September 28, 2008

Dr. Faustus ended for me last night, though Amy must slog on for another performance. CJ writes, "You were fabulous! I sometimes forget that you are a singer, and then you open up and blow me away with the power of your voice."

Maybe coincidentally, I finished Awake! Awake! Deborah!, my take on Faustus, the same morning. Nathan observes that Faustus has no narrative arc– "I’m bored. I want to sell my soul. Oh my God I’ve sold my soul." Yet the language is so princely we forgive it its distance from any locus of our own experience. It is a bad example to me, as it suggests that brilliant rhetoric can save faulty construction, a strategy I fight diligently in myself. The audience was ample and attentive. The cast party afterward was rather sweet, with people whomping each other in a blow-up plastic jousting pit. I drank too much ice cold ginger ale too fast, and ended the night vomiting copiously against the front wheel of whatever car was parked before my house. It seemed right, somehow.

In morning foray, hummingbirds milk the purple wands of the sage.

I undervalued the degree to which my father’s last illness and death affected me. My brain went into a fight-or-flight mode from which it has not entirely recovered. I can be diligently on task, but those moments of contemplation between tasks, which I so value, have become impatience, or sleep. Perhaps I’m just waiting for the Next Thing.