Counterbalance: Theatre

Saturday night we made our way to The Groundlings for the Groundlings Yearbook sketch comedy show to see a few friends perform and do their bit. They each write their own sketches and perform them. Setting aside the fact that laughter is oh so important (and they delivered it in spades), I was struck by how good these people were at what they've chosen to do. I was reminded of watching Tiger Woods win his first Masters. Of watching Mary Lou Retton (yes, I'm aging myself) nail her perfect 10 vault run/jump/flip. Of seeing John Goodman perform in any Shakespeare play. These are people who are so good at what they do, you know you are watching greatness. That you are observing someone doing precisely that thing they are meant to be doing above all other things. To be in the presence of that perfect union between passion and talent is...wow.

Last night we saw Snow Patrol at The Greek. Setting aside the natural beauty of my favorite outdoor LA theatre and setting aside the now-too-poppy music of a once-favorite band, I experienced the same divine moment where artistic passion meets talent. Frontman Gary Lightbody has one hell of a voice and while their new album has veered a bit into mainstream poppiness for my taste - my god does he mean it when he sings. And he enjoys it. Genuinely enjoys it. The antics and ego you might expect are replaced with a joy to be performing, as his closed eyes, contorted flailing and smiling (and by smiling I mean huge grin) during every song seemed to attest. Yes, that's right - smiling. As if he couldn't believe his good fortune to be singing the same old tunes again and again for a different crowd every night. We walked slowly to our car last night and while we both agreed that we don't love their music wholesale, the heart with which they played mattered more. Most.

And so - as I attempt to juggle a hundred things (and in this I do not exaggerate, for once) while noticing that nary a one has been my writing, I feel I need to stop. Re-assess. Re-visit the priority list. Again. These lovely evenings of witnessing artists being artists has made me want to chuck my list of many things that must be done. Chuck it out the window, lock all the doors, and write and write and write. Must tell the wedding caterer of my plans...

I went to see a play on Friday night. It was a hassle to get there, all the way across town to Hollywood. Traffic. Street closures. A fire in the hills. A damn Dodger game that rendered Sunset a nightmare through Echo Park. These are the things you learn to live with, expect, when driving in LA. Then we got lost, with only ten minutes left before curtain-up - also expected. At one point, we thought we'd better just turn around, head home. We'd be made to wait just outside the theater until intermission and who wants to do that when there are plenty of other things one could do with their Friday night?

We got there ten minutes late and miraculously, people were still milling about. It seems they held the play for the fire. Fine, we thought. Dandy, we said. Glass of wine please, we asked. A few moments later we were whisked into the teeny theater & the show began. A modern re-telling of A Midsummer Night's Dream, with music and dance. It was expected and not, different and no, yet the sum total was delicious.

Call me crazy, but theater seems to light up the fiction parts of me that need help, crystallize for me a way that one of my characters should move, speak, silently glance about. The shame is that I keep forgetting and don't make a conscious choice to go on a regular basis. Yet when I do, I chide myself for not going all the time. It is a treasure trove for writers, so much said and unsaid. With inflection and face.

I was writing all weekend at a glorious pace after Friday night's performance. Puck re-imagined as a leather-fringed sprite. The ass, still, an ass. I love to see the choices that are made, the adaptations, the riffs. It reminds me of the dancing about I could do on the page, the places I am free to go if I could just get out of my own way...