We did it. We performed Pig. And Bottom Line: We nailed it. I'm so proud of everybody and it was a pleasure to work with all of you on this terrific play.
That being said. I didn't realize we had nailed it until we walked out for the "Bows". In fact, I thought it was going terribly.
Here's why:
When I walked onto the stage at the top of the show while Matt was giving his opening speech, I had a mini freakout. The same mini freakout any actor might get when they open a show in front of a large, and my I say influential, audience. However, I pulled myself together a split second later and began the show.
A few lines in a realized something was wrong. Lines weren't getting laughs where they should and it just seemed like the energy was really low. I noticed that I wasn't filling the space nearly as much as I should have been, and that my lines sounded flat and flimsy like middle-schooler doing his first play. Fortunately, I just went through two semesters of acting training at Carnegie Mellon so I knew a few ways to get myself more grounded. I started bringing in things we've been learning since the start: Incorporating viewpoints and Laban work, expanding my ribs, and sinking even more into the physicality of a gorilla. (building on the stuff I was doing before the show started). As the scenes went on I found myself getting more into the Where and being way more present in the world of Pig. I'm just pissed that I actually had to slowly do it, instead of jumping right in from the start like I should have. I guess that happens when you let the fear of grades and social perception get in the way of your craft. ...Stupid me.
Anyway, by the time I reached the end of my time onstage I felt much more grounded, present and real in the life of Jack. But when I walked off stage I still had this sense of "That was awful." But, thus is life and I had to accept my fate. I continued the show doing the sound effects and listening to the show and noticing what the audinece reacted to and what they didn't. Once more I noticed that a lot of the jokes were not landing and getting the laughs that I expected. Even while backstage I the same look of "I sucked just now" on the faces of some of the other cast members, and it seemed as if none of us felt particularly good about hat we had done that day. MAybe I'm wrong, but it seemed we were all being pretty self-depricating during the whole thing.
But then the show ended and we walked onstage to accept any sort of applause, and boy were we greeted with applause. I looked out and saw looks of shock, joy, and disbelief on the faces of classmates, upperclassmen, and teachers alike. I was a bit taken aback to say the least.
They loved it. They absolutely loved it. The comments I got from people after the show were some of the best compliments I've ever gotten, not just as a performer, but as a person! People I had barely spoken two words to were hugging me a telling me that it was amazing. Frankly, I couldn't believe it. In those few moments I looked back on the show, the whole process and realized we were amazing. All of our hard work had paid off and we had just performed what some people had described as the best play project they had ever seen. I don't know about you guys, but afterwards I was ecstatic. Yes, I still knew we had made mistakes and that it wasn't perfect, but art never is.
As the day went on, I heard some comments from people that I found very interesting. They ranged from arguments about what people thought was really in the bag, (It's like the hatch on LOST!) Whether Jack was Gay or not, and whether or not the charades game was actually believable. But what I noticed from people's comments that affected me the most was that the reason a lot of the jokes weren't landing was because the audience couldn't hear us.
What was bothering me during the first few scenes was exactly what was happening. That's probably the thing I would focus on most if we ever got to perform this show again. Getting more grounded and filling the space enough with my body and my voice.
After stewing in my own thoughts, the thoughts of my fellow creative team (all of you), and the thoughts of the audience, I came to the conclusion that we put on a Damn good show. Even with our mistakes and our judgements of our own performances, the audiences adored it. And in my opinion, what the audience thinks about it is the most important thing. If they loved it, then we did exactly what we came to this school to learn. We did our job, and boy did we do our job well.
I love you guys, thanks for making this an incredibly fulfilling semester.
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