Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf

Here I sit, my hair in hot rollers, typing to you.  I’ve gotten pretty good at getting these puppies in.  My first go took forever and the damn things kept unravelling and there were WAY too many sprouts of straight hair that had escaped my grasp and were sticking out all over the place.  But practice makes perfect…well maybe NOT perfect, but good enough. 

We had Monday off, so I spent the last couple hours going over the script.  And yes, I know it backwards and forwards, but still, I wanted to make sure.

We have a show tonight.  My son, David and his wife Amy are coming and her parents too.  My friend, kc Dyer is taking the ferry over to cheer us on as well. 

It’s funny, we are only half-way through the run and already, I am missing Martha.  Now I know when my gentle readers think of warm and cuddly cozy, Martha wouldn’t be the first person that would spring to their minds.  However, I have gotten quite fond of her and am going to be sorry to say good-bye.

I’m really glad I took the plunge, decided to do this play.  I wasn’t sure.  A couple of nights before we opened after an incredibly long and harrowing day at rehearsals, I was dragging myself around the kitchen with a boulder sized rock of dread in my gut and my husband said cheerily, “Well, think of it this way, how would you feel if someone said to you right now that they were sorry but the show had been cancelled?“

“Relieved!“ I said without a seconds hesitation.  “Glad that I took the plunge, glad that it was over.  I didn’t back out.  The show was cancelled it was circumstances beyond my control. I’d be relieved, happy, grateful.“

“Oh…uh…“ Don said, because really, what else was there to say, that was not the answer he was expecting. 

But that was then and this is now. 

I am SO glad I did this show.  Not only am I going to miss Martha, but I’m going to miss the other characters and Celine, Andrew and Alex who play them.  I’m going to miss all the people backstage who work so hard to make the magic happen.  I’m going to miss the sharing of these people’s stories with the generous and loving audiences that come to the theatre, show after show, and laugh and cry and surge to their feet at the end clapping with whistles and cheers, all of us happy to have spent this time together.  I feel so glad and grateful that they are so enthusiastic and generous with their response.  It makes all the hard work worthwhile, all the sleepless nights and the agonizing hours trying to decipher, make sense of, crawl into Martha’s skin.  That they see her.  That they see what all of us have created, that they feel what we feel.

It is such a blessing.  It is magic come true.

Posted by Meg Tilly on Tuesday, July 12, 2011 in Chewing the Fat