Passages

Rehearsals started today for the Gluck/Berlioz "Orphee" in Richfield Springs, New York. I've had incredible housing luck here this year. I am exactly two blocks away from the rehearsal hall. So, while many people have to drive upwards of half an hour to get to staging rehearsals, I left my house at 9:25 to get there by 9:30.

We're rehearsing in a school that is still in session. We're sequestered to a gym in the back of the behemoth of a building. It's a little echo-y, a little stuffy and has some noisy fans and loud, jarring tones that sound through the p.a. system every 40 or so minutes to announce the end of a period, but it's a sunny room with plenty of room for all of us as well as a few set pieces and a giant table of props, so I'm not complaining.

This is a small show in comparison to most that I've worked on. We have three principal characters and one soloist plus two dancers and 22 chorus members. The run time is not even two hours and the set is relatively simple in its changes and footprint. Despite, it's got some tough ideas rolling around inside of it and we began exploring those today.

Lillian, the director, was talking today about the fact that the Orpheus myth is about how we deal with death (untimely death especially) and the ideas of resurrection and redemption, as well as a play between the ideas that art conquers all (even death) and art is futile. These aren't little ideas, especially that realization of our mortality. Yesterday she gave a terrific speech to the cast and crew about the big ideas behind this show. When we got to the Gates of Hades, she described the feeling behind the Furies as "that moment at 4 in the morning when you wake up in terror because you realize you're going to die." She asked, rhetorically, if anyone had ever woken up with that realization and felt the terror that goes along with it. You could see faces in the crowd that knew; I recognized them as my own.

It's those moments when I wake up in the night, fearful of my fate, when I understand why people embrace religion. It's that moment of waking up, sweaty and shaking, out of a nightmare when you understand how the Orpheus myth has persisted for so long. Wouldn't we all like to be able to pull lost loved ones out of the abyss just by performing beautifully. The sadness is that we all have at least one flaw that makes us human enough to disallow passage to wherever souls end up...terrifying thoughts.

Death scares the hell out of me. Not all the time, mind you. I spend my days trying to continually make my life worth living. To me it's the only way to make it all okay. This doesn't stop me from lying awake sometimes and wondering where it all goes. How all of the hard work, sweat, laughter, sex, crying, triumph, chatter and tension could just disappear into the ether at the whims of the universe.

I have a feeling that an entire summer of being surrounded by retellings of the Orpheus myth, the ultimate story of death, mourning and afterlife, is going to keep this issue in the open. What a strange three months this will be.