down our set following the last show, the theatre has moved on to its new baby, wiping away clean the memory of this recently aborted one.

As I walked through the dim, quiet theatre taking clinical pictures of my set before the last weekend, I could still feel the energy of the space that continued to draw me in. I crave and feast on the creative, exploratory moments shared in this venue. These walls can certainly speak louder than any of the people currently inhabiting them, as the building is the only consistent part of its thirty year history.

The fear that guides so many away from the dark recesses of the human spirit are the same ones that people consistently seek out around this time of year. Making so many people uncomfortable, so uneasy, and so out of their element (in some cases, in life changing ways) will be what I can take with me from all of this.