there are giants in the sky – part two

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family stories, giants in the sky, life lessons, owning one's mistakes, teaching theatre, theatre, theatre company problems

Oh, the giants. Those great big beautiful, terrible giants…! The adventures of the theatre   continued…

I left off teaching in one country to try out life in another. I’ve mentioned my previous time in China in other posts. I wasn’t sure how theatre would be part of my time there, but as a teacher I was sure that I would include it in some form or other in my teaching. I didn’t have to wait long. My students had various competitions amongst the other departments and so there were two opportunities that presented themselves. The first was to rework a bit of Shakespeare. A little “Midsummer’s Night Dream” needed to be worked so that my students could understand the Bard and their audience would be able to understand through actions rather than words since there was going to be a language barrier to get over. It was delightful and I was so proud of the group of students that tackled the challenge. It was also good for me to feel the freedom to weedle away at Shakespeare’s words – to cut the lines down, but still retain the meaning. Not and easy task, but one that I think I managed.

The harder challenge was to “tweak” a bit of Oscar Wilde. I could feel him breathing down my neck indigent of my reworking of his master piece. Wilde was far more difficult to cut down and re-work. His use of language is so precise and so complex that I felt I was merely marring. I know he felt the same. I’m still apologising every time I think of the past deed! So, sorry Mr. Wilde. Please forgive my feeble attempt at making you understood by the Chinese.

When I left China I wanted to find other outlets for my love of theatre while I looked for teaching work. I found a theatre company and started taking classes and doing volunteer work. That turned into a great time for me, but as things started to take an eventually bad turn with “Peter”, who I met at the theatre, so did my time with the company. The voting on seasons seems pointless when the small “inner sanctum” made the choices they wanted even after hearing from the rest of the company. A move was made to a new space that seemed unlikely to work and done without discussion amongst the company members. I started to feel like people were not communicating. There were expectations never spoken – expecting things from me without telling me. And even when I took responsibility for my shortcomings there seemed to be no forgiveness, no discussion of how to make things right. I wasn’t hearing anything along those lines. It takes two for a relationship to work and one person can’t be the only culpable party. I have a few regrets of my own behaviour and actions. I also regret that the mistakes made by others were never mentioned or amends made. I left with a very bad taste in my mouth and lots of bad feelings. I learned so much from my time with the company, but in the end I did rather feel like the lowest man in the popular click and could never quite live up to the demands of the inner group. That’s the trouble with theatre at times – you scratch my back, I scratch yours. Do me a good turn, I do you a good turn. You don’t do what I want when I want and I drop you like a hot potato and you never work with me again. So petty. So click-ish. So very tiny.

The fun is done.
You steal what you can and run.
And you scramble down
And you look below,
And the world you know
Begins to grow: 

Having my daughter put things on hold for a bit. When I did finally decide to take a class it was a good class with a good company, but the hours were miserable since it took me an hour to get to the class and then an hour back. Not a very bad commute as commutes go it was the getting back at 11 and in the final weeks at 2 in the morning that had me wondering what I was doing. Being told that professional theatre meant long hours had me thinking – uh, equity rules? Going late means a vote to do so. I wasn’t buying the banter given by the teacher of the course about going w-a-y over time. Then there was the partnering for scenes. I knew we’d have to work out rehearsing times and places, but I had thought that I wouldn’t be the one doing all the traveling and taking on all the expense as well. My scene partner had other plans and when I mentioned the concerns around finding a sitter I got an ear full about her mother who was a single mum, battled cancer, and held three jobs and what was I moaning about? So, the partner complained about me being the problem with getting the scene right and the dynamic of the scene down. It was all me, all my fault. She was not to be blamed for the inadequacies of our scene. Sigh. Again, I will take my part of the blame – perhaps I did take on too big of a challenge given my limitations at the time. I owned that fault, but I didn’t see why I had to own it all. In the end, what the class did for me was to re-affirm for me that I need to be teaching not doing. Taking classes is good for learning and growing, but also for getting to know one’s limitations and talents.

The roof, the house, and your Mother at the door.
The roof, the house and the world you never thought to explore.
And you think of all of the things you’ve seen,
And you wish that you could live in between,
And you’re back again,
Only different than before,
After the sky.

There are Giants in the sky!
There are big tall terrible awesome scary wonderful
Giants in the sky!

So now the steps are to get back to the teaching. And in the meantime, I’m having a great time sharing my love of theatre with the youth at church and my friend’s kids. I love introducing new stuff or sharing pieces they already know, like “Into the Woods”.