Often, an hour out from showtime, before going to my dressing room flights of stairs above, I’d give myself the solitary luxury of walking out onto the empty stage, then sitting in the center of it, letting the dense quiet of the large space – the empty house- wrap its sweet dusty arms around me, calming me.
Countless stirring energies would have coursed through my body by the end of a long NYC day of auditions, interviews and classes, so by show time, I needed calming, centering, focus.
I would sit there imagining the seats full of all the strangers I’d
soon be meeting; all those ticket buyers looking for escape and excitement from the three hours they’d be spending with us, as we unfolded moment by moment the classic Victor Hugo story of danger, love and redemption.
I would sit on that stage and imagine a blue arc of electricity between me and every seat in the empty theatre….my Blue Arc of Connection, I’ve come to refer to it as….i discovered it early on in my career.
Our audiences – all audiences – are strangers until the magic happens that turns us all into family. And as Blanche Dubois’s says at the end of A STREET CAR NAMED DESIRE : “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.” For actors , this is particularly true, We don’t know those people “out there”, but we intend to give them all a gift, nonetheless, and, in a career long or short, we seek out many opportunities to give that gift, and it is usually to strangers.
Hopefully, by sheer dint of theater energies and intention, the urgent need for each performer to make contact with at least some one “out there” makes us all strangers to each other no more.
I’ve always done well with people who i do not know, turning on some necessary performer energy, I suppose, on meeting someone new, transacting business, the ordering of a meal, the buy-and-sell activities of any normal day…i “turn on” and feel the need to make it all fun and all right for everyone involved. Hell, i fell down in our driveway recently, stumbling on a rock, and i became the Entertainer of the year for all the Emergency Medical guys who came to carry me. To the hospital. Make doctors and nurses’ lives sweeter by being ridiculously up beat and smiling…..making more than one doctor say something on the order of “oooh, I wanna stay in THIS exam room, because i become so irresistible in my efforts to entertain and make every one happy. I am a waiter or waitresses’ delight in restaurants and i tip very generously.
Who is to say if this is a curse or a blessing? who is to say if I m crazy with the need to make others love me, or that I myself am helplessly in love, like a puppy ,with all people I meet?
I do definitely find most people fascinating, with unique stories to tell and warm energies to tap. I guess I do want to buy the world a Coke, as the old ads used to say….at least on initially meeting the world face to face……smile to charming smile…..eye to eye.
But do me wrong, offend me, upset my sense of fair play or belittle others in my presence?
It is then you become a stranger to me, and that is a door that may shut quietly between us, or, if I am really upset, that slam is loud enough for all to hear.
You don’t want to upset me, therefore.
If you become a stranger, check your six-gun at the Sheriff’s Office and play nice, or you get no Coca-Cola.