"All the lies that you tell
I believed them so well. Take them back
Take them back to your red house
For that fearful leap into the dark"
Tom Waits
When I first started doing theatre in high school, (three shows only, doing them because my shoulder was not responding well to another semester of baseball) I did it for the pure joy of continuing to hang out with my friends, staying involved with extracurricular activities, and pursuing a year full of arts-related activities during my senior year. As shows inevitably closed, I had plenty to look forward to for my next projects (band contests, graduation, college, a trip to Europe, etc.) with no real reason to look back on the productions as hallmarks of my high school career.
Upon switching to theatre full-time in college, the feeling was more of the same. I had five good years of participating in shows to look forward to, and only rarely did a production have the full feelings of cast unity and excellence that are the signifiers of high quality artistic work. Furthermore, burdened by the high pressures of college, the closing of a show marked what would be a much-appreciated opening in my schedule, crammed full between working at the Cookie Jar and More, 15 to 18 hours of (mostly) intensive course-work, a social life predicated by involvement with the resident social theatre fraternity, and friendships and relationships that deserved a full amount of time.
And then, during my super-senior year (layman's term for a 5th year of college), a funny thing happened.
It wasn't until after finishing the first show of that year, Burning Patience, that I noticed an intense feeling in the days after closing. It struck me swiftly, almost all at once, as I walked into my apartment following strike. A pit in my stomach seemed to drop open as my body flooded with adrenaline. It was hard for me to describe at the time, and the closest I can come to compare it to is the feeling after you've followed your favorite sports team through a grueling playoffs only to witness it come to an unsatisfactory end short of winning a championship just as you've finished running a marathon while listening to a life-changing CD. All while sitting in the delivery room waiting for news of a child being born. Those feelings washed over me, dropping me right down into my chair in my living room, where I sat in silence for nearly half-an-hour, staring at nothing, my head emptied of thoughts and feelings.
I was fortunate enough to be in the busiest stretch of my burgeoning theatrical career, and so I jumped into a new project almost immediately. This caused the feeling to fade relatively quickly, but it soon popped up again with the finish of each performance, coming after The Importance of Being Earnest, Working, Blackbird, and Mother Courage. It didn't matter my involvement with the projects, ranging from acting to singing to directing to even running the light board during the last two weeks of the show. It was always the same feeling of loss, exhaustion, and depression, every time, followed by sinking into my living room chair wondering where the time had gone.
It feels trite to call it post-partum depression, but at this point in my life, that's all I can describe it as. For the sake of brevity (and the fact that I will never ever know what it's like to truly deliver a child), I've come to call this feeling "the post-show blues".
It happened to an extreme level following the conclusion of my internship at the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, though that was also increased by concerns about my mother's health. (It's easier to put things in perspective when dealing with serious illnesses, things that turn out to be life or death. Oh, you might think, what's the point of worrying about not putzing around in the black-box all day when my mother is worrying about how to pay for her chemotherapy?) The same thing happened following the conclusion of my first professional show as an actor, Night of the Iguana in Cincinnati, even though it was the most grueling process I've ever been through as an actor. (Much of which was because, you know, it was my first professional show, and one that really brought me down to size on where I stood as an actor, something that in hindsight I needed desperately at that moment.) After a brief layoff (more on layoffs in a minute), I did Midsummer Night's Dream with Free Shakespeare!, a process that led to a long grueling summer marked by half-hour drives almost daily to everywhere I had to be. And I still missed it after the fact.
And now we come to the present day, where I've just finished directing As You Like It. And the post-show blues are striking again.
For a frame of reference, let me just say that this is not something I desire, nor need, any pity or sympathy for. It's the nature of the business to come to the end of a job, and I've accepted/embraced this many times in my fledgling career. Frankly, an abundance of statements like "Cheer up!" or "Aw, you poor thing" feels a little patronizing after a while, and it really doesn't do anything to lift my mood. In addition, much of it is chemical, as I tend to slip into brief depressive slips for no reason as it is. This is one of the few times that I can put a cause to the effect. I've figured out my own ways to deal with depression in my life; either embracing my introverted tendencies helps sometimes, as does seeking out friends in my own time. I'm a big boy now. I can handle the smaller problems in my life.
Now that that's out of the way, let me talk a little about what happens to me after a show closes.
There's first a moment of relief. Whew, that's over. Thought that show was going to drag on FOREVER.
It's quickly followed by a jolt of shock, like a bolt of lightning scoring a direct hit on my spine. Wait a minute. The show's over. What the hell happens now? Depending on how successful I've been at finding work/opportunities to showcase my craft, this can range from moving on to the next show to something along the lines of "Holy shit, I'm unemployed all over again!" Most people in theatre/film/performing arts go through several periods of unemployment in their lifetimes. It's a common factor. The running joke is that Actor's Equity seeks to make sure that no more than 80% of their members are unemployed at any given time. The actual number is a lot smaller than that, but you get the idea.
Once the shock has set in, it's quickly followed by panic. (You might note a resemblance to the five stages of grieving here; it's not un-similar) Holy shit, I'm unemployed. I need to find a new play NOW, or else I'm that guy who says "I'm an actor" with nothing to back it up! Fuck-nuggets!
There's a tendency I've noticed in myself to linger after the show with cast members, be it in the theatre space itself or at the official/unofficial party afterwards. One might call this the denial phase, but I'm more fond of calling it "embracing the moment". I find a greater sense of awareness that after spending so much of my time with a certain group of people for so long on so personal and revealing a task that the working relationship between the artists has (if you're doing it right, and that is just my opinion-not-a-fact) evolved into a makeshift sort of family. Unfortunately, this doesn't set in for me until the very last fucking night. Consequently, there's only so much time for the hugging and the gift-giving and the laughing before this collective of people departs. Which will happen. And once they do, it sinks in that this select group of people will never be in the same room/space/bar at one time ever again. It's lost to history.
Alas, when the time comes, it arrives like a hammer blow. Everyone starts to leave, sensing that the party is over, the curtain has come down, or it's last call and, while you don't have to go home, you can't stay here. One last round of hugs and promises to keep in touch and then it's into the car. The drive home is a time for silence, reflection, and appreciation of what doing something like theatre means to you. And I don't mean questions like "Why do I do theatre" but more so "Wow, there's really nothing else I would have rather done this summer" or maybe "I just got to experience something that I didn't think I'd be getting for at least five years: the chance to get paid for directing a show" or even "So many people don't want this to end...they don't even know 1/10th of how I feel!" Questions like that, mostly founded in nostalgia and irrationality that make perfect sense given the time and circumstances.
And then comes the pit in the stomach, the black hole in my soul, the melodramatic post-show blues.
I find that my energy is lessened, through either exhaustion or a self-induced sense of despondency. The day after closing, I tend to sleep in until a semi-ridiculous hour (barring returning to my day job...which I didn't), eating junk food, staying up far later than I should, and going about what work I need to do rather lethargically. This lasts for around 24 hours, and is followed by a refocusing of efforts on things that are important, but don't really relate to my career (again, unless I'm in a show immediately following, in which case REHEARSAL REHEARSAL REHEARSAL) such as checking the status for my day job, cleaning my room/apartment/house, or taking a trip somewhere as a reward for months of playing around in the park. (This is how it might look to outsiders, but the truth is that theatre takes up a lot of time and energy and I don't always make time for "me-time" during the rehearsal process or while running the show. That's to be expected, though; how often do you 9 to 5er's actually take a vacation?) This process lasts longer, with an interminable end date. Eventually, though, it wears off as I come to a realization that I have to make every single time:
I'm depressed because I'm no longer doing what I love on a daily basis, and want to do it again.
I don't know why it works like that, but that's something that I emotionally and mentally have to understand with the passing of each show. Once I come to that understanding, my choices are simple: wallow in misery or get out there and look for the next opportunity, be it acting, writing, taking classes, or simply attending a friend's show.
And once I get to that point, I'm fine. I might have to listen to a lot of Tom Waits before I get there, and may or may not eat an entire cheese pizza, but I get there. And then it's time to start the whole thing over again, beginning with that first audition.
And if that's the exchange I have to make for getting to tell stories that nobody else can tell, for getting to start conversations, to change the way people see the world, to move people, to violate people, to shake them to their core, then it seems a small price to pay.
Because I love doing theatre.
And that's how I know that I don't need your pity. Because there's nothing to pity. I'm doing what I love.
Boo-yah.
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