Hurting Stage

There is a time for all of us actors, when we have to go on stage, hurting.

Someone is sick.  You are sick.

Someone is betrayed.  Someone is angry. You are.

Someone is accused.  Someone is canceled. You may be.

Someone is empty inside.  Someone is avoiding you. 

You break stage, you enter, breathe, project, move, cope.

You perform.

The emotions roiling inside, examined or not, will thrust into the show. We are human, and our bodies don't know the difference between a scene and life.  The third rail of acting is almost always running hot, to protect us.

That book just fell... should I pick it up?

That line was dropped...do I need to alter anything?

The pace is slow...let me press into the cues.

An audience member is coughing...let me repeat that.

My heart is sore...I am crying hard in a scene usually played dry.

The beauty and the agony of theatre is thus. We show up as humans, with all the day has brought us.  All the thoughts, the critiques, the sharp words, the warm touches, the misunderstandings of the day come with us.

And we go out there and become someone else, with someone else's circumstances, and we do our job.

It is always going to feel different.  It is meant to feel different.

Theatre folk. We don't get second takes. We deliver and it's done.

And yes, there is another night, another rehearsal, an adjustment.  A well meaning, or too sharp, or well timed, or poorly considered note.

And we, flexible creatures, adapt and move on.

The hurting ebbs and flows, like life, like theatre.

It can be very powerful to know that. To be aware of the hurt moving through our minds, running into our muscles and nerves and voices.  

Don't resist it. Don't hide it. Do your work.

Because the cascade of hurt can override the scene, the dynamic of the play, and it becomes something else if you aren't aware it is there, alongside you.

Pick up the dropped book. Be this person, in this moment, with this experience.  

While your body is flooded.  Awash in another story.

It is cleaning itself out.  It will come out as it will.  It is very powerful, and senses an outlet ahead. The emotional charge is hot. 

Or sometimes dulling.

It will act alongside you. 

But you are in charge.

And this hurting stage will subside. What is left is the foundation of your work, the structure that is there whether you have had a good day or a traumatic day.

That is our work. 

We are humans playing all the things.

Even when it hurts. 

Especially when it hurts.

Remember this. There will be days, nights, performances, where the reservoir is quite dry.  No lubrication to summon up. No memory to drag into the now to assist.  Whatever your method, or madness, we all have these moments. Because we are human beings playing humans (and yes, we sometimes play animals and things...).

This is also the work.  To have built links to those times when you had too much inside, pouring out, driving the scene, the line... back to the structure of the story you are telling.  Are privileged to tell.  And the same links should be at the ready for the times you are dulled, throbbing with nothingness, to give or receive.  Prepare for both, and know that most shows will settle into the messy middle.

And when the waves of hurt are cresting, ride them where they work, but don't abandon the story.  You have the discipline to protect the show.  This matters, so we don't milk every moment, conflate crying with proof of sorrow, elevate laughter to approval.  You know the difference and you calibrate what works for you.

At least be onto yourself when you're doing it. And know it can be a powerful frame when you drive it.

Much less so when you get lost in it.  

When you are hurting, savor the opportunity to forge a path there for when you may need it.  Know it may be 'too much' right now.  Too scorched and self pitying, but wait... the audience loves it.  Your peers champion you.

Your day. Your hurt, coming forth.

You know where it came from. And that's OK.

Because our job is to take what we bring, every time, and deliver the best we can.

These are tender times, the hurting times. Save your strength.  Take the measure of your emotional health.  Release what you need to to play the play.

And tell your primitive brain, the one that is telling you that life will never be the same, that there is agony everywhere, that there is judgement in the shadows...

Tell your primitive brain thank you, I've got this.

Because you do.