Firsts and Lasts

Some thoughts on closing night by All's Well That Ends Well's Helena, Ally Carey. Firsts and lasts are more common in our line of work than in others (although, in this economy, perhaps everyone is getting a taste of the 'starting over' that is so familiar to us!). We celebrate the beginnings and the ends of things - the first read-through of a play is abuzz with possibility; opening night is toasted with raised glasses and elevated praise and closing night commemorated with cards, sometimes, and always, a drink at the Shed. The ability to embrace this cyclical process is vital to our profession; to slump into a mild depression, spending a week on the couch with the first season of 'Glee' on DVD following every final show would add up to a couple months in a year, and it is almost certainly unhealthy to listen to that much autotune. As vital as the acceptance of the life cycle of a project is to our profession, that life cycle is vital to the project itself. At the start, there are any number of possibilities: 'the character could sound like this', 'the set could look like that', and (in Shakespeare especially) 'this line means something I can't even fathom yet'. From infinite potential, the options are limited, by the vision of the director, the skills and insight of the actors, the elements of design, the brilliant meaning-making of the vocal coaches. By opening night, the cast and crew have reached (hopefully, and in almost every case) their realization of the play. The production is uniquely theirs - no other company could produce our Major Barbara. If they had any integrity, they wouldn't want to try; they can only do the production that they can do, with those people, at that time. And so we do the production that we can do. And some productions age better than others. The West Side Story that is on its eleventh leg coursing through Europe has apparently aged very well! The audience in Paris, where I saw it, received it as if it was opening night on Broadway and Jerome Robbins himself was in attendance. But you can feel, towards the end of a run, when it is time to be finished. To me, it feels like the play wears thin - moments, or lines, or scenes come loose from their original trajectory; you can feel holes in your performance. You have a moment, during some Saturday matinee, when you think 'Oh! THAT is what that line means!' Or you look into another actor's face and realize 'THIS is what I'm trying to do to you?!' It's our job to stitch these moments back together; to maintain the performance we started with on opening night - quality control for the story we created together in the rehearsal hall. Closing night arrives on schedule - whether you are willing it, or dreading it, or have forgotten it in the flurry of future-planning. Whatever bitter sweetness there is to the finality of a project (for some people, more than others, for some productions, more than others), I always feel a sense of upward momentum. I know more than I knew when I started - about acting, about collaborating, about humanity. And while I have said my fill of this particular story (for now - certain plays seem to haunt one's resume), there are so many other stories to tell! And others that will mean very much to me, and shape the kind of person I am becoming. The story of All's Well That Ends Well, which meant one thing nine months ago (when I started working on it), means something different to me now - I have learned what I can this time around. Maybe I will learn more about it in another role, another time. Which makes it much easier to say: Goodbye.