Getting Paid!?

Woohoo! I finally get to do my first paid theatre gig (at least that I can remember, I don't THINK I've gotten paid before) on Saturday.

Suzanne Withem called me up the other day and said she was doing something through The Rose for this Victorian society of old ladies. It's basically a readers-theatre event of short scenes adapted from Victorian gothic literature, such as "The Raven" or Wuthering Heights, etc. She was in desperate need of a male actor, so I said yes. It's only a couple hours of rehearsal, and the performance is only about an hour on Saturday, and I get paid $75. Hey, that's not bad for a few hours worth of work, really.

In other things...you know, I wonder if I weird people out with how analytical I am of scripts. I don't do it to make them boring or critique them - on the contrary, I enjoy analyzing theatre. In most cases, it makes me enjoy the play MORE than before. Like I see whole new layers that make me appreciate it thematically, and I see structure and the beauty of the "music" of it, I guess...the mathematical structure.

"Mathematical structure," I know that sounds boring...but I actually love things like that, b/c although most people don't realize it, there is mathematical structure in nearly everything. A lot of people think that finding structure takes something away from the "art" of things, but I completely disagree...when I see how amazingly structured things are, it only increases the amazement and beauty, for me. Just the fact that the universe is so perfectly designed, with insanely complex rhythms, harmonies and measurements...and all so precise. When I pick apart a work of art, I can see a reflection of that amazing structure, a sort of Sub-Creation...

Anyway, before I get too deep into it, all moonbeams and crystals...

For instance, there's a sort of...symphonic...structure to Angels in America that I just love. The thematic rise and flow and arc of it captivates me. Let me give a prime example:

The character of the Angel, thematically, is a reflection of many major things going on not only in Prior's heart and mind, but nationally as well. But I'm going to focus on the Prior part...he's severely sick with AIDS and his boyfriend has abandoned him in this time of need, and he's terrified not only by this abandonment but also of Time and the future and, of course, death. The Angel offers him Stasis - there is all this fear and guilt going through his mind about his life and where it has led him to, and the Angel tells him "Stop moving". The Angel fills a need, but what's very interesting about her appearance is this...

You see, Prior's boyfriend, Louis, abandons him and ends up having an affair with Joe, a married Mormon man whose wife, Harper, has a Valium addiction...well, in early in the story, before they are both abandoned, but while that fear is there...these two "victims" of the affair meet, in a way.

Prior has a dream and Harper has a Valium-induced hallucination, and they meet in the mutual dreamscape. It is in this mutual dream/hallucination that Harper realizes (from Prior) that Joe is secretly homosexual, and also Harper tells Prior that she can see, deep within him, that the innermost part of him is entirely free of disease...

After Harper vanishes from the dreamscape, leaving Prior alone, THAT is when the Angel's presence is first felt...she does not manifest yet, but Prior hears her voice for the first time, speaking to him...It is very well-placed and interesting that the Angel's voice is first heard in this scene, almost as if to suggest that the Angel is the manifestation of something filling the need created by Prior and Harper's meeting.

This comes full circle...

The Angel does not actually manifest or "appear" until the end of the first play, Millennium Approaches...her "appearance" before Prior in his bed coincides with another moment...simultaneously, that same evening, Louis (his boyfriend) and Joe (Harper's husband) finally hook up and kiss at night in the park. The Angel manifests to Prior following this moment.

It just speaks amazingly of Tony Kushner's orchestration of the details in this play, making it "symphonic" in a way, with themes that build and move and mix together. The Angel's message to Prior in his dreams about God abandoning Heaven as humanity "progressed too much" completes this circle showing Prior's pain from being abandoned.

There is a moment I really love which is only in the STAGE version...it was sadly cut from the HBO film...later in the story, Prior meets Harper in real life, and although they don't know each other, they have a strange feeling of recognition when they see each other, even though they don't know why.

The theme is further explored in the character of Harper. The Angel in Prior's dreams tells him that humanity is unraveling the fabric of the universe and that they are headed for destruction...well, Harper has a fixation about the ozone layer, hearing radio news about the hole in the ozone over Antarctica...and she has a line early in the play about how "humans are like planets, you need a thick skin..." and she feels like she is unravelled without a "skin" much like the planet and the ozone unraveling. She has all these feelings of eminent doom and worry because of how much she loves Joe and she knows something isn't right...

In the end, when she finally leaves Joe and has re-claimed her independence and herself as a human, she has a beautiful monologue about a dream she had...about the ozone being worn and threadbare, but that she saw souls of people from the earth flying into the air and joining together, becoming ozone and healing the planet...and the line I love is that she says she saw this in her dream, "...because of my unique ability to see such things..." her hallucinations, etc., and this comes back around, once more, to her mutual dream/hallucination with Prior where she looks at him and realizes that there is a part of him, deep inside, that is free of disease...free of pain and full of life.

Anyway...that's enough for now.