Well Done

The Shortcut evening at Nightingale last night.  I performed an excerpt of my new piece Still Life: An Audience with Henrietta Moraes and it all went rather splendidly.  I love that theatre so much, I love the physical space, I love the ethos of it being centered towards the needs of the makers of work and the work itself.  It is the nearest thing Brighton has to a producing house.  Because I live so close by, I experience it as an extension of my home or rather I can extend my creative capabilities from this desk to down the road without any thought process being broken or lost.  Steven Brett has this extraordinary capacity to value, truly value who you are as a person and the creative endeavour you are undertaking. 

After the show and chats and drinks, I came home still adrenalised and, of course, a little drunk.  Living alone has its challenges in finding ways to pack away the performing self and calm down enough to sleep.  I am like my dog when she is trying to settle; she circles and circles, pawing at the bedding and then finally plumps down.  There is a wonderful thing in Greek tragedy about the role of the Chorus and how this huge energy is created on stage just by their sheer numbers.  This energy is, of itself, incredible but it also serves the purpose of creating a vibrant and alive space for the Protagonist to step into; the dramatic power of going from many to one.  From many to one can be exhilarating but also, sometimes for me, a little bit difficult to manage emotionally...I overcome this by sending texts to chums and getting back little messages of 'well done' and 'good night'.  There is nothing lovelier than knowing you are being thought about, that you are in someone's mind and the simple, beautiful energy of 'well done' should never be under-estimated.