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The Temporary Forever

Before I became an artistic director, before I had a scene shop and drafting associates, and amazing carpenters to actualize my artistic vision—I put on one-off productions in whatever available temporary black box stage I could rent. I wore all the theatre hats of producer, director, actor, and stage manager. Designing them as I went along I built all of the sets myself. The morning after a show closed, and all the pizza and beer was gone, I would come into the theatre and tear down the set. Just my handy tools and I; with the company of a wonder bar, a skill saw and a hammer, I would break apart the set, forming a pile small enough to fit in the back of my pickup truck. I would drive out to the dump, back up my truck, and toss my scrap pile into the heap along with the discarded mattresses and refrigerators. I would make one final sweep of the truck bed for bent nails and sawdust, and then, I would drive away. In the rear view mirror, I could see the remnants of Speed the Plow, Dealers Choice, or any other production that I had poured my blood, sweat, and tears into. As I drove away, I never felt nostalgic for what I was leaving behind.

The act of destruction served as a kind of catharsis that emptied my heart, clearing up emotional space for the next show to come. Theatre artists understand the transient nature of life. Like little gods, we create serial worlds with dazzling architecture and lush music. We set fresh beings in motion, clothed as we see fit as they strive to fulfill their hopes and destiny in the brief time allotted to them. Then we destroy that world—literally smashing it into pieces, quickly if the reviews aren’t good. Many theatre artists repeat this process hundreds of times in their own lives. I wonder how this process affects our worldview. Why does it make us cling to things less than those who pursue more conventional careers? Why do we become inured to temporariness, missing out on long-term commitments?

There is a certain immortality involved in theatre, created not by monuments or books, but through the knowledge an actor carries with him to his dying day that in an empty and dusty theatre, on a certain afternoon, he cast a shadow of a being that was not himself.—Arthur Miller

a company at curtain call
The cast of Stage Kiss at San Francisco Playhouse. (From left: Mark Anderson Phillips, Michael Gene Sullivan, Taylor Iman Jones, Carrie Paff, Gabriel Marin, Millie DeBenedet, and Allen Darby). Photo by Jessica Palopoli.

Theatre artists have the ability to build relationships quickly. We bare our souls to actors we don’t know and trust our delicate hearts to a director we just met. On stage, we kiss, beg, kill, and yearn as if there is no tomorrow. We grow so close to each other that we begin to breathe in unison. And then, suddenly, it’s all over. Quite possibly, we never see each other again.

If we do, some ten years later, it feels as if we’d never parted. Many of us who work in the theatre build hundreds of relationships like this, born in a fiction, but the raw ingredients are real. Theatre constantly reminds us of the deeper truth that life is transitory, we must live each moment to its fullest because it will pass soon enough. Yet even as theatre is ephemeral, there is also a touch of the eternal.

Theatre reminds us that life is both fleeting and everlasting. Like the ocean, theatre is always the same and never the same.

Arthur Miller wrote,

“There is a certain immortality involved in theatre, created not by monuments or books, but through the knowledge an actor carries with him to his dying day that in an empty and dusty theatre, on a certain afternoon, he cast a shadow of a being that was not himself, but a distillation of everything he had ever thought or felt. All the un-singable heart songs that the ordinary man may feel but never utter he gave voice to and, by that, he somehow joins the ages.”

Miller’s profound insight reminds me of an actor who played Medea in a Country Western adaptation by Lee Brady that I saw several years ago. Betrayed, disowned, cast aside, and humiliated in front of her husband’s new bride, Medea cannot contain her rage. It bellows up out of her to take over her body and she watches helplessly as she kills her own children. As the actor embodies all of this, both she and the audience know that 2,500 years ago, another courageous woman invited the words of Euripides into her heart and loins, letting the spirit of Medea possess her. And these two actors, separated in time by millennia, merge together as one. Whether from the Greek theatre, Shakespeare, O’Neill, Lillian Hellman, Annie Baker, or Stephen Adly Guirgis, theatre reminds us of what is eternal in humanity, of who we are and have always been.

Theatre reminds us that life is both fleeting and everlasting. Like the ocean, theatre is always the same and never the same. I believe that when we enter the theatre lobby, if we take a brief moment to consider this awesome contradiction, then we can more fully immerse ourselves in the transient, yet eternal world we build on the stage.

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Am I being a pedantic killjoy to point out that the courageous actor who invited the words of Euripides and the spirit of Medea into heart and loins nearly 2,500 years ago was a man? (Women did not perform in the public theater of classical Greece.)

The point you were making was a good culmination for a good essay, but having a factual error like that blunted the point somewhat (especially since it's easily fixed).

Just the thing I needed to read. Accidental Theatre threw our 9th annual 24-hour project at the Lyric in Belfast this past weekend. Weeks of prep turn into a single night when four new plays are written and one madcap day where they're rehearsed and performed. Running this project, I've seen 36 tiny worlds conjured, peopled, constructed and torn down, all in 9 days spread across a decade. It's a weird place to walk away from, after the curtain call & drinking & dancing are done. But you also never quite leave...