So, this past spring my academic advisor (and mentor/friend) nominated me for a research conference at our school. Basically, each college of the university (mine was College of Fine Arts) picks a candidate to represent their area at a conference by presenting a speech about a project they completed in the previous year. My professor wanted me to speak about the production of The Madwoman of Chaillot that he directed and I acted in. The speech ended up being something that I hold really dear to my heart. Not only was Madwoman one of my favorite shows I've ever done (seriously, I've never felt so accomplished), I was able to use it to convey a message to non-artistic-types about the importance of art. Art in education is something I'm really passionate about, and I'm really glad I was able to express that in some way. I apologize for the wordiness of this post, but I really want this to be heard. But before, for your visual delight, here is me being the most fabulous I have ever felt:
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| Photo belongs to SFASU |
This past fall I had the opportunity of a lifetime playing
the Countess Aurelia, aka “The Madwoman,” in The Madwoman of Chaillot by Jean
Giraudoux. My personal goal for this
production was to show anyone who would listen to me that art of all kinds is important. The reason The Madwoman of Chaillot was so
special was because it served as the perfect platform to draw attention to the
necessity of art in life. After all,
Giraudoux wrote this play as a response to the desolation of Nazi occupied
France, and it was produced directly after the liberation. Conversely, the message of The Madwoman of
Chaillot revolves around a woman who liberates the world from the hand of pride
and greed, making it free for all art and love to
flourish. This is a message that still
rings true in society today. And it's
particularly powerful when we take into consideration how the Countess, and we
as artists, achieved our task.
The Countess destroyed evil through the practice of four
virtues that also just happen to be the tools used in the production of this
show. These virtues are:
Discipline
Collaboration
Forgiveness
Sparkle
Now you're probably wondering who is this crazy person telling us that
sparkle is a virtue or useful in any way? But bear with me, I'll get to it later.
First, the hard stuff.
It can't be denied that theatre is a lot of work, and this production
was no exception. It required extreme
amounts of discipline in all areas.
There were 60 pages of dialogue to memorize and comprehend, which meant a neverending cycle of analysis and
research to somehow wrap my brain around this crazy woman to the point that I
could bring her to life from what Giraudoux wrote on a page over 60 years
ago. And all of that is on top of simply
remembering where to stand and what to do with my body, as well as having
rehearsals to be on time and mentally and emotionally present for. Even further, none of that can happen if my
body and voice didn't have the stamina to keep up with all of that during a two
and a half hour show. I have never been
so physically challenged as I was working on this show. This woman never stopped moving around! Everyone
in this production had to be mentally and physically fit just to make it to the
end. And that's just the job of an
actor, which is one of the easiest jobs in the theatre. We only have to keep track of all of that
stuff for ourselves; people like stage managers and directors have to keep up
with all of that for everyone in the cast and crew, which was a little over 40
people for Madwoman. It's no cake walk,
but it's achievable because none of us are in this alone.
Have you ever heard the saying, “It takes a village to raise
a child?” Well, it takes a village to
make theatre happen. No one person can
do all of this alone. From the very
first step of the entire process of this show people were working tirelessly to
create the world you see here. There was
one director, one assistant director, six designers, one stage manager, three
assistant stage managers, two translators, two dramaturgs, and I could go on
but you get the picture. Putting on a
show is daunting, but there's power in numbers.
Everything that I did onstage during this production was not only a
reflection of my work but also of all of the directors, stage managers, designers,
translators and dramaturgs who put their time and effort into this
process. It was easy to lose sight of
that sometimes, and think that nobody else is working as hard as I am. Or if everybody would just do their jobs then
I can do mine. But all I have to do in
those moments is look around me and realize that I am able to say my lines
because a team of people worked nonstop on providing us the best English
translation possible of this play, and that I was only able to develop my
character properly because of the hard work of dramaturgs who filled me in on
the historical background of this world, and that I just so happen to be the
dead weight that everybody else is dragging across the stage tonight.
Which brings me to forgiveness. Probably one of the hardest lessons to learn
in the theatre. The Madwoman of Chaillot
would not have been possible if we hadn't used some forgiveness. Everybody had bad nights or bad days where we were just not on top of our games. It's
those days that we begin kicking ourselves for every little mistake and
overcompensating by pushing ourselves to exhaustion. But one thing I personally had to keep
reminding myself of during this show is to forgive myself for not being perfect
(because perfection is achievable anyway), and focus on what I can learn from the bad nights. I couldn't grow as the Madwoman if I didn't
forgive myself. More importantly, we had
to forgive each other for being merely human.
If we focus on the mistakes, the production will never be
successful. Mistakes happen. But when a group of human beings can work
together to create something from those mistakes, that is art.
And last, sparkle.
I've heard it called sparkle, magic, passion, fun. There really is no single word you can assign
to this element. The quote “Keep in your
souls some images of magnificence,” begins
to describe the childlike wonder that is necessary for the theatre. A director told me once that if you're not
having fun, then the audience will know.
And they will. When you go to the
theatre or see a work of art or hear music and wonder, “How do they do that?” Well, discipline, collaboration and
forgiveness is HOW we do all of that.
But the real question to be asked is WHY we do all of it. And that is sparkle. It's wonder, fun, magic, joy, extreme
satisfaction. It's what makes it all
seem so easy when it's actually quite the opposite. If we didn't have 'sparkle' then all of the
discipline, collaboration and forgiveness would be for nothing. The Countess realized this. Despite the world calling her a “Madwoman,”
she lived bodly, enjoying every step of the way. If we as theatre people didn't enjoy what we
do, we would be insane. There are plenty
of jobs out there that pay far better and are just as much work as theatre is. But we LOVE what we do. And that is what theatre is all about. What makes it all worth it.
So why is all of this important? What can be taken from the theatrical process
and this prodcution and applied to life?
Well, first off there's discipline.
We can set life goals for ourselves all we want to, but without any kind
of discipline we'll never achieve them.
Just as theatre requires a lot of work, life requires a lot of
work. And I don't know about anybody
else, but I know I did not get where I am on my own. Nobody can.
We are not the only ones responsible for our success. And without a little forgiveness life would
be unbearable and close to impossible.
Letting go and forgiving can be hard in any area of life, but we'll
never be able to improve and move forward as human beings without it. And last sparkle. We can learn from Countess Aurelia's bold
approach to life. It was because of her
passion that the world was saved from destruction. She realized that a life lived without hard
work, contribution, forgiveness and passion is not living. It's just existing.
Peace, Love & ART
