December 14, 2015

Gentle rain, between blasts of not-so-gentle wind. Rose in the dark to take Stewart’s finally derelict wheelbarrow to another life at a junk store down by the river. Did it before dawn because not sure the junk store wanted it. An outlaw, in my own little way.
   
Slept magically last night.  Maybe I slept magically because the day’s level of exhaustion was a kind of violence. All Is Calm, where again we snatched mediocrity out of the jaws of excellence. People love my big fat bass, though, and that repairs some of the ruins left by multiple disappointing enterprises. Stopped at Sovereign Remedies for a bit of lunch and wine, a very small lunch which would nevertheless make me very sick during Cantaria rehearsal an hour later. Stomach sick over that, and racked by mini-spasms in muscles all over my body– from perching on the stool? Using the same muscles for singing? Two weeks of idleness? Dehydration? I don’t know, but it was two hours of almost ludicrous misery.    

Ben, the bartender at SS, hails from Philadelphia and seemed to be interested in talking philosophy. Everyone reminds me of somebody these days.
   
Returned to the Y after many days given over to the complex and exclusionary struggle of the play. Inflammation is no worse after a round of weights, maybe better. Everything else, better.
   
Almost whimpering with pleasure at the idea of a day with nothing in particular to do.

December 13, 2015

Another spring day. Last night the show went well for the first time. Well enough. No outright disaster. It was our official opening night, and there were champagne and amazingly good cake. It was the right night to do well. Food afterwards at Avenue M. The kind bartender at Sovereign Remedies gave me free tea, a delicious dark cardamon.

Inspired to return to my Truman play.

Spike of rage at an email requesting going over “just a few things” before the matinee. The time of rehearsal is done, for better or worse. I am one of those who knows how much energy he has to give to a particular thing, and is finished when he is finished whether the thing is accomplished in the conception of others or not. There will not be an extra rehearsal. We will not come five minutes early, or start five minutes late, so the leader gets to scratch one more time the itch of some anxiety. We will not “drill.”  I leave a full cart in the check-out line when it has gone too slow. Was willing to walk out of the Syracuse Ph.D. program at the last moment, dissertation done, and would have done so, had Sutton not relented on “one more rewrite.” Things have a beginning and an ending, and those who do not acknowledge the ending are as bad as those who never begin. Let us consider the wisdom of enough.

This was my grandmother's birthday. 123 years ago. 

December 12, 2015

Luxury not to have to go to the theater until evening. We did get a little practice in, which did not prevent us from having, I think, the worst night yet, or at least the most inexcusably bad night, since all the “hard” parts were excised. Kamikaze baritones torpedoed us in harbor. The large crowd which stayed for talk-back did not mention this, so perhaps they didn’t notice it. But I’m sure Charlie did. I’d be surprised if we are asked back next year. One woman said, “Are you the one with the deep voice?” “Yes.” “I wanted the whole time to ask you to sing ‘Old Man River.’” I said, “Wave a dollar in front of me and see what happens.”
   
The bad singing disheartened me. I went from anxiety to get it right to weariness with the whole thing without any period of excited accomplishment in between.

Hiking back to the car through the lively city, I stopped at Brasilia for a drink at the bar. The bartender, Shu, is a Chinese-American who had never made a hot toddy before. But, enjoyed his conversation. He says he hates to go back to China now because everyone there is a Capitalist obsessed with money. He still laments the Nationalist fall, and recommends Mao as a better poet than people think he was. I recited Pound’s “Bowman of Shu.” He had never heard of Pound, or of any Westerner writing Chinese poetry.
   
Day of summery mildness. I opened my windows for a while. The camellia is duty red.

December 11, 2015

We dumbed the score down enough that last night was, I think, well enough done. The audience was huge, perhaps a full house. Many familiar faces. I’d had an adventure beforehand. Was hit by some old lady in her van in the Fresh Market parking lot. It knocked me down. I thought she was going to back on over me, but people screamed at her and she stopped. I’d grabbed on to her bumper to pull myself up when she decided to pull forward. That wrenched my arm out of its socket. I stood up, unable to move my right arm. I kept looking at it as though not sure what it was for, hanging at my side like that. A former student (thank God) had watched the whole thing, came over and said, “You arm’s dislocated. I’m an EMT. I’ll fix it if you like.” “Yes,” says I. He grabbed hold and the next instant all I saw was white, and that white was the appearance of the most amazing bolt of pain. I began to throw up from the pain. What a sight all this must have been. But the arm worked and I was able to get to the theater, though people had to help me in and out of my shirt. Achy today, but, then, it was already achy. The bruise on my hip is the real sight. And so it goes.Hobbled home after the show, had a hot toddy at the new Sovereign Remedies.

Went to school to discover I have been given an “equity adjustment” raise, and a pretty hefty one. Most excellent surprise. I didn’t think anyone in the Offices ever thought of me.

Having a bit of fence pulled out to improve the sweep of the yard. My tiny red camellia is blooming.

December 10, 2015

Sold-out house last night. We made the same mistakes in the same places we always do (by “we” I mean the baritones) so after the show C and S made cuts, sheering away the material we just couldn’t seem to get. It was humiliating, but necessary, and takes, for me, the anxiety level down to about a 4.  While The Powers were deciding our fate after the performance, I wandered through the theater and found the chair I bought in honor of my mother. I sat in it and felt, suddenly, very lonely.

Dinner at LAB, everyone remarking on the waiter’s remarkable arms.

December 9, 2015

Woke sad. Tried to find the reason for it– maybe just that I thought tonight was going to be rehearsal-free, and S snuck in a rehearsal. Rehearsals on the nights of performances are mad, yet there is no way of convincing panicky directors of that.
   
Invited dress last night, a goodly number of people. The report was that they enjoyed it, were moved by it, and yet my mind is concentrated on the mistakes. Tonight is sold out, and other nights are filling fast, so the word-of-mouth is fantastic. Who knows how to predict these things? Is it just the subject matter? If so, there’s a lesson.
   
“Friends and Family” tonight. I will drill the mistakes I made last night and make new ones tonight.
   
Dinner at Southern with some of the boys and the actor C, whose beauty–inner and outer-- at the moment fascinates me.
   
J’s selfish bumbling infuriates me in a way that’s difficult to contain. He’s harmful, wasteful, consuming. But everybody is patient, so I hold my tongue, I’ll find out that he’s had a stroke or something and then be ashamed of myself. Now I think he just contrives to be the center of attention in whatever way is available. Nothing discoverable about him on the Internet, though he brags of having been a renowned director.
   
Received the bound Washington Place in the GPTC publication.
   
Writing on the Hiram book. I think that it’s potentially a great book. I never thought exactly that of anything else I’ve written– merely that it was better than anybody else’s.

December 8, 2015

The pomegranate cookies were actually quite horrible. Did no one test the recipe? Day blasted away in rehearsal. C has a new vision for the show, which involves playing fast and loose with the score we have been at such pains to get perfect. What are you going to do? Let’s hope the authors don’t attend. Still, I have no doubt his ideas are right for the place and time. We realized that some passages sound awful even if done perfectly. I am not the sort of person who is entirely convinced by the argument, “but they’re MEANT to sound awful.” Well, then, mean something else.