If the audience could only see. A moment before the curtain opens and the lights come up, there are actors sliding, skidding, spinning, mugging, panto-farting, goggling, tangoing with dust-mops. Then the cue and presto! they are all together dancing and singing their hearts out. It's amazing to see.
Fiona's show opened last night for a two night run, celebrating the conclusion of a four-week musical theatre intensive. I helped at the dress rehearsal Tuesday and will see the show tonight. It's a "splooge" (our family's code for a spoof) called Oceans Eleven and a half. It's funny, with good singing and dancing (the camp is called Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance) and I will cry.
I cry when art starts, and not out of proud Mommy sentimentality. At the beginning of any performance with which I feel emotionally connected, I am swept by a force that is astonishing and overwhelming. And I cry. It's just during those first moments when I feel like I am being pulled through some portal into the world of the show. It's like a living thing that the players have created and the opening music or the silence before the curtain moves move me in a way that's hard to explain. I think it's not a coincidence that I went into labour with both babies at a show (Alex at John Grey's Rock and Roll at the Vancouver Playhouse, and Fi at a movie version of some Shakespeare play with Emma Thompson in it - I can't remember which.) It just gets me.
I look forward to feeling the feeling tonight, and knowing what it looks like behind the curtain just a moment before...
question: have you felt this way?
mompoet - connected
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