Preview Night and Theatrical Anhedonia

Just back from our first performance with an audience (pay what you can/preview). The show went pretty well, I think.

The audience filled about half the theatre, not bad for a straight play (non-musical). Clusters of students (high school and otherwise) mainly there for class or extra credit murmured and scrolled through sites on their phone. Others enjoyed the play well enough to tell us.

I recognize this experience as the kind of thing I don't especially like to do from the audience end. I like supporting my friends, of course, seeing them succeed and strive on stage. But, as I've noted before, I'm not sure going to see a play is a thing I'd do in my spare time were it not for the fact that it's sort of my profession.

I call it various things depending on whom I'm talking to. Sometimes I name it theatre agnosticism (I don' t know if I like this whole watching theatre thing); sometimes I describe it as theatrical anhedonia (I don't get joy or feeling out of watching theatre). Other times I just say that it's like the guy working in a doughnut factory: after a while, even doughnuts can start to seem, well, meh.

It worries me sometimes that I seem to enjoy teaching and talking about (or even writing about) theatre a lot more than actually doing it. To be sure, most of the time, I like acting on stage better than watching it. But even acting has come to be filled with anxiety for me. I'm struggling to remember the me that was acting in shows all the time, deep in my addiction to performing. I liked it. I loved it.

And now? Well, I love working with the group of wonderful, dedicated folk, many of whom are dear friends and colleagues. There's something special, something intrinsically good, about participating in community theatre. I know that intellectually. I feel it--the you're doing a wholesome thing--deeply.

But this experience has also been a source of daily dread that I don't remember feeling before. And the time suck--well, that's a feature, not a bug, of the theatrical life. I'm out of practice with it. I'm very glad to have participated. I'll breathe a sigh of relief when it's done.

When I meet people, as I did after this show, who gush about how much they enjoyed watching a play, I'm always a little surprised and curious, as if I've just heard from someone who professes a deep love of clipping their fingernails. What, honestly, do you like about this? I mean, I believe you, but you're having an experience I don't share.

There have been exceptions, plays that slip past my guard (my apathy? my cynicism? my dead, dead soul?) and provide me with a grand experience. But even there the experience tends toward an appreciation of craft and work--this was a great success--and less the kind of spiritual fuel that I know watching theatre to be for others.

My own feelings feed into my ambivalence about acting. Why should I ask or expect others to come see me do a thing that I in their place would likely experience as, at best, a labor of love for a friend? I know that's not how many people actually feel about shows I've done. But that sense I have remains.

Still: I'm proud of the folk involved. I'm happy to be involved myself. It's a leap of theatrical faith I make, doing this thing, hoping that it may/will enrich someone else's life.

More tomorrow,

JF