The cats have been alone a lot recently so they assaulted me as soon as I came home.
Boo is currently doing her weyard duty as a black cat on Halloween.
This evening many things.
In a London boiled with strangeness and the drunken energy of thoughtless party, we gathered in little Playhouse East. Six of us and we are all basically what they call Gen X. We had a play written on its own terms and we did it on our own terms. Process and care and bravery and risk. We let it in. We let them in.
Very full in there. Wonderfully so. I love a little space like that. We can drop all the projection and we can focus on listening and nuance. The audience is right on top of us so there’s no room for bullshit, like with TV. It’d clang as loudly.
Cheryl cleared some serious things energetic things tonight up there. This is closer than many jobs I’ve done to why I’m in this game in the first place. Othello did it for me too.
The alignment of theatre and ritual, the way in which we can do them both simultaneously. Law holds a safe space, that’s her thing and she’s the director. Lou spotted it immediately. “She held space really well as the wise woman. Made us all know we were held too.” That’s been our director, and I agree. This is a powerful feminine company and it’s huge to be able to be part of it. We called in the directions in the warm-up. We opened and closed a ritual in that little room and the audience were with us throughout. That’s the power of a little theatre like that.
When it was over I helped with the reset and then drove Lou to Victoria. Then I still have my Halloween Walk costume in the car.
James’s wedding. A Halloween wedding. I get on my crooked hat and my cape. Everyone else has been drinking for hours. “I just threw on whatever I had in my car.” A golden alignment of truth and cool.
I’m happy to have made the drinks. Too many weddings I’ve missed it missed them. Sometimes much damage has been done to friendships. A wedding is big banana. If you’re not an actor it is not easy to know how impossible it is to cancel a show to fly to Germany or wherever. Even to get off a crash rehearsal to go to one… I lost years of a good friendship by being forced into an unnecessary stressrehearsal on a Saturday.
James was an actor once. It’s how we met, very early days. We stayed in touch because of raving – we found Planet Angel and it kept us sane in the early noughties. Christ I genuinely don’t know if I’d still be alive without those days and the festivals. I’m the glowstick man still. Even without my endless supply of glowsticks.
I’m so glad to have been there and danced at his wedding, even after having done a show tonight and extended my heart into that work. What a treat, to get to do the thing I love and not have it ruin another old friendship. It was good to see him and his kids and his missus. What a thing that they’ve tied the knot at last.
Halloween and the energies are flowing still. I’m home now. Boo is welded to me. All is well.
