| Post-Marathon Musings and Wrap-Up (of sorts) |
[Jun. 29th, 2009|02:57 pm] |
I don't really know how to start this post. I've promised myself that I would make it and I am. It's just, so much happened this past weekend and it all blurred together.
Basically, starting at 5pm on Friday this is how the Marathon schedule generally went:
-Debrief about Upcoming Show
-Run Onstage
-Do 45-50 min long show
-Run Offstage
-Have 5-10 min to Eat/Drink/Go the Restroom
- Debrief about Upcoming Show
-Run Onstage
So that, over and over again all weekend, for 40 shows, about.
Roy had a live update blog here: http://hideouttheatre.tumblr.com/
Complete with video clips, quotes, pictures, etc. Some of it is pretty funny, at least to me.
I was pretty keyed up when the marathon started. The time leading up to it was stressful and we were still trying to get fund raising methods together after we were eliminated from the first Maestro show. After that there was never any real downtime. Every time I tried to get a minute to myself I would be interrupted. It's okay, I expected that to happen, it's just insane that it is still able to happen that many times, including at 5am.
There was an amazing stretch of time on Friday night, where we had packed shows from 7pm to 12am. We did an amazing Start Trekkin' show, Theatresportz was a huge winner, Cochise was a crazy clusterfuck that I think people enjoyed. There was a lull from about 1am to 3am, we lost a bulk of our audience and didn't gain that size back until the kid-friendly shows the next morning. We did a slew of montage-y Chicagoesque forms that lacked energy/focus. There were still fun moments but I started to have a melt-down here. I guess you could call it my first wave of exhaustion. I thought, "If the rest of the marathon is going to be like this, I don't want to be here." Luckily it wasn't. The energy was always changing.
I think the marathoners did a good job of matching the energy of the incoming groups. Sometimes I felt bad about being onstage, because some of the guest players would hang back. But then also, they were hanging back so I felt like I needed to come out. I also noticed that if I didn't play a lot in a show I got very drowsy. The more engaged I was in a show the more awake I was.
I had a few moments of extreme anger that first night through. And no, it wasn't directed at Andy. For all my joking about getting into fights with him, we were fine. I guess I had trouble in shows playing with people I didn't know over and over again doing formats that I personally find uninspiring. I felt like a jerk for feeling that way, but that's just how I honestly felt. I also started to get pissed off when people became rude about editing scenes. Jeremy has this sort of meta way about him in improv where he calls stuff out. He kept verbally editing scenes in a snarky way in the am shows. That drove me a little crazy for awhile and I finally told him it was making me upset. He stopped. I don't think he ever meant harm, it's just that I can't take being in a show where the edit is seen as a sign of mercy or relief over something bad that has happened. We're ending this because it is shitty. I just can't handle that kind of in-show critique over and over. It makes me a fearful and distrusting performer. Luckily, it didn't happen very often.
We started to get loopy that first night. I personally was in and out of it from that point on. It wasn't like I expected, like the exhaustion would pile on according to the amount of time I had been awake. Some of my lowest and loopiest point happened randomly. Usually, it seemed, when the energy was extremely high in the audience and there was a gamey show onstage. That made me crazy inside. I felt like I couldn't see correctly and I got intense headaches that the yelling intensified. I was really sarcastic in the comedysportz show. It was mostly meant in jest. At some point after I lost a game with the blow of a whistle from a guy in a referee costume I said, "Oh, I get it, Comedy AND Sports!" I also purposefully set up a rhyme in a guessing game to be unsavory. Words had to rhyme with "Bag" and I said, "I am a homo some call me a -"
It's family-friendly and there were kids in the audience. Luckily, I knew my teammates wouldn't utter the "bad" word, so I was able to do it.
At 2pm on Saturday afternoon the kids improv show came up. There were way too many players there to play in addition to the 8 marathoners and I felt totally out of it mentally. I went onstage for the show but then went backstage with my headphones and tried to listen to my iPod and relax. I tried to nap a bit but my brain felt fried. I couldn't relax enough to really drift off. I just sort of laid there with my music blaring so I couldn't hear the kids show.
At some point I realized it had been awhile since I first went backstage. I told the others to come get me after the show but they must have thought to let me stay there. I stumbled out of backstage onto the stage just as the next show was going to start. The audience was already there and Kareem was introducing the show. I squinted from the stage lights and stumbled to join the rest of the players lined up.
That was the only rest I took the whole time. I think it was a good idea to just let my body rest. I was having lots and lots of muscle pains since about 3am Saturday morning. I took pain killers and that seemed to help. It wasn't really just about the lack of sleep, it was more the constantly doing a show thing that really was a challenge. I realized that either I was on the sidelines looking out and thinking about how to help/be in the show. Or I was onstage improvising. Doing that for just 3 shows in a row can be really exhausting.
Some shows were designed to give our minds or bodies more of a break, which I was very thankful for. I loved the great amount of show diversity we had. It was really extreme. We did tons of different chicago-esque forms, narrative long forms, short form shows, dubbing shows...
I wasn't able to do necessarily more grounded or "real" work during the marathon. There were just too many people and we were unable to not be comical after a certain point. I would think things and immediately say them. I couldn't censor myself as well. I could see my bad habits surfacing before I could stop myself.
That was both good and bad. Sarcasm definitely came out. I aimed it at myself, fellow players, the audience. I tried not to be a jerk. I said some terribly bad words at times.
I know I have an ego about improv in many different ways. I don't think it will ever go away, it'll just change, as it has been. Sometimes my feelings came out through that, but sometimes I was much more accepting and playful with silly concepts than I think I might have been in the past.
It's hard to gauge these things, really. I would actually like to hear more feedback on how I seemed to outside observers.
After a certain point I could not comprehend complex plot points. I would blank out while other scenes were going on and then think, "Oh, dammit, what just happened?" I'd ask the people on the wings with me and they would just shrug. I guess we were in similar places, then.
A lot of the shows were actually good, which surprised me after some point.
I really loved the 1960s style Batman show we did at 9pm on Saturday. It was perfect in so many ways. I just fell in love with everyone then. I could have kissed them all (not an easy feat with all the mouth sores I developed over the course of the marathon, gross, I know).
I think I fully lost in in the second Maestro at 10pm on Saturday. Batman took a lot of my energy away and when there were 20 fucking people in the cast and a packed, screaming audience I just couldn't cope well.
I felt such muscle pain and my jaw was tingling. I thought I was going to faint, for sure. I felt light-headed when standing. But, they wouldn't let me leave the stage. I did some weird solo scene where I had to sing some little song thing into a mic and I barely remember what happened. There were so many eyes on me and I thought, "I have nothing to give you!!!!"
I can't remember whole conversations I had off stage. I know there were lots of people coming and going. I loved walking offstage after a show and seeing the audience for the next show all lined up on the stairs.
ALSO. I stayed in the upstairs of the Hideout, between the Theater, Hallway, Restroom, and Greenroom for the entire 40 hours. I never left what was basically two rooms intensely packed with people. The only unpacked area was the small place between the stage and the back wall behind the stage. Curtis and I were back there during the second maestro and talked about how it was like being hobos who had found a wall to live in.
I thought the 8 of us did a really good job as a whole. We got in barely any fights with each other. Nobody blew up at anyone. We persevered through all of the many challenges and formats.
Man, it's all slipping away too quickly. I'm at the point right now where I remember little snippets and laugh.
I think I did well personally. At this point it's hard to be sure. After Hour 40 ended people were cheering and I just felt nothing inside. The highs and lows were sporadic and had nothing to do with actual time piling up. I felt like my body was adjusting to the craziness. I could have done probably 10 more shows. All the same, I was happy for it to be over too. To come home and pass out. To have peace.
It's only now looking back at that haze of shows that I realize the experience was amazing, was unlike anything I've ever done before.
I think this *has* changed me. I'm just not sure in what ways yet. |
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