Goodbye, Robin (or the Post-Show Blues)

This one's gonna come from the heart, guys.  Forgive it for being messy and unstructured.

Man, it can be hard to end a show.  Godspell closed last night, and a fellow cast member, Amanda, asked if I usually experience the "post-show depression" like she does.  In my head, I was thinking that I don't as much as I used to, but then, today, it hit me with force.

I went to church today feeling so tired and sad and like I had just had to say goodbye to Jesus.  The praise songs were being sung around me, and I just stood there and silently cried.  It's not like I think that Jakare, our Jesus in Godspell, is actually the Messiah (no pressure, man!), but at the same time there's this something weird that happens as an actor when you take on a role and live in it and share this world with other people who are not actually people but characters that other actors have taken on, and you all agree to share this onstage world, and then it's over.



Just like that.



And, as I mentioned in a recent blog post, something that is so powerful for me about the show Godspell is that Jesus is onstage.  And getting to play the character of Robin let me pretend to hug Jesus and play with him like a kid and weep with him as if he were really in the flesh with us right now.

And the idea of sehnsucht--the soul-deep longing for a God and his home that we have never seen--that God has planted all over my heart in this chapter of my life, well, it was very real to me today.

In the last couple of shows I have done, I have been asked to buy shoes specifically for the show.  And in both shows, those shoes have become a part of me, the way that a character you play sort of soaks into your body and becomes part of you.

For Oliver! I bought a pair of lace up brown boots that ended up sort of adding themselves to my everyday wardrobe and started to feel like a part of my identity, at least fashion-wise.

For Godspell, I searched for just the right shoes, and finally found a pair of flowery Converse that seemed so, well, Robin.  I read a book called Acting in Film by Michael Caine where he said that there was one specific piece of a costume--I think it was either the hat or the tie--that he waited until the last minute to put on because when he put that item on, he became the character.  I can understand him a little bit on this point, because when I put on those Converse, I understood Robin better, how she moves, and her playful, childlike soul.

My friend Virginia once called acting the greatest form of empathy.  I can tell I am in show withdrawal, because I just found myself saying to myself, "Oh, Robin, I have walked a mile in your shoes." I looked down and there was that pair of flowery Converse shoes sitting dutifully by my closet, and I came to the computer to write this post.

Before our opening night show this weekend, our director, Joel, gathered us together onstage and asked us to raise our hands if we felt anxious.  Most of us raised our hands (me included).  I liked what he said--he assured us by saying that feeling anxious about opening night is a sign that we're alive.

I don't like going through post-show depression, but then, maybe it is just a sign that I have worked at something with my whole heart, as working for the Lord, not for men (Colossians 3:23).



To Robin:  It has been a privilege to walk, leap, frog jump, climb, dance, sing my heart out, and hug Jesus in your shoes.

And to Jesus (the real one):  Thank you for using this show to show me more about you, to get at my heart and imagination in a new way.  Thanks for coming down and speaking to this girl of yours in her own language.




You are better than anything else I know.