The Waves

Near the end of the first act of Perestroika (the second play of the two part epic Angels in America), the lights rise on Joe and Louis at Jones Beach.  The sound of the ocean is audible, waves crashing against the shore as the characters shiver in the cold: the winter Atlantic, February 1986.  Among the several subjects of their conversation is a discussion of happiness, and the differing outlooks these two characters have ultimately divide them.  I would sit and watch that scene every night, waiting to enter as Prior with a fistful of pills and a glass of water, listening to the sound of the waves.  As the weeks went on however, we slowly began to hear the sounds of the ocean in different scenes.  No sound cue had been added and no errors were made.  A glitch in the sound system simply brought a ghost of those waves through the speakers from time to time, with relatively no rhyme or reason. I heard the ocean during a scene in the hospital one night, and then a few days later during a scene on the street.  Needless to say, it was a bit eerie.

(Christian Conn and Jeff Meanza in Perestroika.  Photo by Jon Gardiner, © 2011)

We closed Angels in America at PlayMakers several weeks ago now.  I have been back in New York City, and even though it is technically spring, the chill of the winter Atlantic still hangs in the air.  I didn’t blog very much during rehearsals and performances of Angels; I either couldn’t find the time or didn’t know exactly what to say.  Exhausting and exhilarating in equal measure, it consumed me in a way that few plays have.  I’ll probably write about it occasionally in the coming weeks, now that I have a little distance from it and more time on my hands.

(Outside the Paul Green Theater at PlayMakers Repertory in Chapel Hill, NC)

During the epilogue at the end of Perestroika, Prior speaks in direct address to the audience.  After almost seven hours of theater, sharing with them an experience of such devastating loss and pain, of struggle and change, I got to look the audience in the eyes and talk about hope.  As an actor, few moments onstage have been as rewarding, especially on those marathon days when we performed both plays.  The final speech is a blessing.  Prior tells the audience goodbye, and then says, “You are fabulous creatures, each and every one.  And I bless you: More Life. The Great Work Begins.”  At the closing night performance, that final scene held even more resonance.  I was, in essence, also saying goodbye to the character, and to the play.  I started to say, “You are all fabulous creatures,” and then a cell phone rang. I could feel the tension in the theater, from the audience as well as the actors: the anger directed toward this particular person.  I also knew that I couldn’t ignore it, I couldn’t let the play end that way, certainly not the final performance.  I paused, and a little old woman got up from her seat to leave the theater; she couldn’t figure out how to shut off her phone.  I felt sorry for her, and knew that even in that moment (or maybe especially in that moment) when everyone in the theater was frustrated and angry with her, she was still a fabulous and beautiful person. And so I smiled and added a bit of text.  Having finished my line, “You are all fabulous creatures,” I looked at her and said, “Even you.”  After a Brechtian moment I think Kushner would have appreciated, and a fair amount of laughter, I finished the blessing and ended the play.

(During Perestroika, a scene set in heaven.  PlayMakers Rep, ©2011 Jon Gardiner)

When a play closes, I always go back to the theater after the final performance to say goodbye to the space, to the character, and to the play.  I know that might sound a bit sentimental, but it can be helpful to delineate an ending.  Plays end so abruptly, especially when you work out of town and fly home to New York the day after your final performance.  You have a relationship with a play and a character, within the walls of whichever theater you’re working at, and then it ends.  Walking out onto the stage and acknowledging the end of that relationship helps to make the finality less jarring for me.  As I made my way into the Paul Green Theater that evening, a single light lit the stage.  Even when the theater is empty, a single lamp remains lit for safety, called the ghost light.  I expected  silence, but instead I heard the waves of the winter Atlantic quietly crashing on the shore.

During that conversation about happiness at Jones Beach, Louis blurts out: “You’re not happy, you just think you’re happy, no one is happy.”   Joe responds by saying: “You believe the world is perfectible and so you find it always unsatisfying.  You have to reconcile yourself to the world’s unperfectability… And accept as rightfully yours the happiness that comes your way.”  Not the easiest thing to do, but words that ring with a certain truth.  The Great Work continues.