Since Fringe has been done for nearly three weeks now, I figured it was time to finally put to (web)page my thoughts on my show this year, just like I did last year with A Heap of Broken Images.
When I started toying with the idea of this show, all I knew is that I wanted to find a way to combine music and stories into one cohesive thing. I picked the music first–knowing there were more limitations on that, and the music would require more time than the stories to get ready to show an audience. The problem with the conceit of the show (and the truth) that I use music to tell stories is that all of the songs had certain stories that wanted to be shared in conjunction.
And they were not things that I had ever planned on sharing with an audience.
This is a long post. So click below to read the rest.
And they weren’t necessarily funny.
So, with that in mind, I got really nervous. Would the audience allow me to take them where I was going? Did it fit? Was this too big of a departure for me? Did I have enough of a reputation that I could make a departure? Would I get my elusive sell-out show that I so desperately wanted, after coming in three seats shy of one last year? Would Commedia Beauregarde be angry that I was going in a different direction, and it wouldn’t be a typical “Allegra Lingo” show?
I needn’t have feared. It worked.
Sell-outs? Three of ‘em.
Standing ovations? Four.
Encore slot? I wasn’t even letting my brain think about that, but yes indeed.
Remounts? Six already on the calendar over the next month and a half, some more in the works.
Unlike last year, when I was troubled by the comments that, while the people liked Hubcap Frisbee and it “was good”, Heap was much better, this year I’m not troubled by the “this is better than last year’s show”. Maybe it’s because I felt proud of this one. Maybe it’s because I knew I was taking a risk in both subject matter and performance, and I was just relieved it paid off.
My biggest concrete worry was that it would be construed as therapy on stage owing to the subject matter and the fact that, while I know a lot of people around the Fringe, these were new stories for all but a handful of people. I didn’t think of it as therapy on stage. I hate that theatre almost as much as I hate Kenny G. These are stories from my past, I’ve moved on, I’m not dwelling, I just had to tell them.
I was worried it would be too personal and people would get stuck and not get past the details.
I needn’t have worried.
The strangest thing for me was that after every performance, at least one (and usually more) people would come up to me and thank me, and then launch into their own personal tales of woe or tell me that they had seen the show with someone they needed to have a conversation about something with, and they were now able to have that dialogue. I’m still wrestling with this (least of all the fact that they were talking away during the show and not paying attention…geez). I was sharing this odd new thing with another performer / storyteller (she’s a storyteller–I’m just a writer who writes shit and then says it outloud) who answered, “well, exactly. That’s why we tell stories. To make other people want to share theirs”.
Really? Somewhere I missed that memo.
All of a sudden that adds a level of responsibility on me, the performer. It mandates that my job is to touch an audience in a way that makes them want to open up, to live their stories. I don’t really like that idea, and I don’t think it’s true, either. I’m an entertainer. That doesn’t mean I make people laugh necessarily. Per dictionary.com, the definition of entertain is:
1.to hold the attention of pleasantly or agreeably; divert; amuse.
That I can do. I must admit, however, that my two favorite definitions of entertain are a bit down the line:
- to admit into the mind; consider
- to hold in the mind; harbor; cherish
I think those fit even better what this show did.
So where do I go from here? I’ve had three successful (all in their own way) Fringe shows, each surpassing the other. My reputation is building as a go-to artist. Can I, in good faith, write another solo show next year, knowing that the chances of it being “special” (as many have called viewing this one) are slim? Is the success in telling old stories (“mine”, as someone called them, although I have always felt that all of my shows are about me, even if I’m talking about other people) a sign that that is where I need to concentrate my efforts, not in collecting new ones?
Is the reason this show resonated more with people because, as opposed to last year where I wrote out of immediacy and a mixture of pain, sorrow, grief, exasperation, and chaos, this year I wrote out of reflection? Is that what people want?
Does that mean my work should go more serious, being that, if I’m writing about my past, there isn’t necessarily a lot of funny stuff in there? Or is it worth exploring the wit in those darker times?
And have I shot myself in the foot by starting down that path with one of the darkest?
Or do I write the follow-up show, as I intended to even as I put the pen to paper on this one, that picks up where it left off and gets the audience up to present?
I have no idea. I’m lost, as an artist, at a crux where there are many paths in front of me, and I can’t see down them far enough to tell which one is the best to take at the moment. I can’t see the ground to know if there are roots protruding from the ground where I could trip, stumble, get stuck with no way out.
What happens now that I’ve been told I have a responsibility to make my audience open up to their own stories? Is that going to change my style, my purpose, put more pressure on me?
I was a lot happier with my old notion that I’ve done my job if I’d made one person’s day just a bit better. Because even if I don’t believe the line about my responsibility, I have no idea if my audience believes it, and that’s what they’re expecting and that is the basis I will be judged upon.
I just want to write. Is that too much to ask?
3 Comments
August 31, 2007 at 5:51 pm
Nope. Not too much to ask at all.
You’re overthinking. When you were putting these stories together, or Heap’s stories, or Hubcap’s stories, were you tweaking and plotting and carefully laying them out to achieve the maximum effect desired upon your audience members?
Or were you just telling what you needed to tell in the best way you knew?
And if it’s the second, did that work?
Next year, if you do a solo show, do a reflective or an immediate show depending on what you WANT to tell. I mean, if you find yourself wanting to tell a reflective show, and you force yourself to do something immediate because you don’t want to repeat yourself, then you’ll be holding back from the audience. And that’s cheating them. And they’ll sense that you’re holding something back from them.
You’ve done really, really good work so far. Just keep writing, and growing, and working. And eventually you’ll do a show that will get a cooler reception, or at least it won’t be universally “better than last year’s”. That’s inevitable- life can’t be all peaks. And learn what you can from that. But don’t anticipate it- just keep writing what you’re interested in doing, and your interest will feed the audience’s reaction.
Trust me. If I’ve learned only one thing from working with Upright Egg, it’s that the difference between fascinating art and crap is often how much the performers are enjoying themselves. Keep doing what you enjoy. The rest is details.
–BWJ
September 14, 2007 at 1:59 pm
I find myself encountering a similar problem. I think when we worry less about what the audience wants or expects and just write what’s in our hearts in the moment, the show presents itself and that is the next step. Just write. Write whatever comes up. And the show comes from that, natch. You rule. Can’t wait to live in the same city as you… in 6 weeks.
November 13, 2007 at 5:38 pm
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