June 11, 2017

Exceptionally awful night. Two rounds of muscle cramps, the first heinous. At one point I recognized that the pain was unbearable, and yet I was still required to bear it, for no other options were available. I would have taken ANY option to make the pain stop. If there had been a rooftop or a pistol there would at least have been an option. The demon rose and occupied my mind at the same second, so there was double-fronted war. I screamed so loud I thought someone on the dark street might come to my aid, but no one did. And, lacking a pistol themselves, what could they have done? The second round was much less acute, though I wondered why an entire bottle of Gatoraid had not availed. Then, of course, all that liquid upset my stomach. But now I am awake, and not too groggy to drive to Waynesville one last time.

Gatsby has been fun for me– the fun just overbalancing the tedium– because of the jollity of the dressing room. The play is not exceptional of itself, and our performance of it illustrates what happens when people do not look at acting as an art form, but as a ritual of self-actualization. I kept running in my mind the ways a scene or a speech could be better if someone had simply experimented, had done it subtly differently, had continued working rather than hitting a level of acceptability and setting up camp. I was and could be again a good director. It is one of those things I left behind because it took too much time.