Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

A week ago this evening my wife and I braved the cold to drive to Riverwalk Theatre in Lansing.  I tried out for the part of Macbeth - one of the great roles in classical theater.  I had studied the script, let my pretty much all-gray hair grow out, pumped up a bit to add some musculature to my lanky frame, and practiced standing and moving without my patented slouch.  I read well and did my best to generate at least a little spark of sexual tension with the sometimes much younger women reading for Lady Macbeth.  (My favorite tryout moment came when a stone-gorgeous young woman in her mid-20's approached me before we read and asked, sotto voce, "Is it all right if I touch you?"  I mumbled out some mature response, but inside I was thinking, "Is this a trick question?")  I found out later in the week that I got the part.  Yippee!

Holy crap!

All I need to do between now and March 26 is learn a butt-load of lines, attend rehearsals five nights a week, learn the choreography for then practice five stage fights (at least I get to kill four others before the worrrrthy Macduff takes my head for a trophy), continue to pump up, and, maybe, get the old dye job on the noggin.  I also have to overcome my fear of "going up" (forgetting lines) on stage, something I never used to worry about when I was younger and the lines stuck easier.

So why do I do it?  Because I love it.  There are certainly times in my life when I question whether what I'm doing is in integrity with my personal mission, whether I am putting positive energy into the universe or just getting by, whether I am living life with bliss or waiting to do so at a later, more convenient or less scary,  time.  But when I am preparing for and acting in a production, especially one like "Macbeth" in which I will get to push myself to the limits of my talent in order to forge a visceral connection with the audience, I don't question any of this.  I know this undertaking is right and I am delighted to do it.

Back in 1992, when I was 38 years old, I returned to acting after several years away from it.  With the then recent death of my mother, the break up of my first marriage, financial and career reversals, and back-to-back physical relocations sending me reeling, it was a delicious treat to rediscover this pastime that had been lost.  It was a great balm to sooth all the loss I had experienced.  At the time I thought it provided me with something else as well - a chance to let my young daughters see me doing something that made me happy, and by seeing that know that it was okay for them to do the same.  In some respects I'm sure it did.  But looking back at it now I understand that the chance to see me happy and present with myself didn't mean as much to them as I thought it would.  They would rather I had spent more time with, and been happier and more present with, them.  I understand this now, even if I misjudged their needs then.

But regardless of the uneven steps that brought me here to this "bank and shoal of time," I now get to immerse myself in a crazy, passionate, challenging undertaking "tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" until April 5.  It will be an experience, as Mr. Shakespeare says, "full of sound and fury," but not, as he also says, one "signifying nothing."  At least not for me.