Red Hand performance!

Last night's performance of The Red Hand of O'Neill exceeded my expectations. Especially in light of the fact that the previous two night's rehearsals had not left me feeling all that good about things. Thursday I rushed from work into the city, rehearsed with Wallace for a couple of hours and then went straight to the tech. Tech can be a strange thing in the best of times, and One Man Talking makes it very easy, great folks . . . so we did our tech and then the run through . . . whether it was the new space (after rehearsing in my living room mostly)or my exhaustion . . . it felt flat and just plain wrong. Got home about 12:30 AM up for work the next day, so when I ran it for Bette Friday night, exhaustion again took it's toll and I was happy to get through the damn thing . . . it would have been easy to throw up my hands and surrender to giving a less-than performance, but I decided I'd be ready . . . one way or another . . . I had spent the previous few days concentrating on the performance, I decided Saturday would be spent making sure the lines were right . . . all the work that Bette and Wallace had done with me was really good and helpful . . . I had to trust that structure and make sure the foundation was solid . . . so first thing after my run on Sat. morning I read through the script. Then in the course of the day I went upstairs and ran the show a couple of times . . . by the time we left for the city I felt prepared.

When we got into the car to leave I told Bette: I'll either return carrying my shield or lying on it . . . at any rate, once I got on stage it felt natural and good. Just the right balance of bombast and drunk for the character, all of which is covering his tragedy, which comes out ultimately. There we one or two line blips, but nothing major . . . no flat out blanks, where you don't know what comes next. It was magic, for me, and Bette and Lisa both liked it a lot, and both are honest folks who would tell me if it sucked.

All in all a worthy experiment. I did the piece in the first place because it seemed like a stretch, and it was . . . and boy did it work. Now? Onward. A reading of my new solo piece on the 31st, maybe it'll be my next OMT shot.