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Last Thursday, March 26, was the 17th anniversary of my Mom's death. It was also the opening of "Macbeth" at Riverwalk Theatre featuring yours truly as the "fiend of Scotland" himself. All day long, and during the performance itself, the events felt related. So much of what I am, as a man, as a compassionate person, as an enthusiastic performer, and more, I can source to the influence of my parents. But when it comes to my need and desire to be perfect, the influence is mostly my Mom's. Dad was accepting of the middle way, the great compromise, in himself and in others. No such middle way for Mom. In fact, she used to call my Dad a "middle of the road bastard." Most of the time she even said it lovingly.
And so I grew up with the belief that the pursuit of excellence was a moral matter. If one had "God-given" talent or ability, one had a moral duty to live up to the potential of it. To leave something on the table, to fall short of perfection, was wrong. Not murder and mayhem kind of wrong, but wrong just the same. And this was the case even if what was accomplished was pretty darned good in its own right. So Mom viewed an A- in math with a raised eyebrow when she knew I was capable of getting an A. Being elected Vice President of the class wasn't much of an accomplishment, because she "knew" in her heart of hearts that I had more to offer my class than did the boy elected President (even though she was wrong in this assessment).
My Mom loved my sister and me fiercely. Her desire to have us excel stemmed from her belief that if we excelled we would succeed, and that if we succeeded we would insulate ourselves from the many hardships she endured in her life. It reminds me of a mother bird stuffing her hatchlings so that they will be strong enough to leave the nest. But I'm guessing a mother bird has the innate sense to not over-stuff her babies, realizing that to do so would make it impossible for them to fly and cause them, rather, to fall to the ground.
I act because I love to do it. I love the challenge of wrangling words and emotion into a real-time experience for myself and the audience. When I am doing it well I can feel an actual exchange of energy between myself and the audience, each of us enlivening the other. I act on stage in large part to forge that connection - the feeling I get from doing so is pure bliss, better than any drug. And so the other night, on the anniversary of Mom's death, I invoked her spirit to be with me, to give me strength and courage to pull these beautiful words of Shakespeare into something that would touch others. And she was with me.
In my heart I believe that my Mom, or her essence, now knows, as I know, that in using my talent and ability there is a moral imperative, but that imperative is not to be perfect. It is to be real. To be present. To connect. And so while one small part of me was shaking its head at itself the last couple of nights for switching a few words around or failing to pluck exactly the right phrase out of the memory bank at exactly the right time, the bigger part of me was enjoying the moment and the connection. For real. It turns out my Mom got what she wanted after all. At least for the time I am on stage, the hardships of the world cannot touch me.
