Feeling like an Overtired Toddler

[debka_notion]

Last night after rehearsal I just about fell apart. Somehow, the combination of lots of people, stress, and all the other things associated with a play left me in that sort of pre-hysterical state that young children get into when they're overtired and overstimulated. I guess it isn't just young children. I've been low on alone-time lately, and rather than increasing my tolerance for crowds, it seems to have decreased it. I usually do better in small groups anyways, but even a long rehearsal oughtn't do that to me. This was a pretty long rehearsal process- 7-midnight, pretty much, and involving 3 trips to my room to retrieve: a. props, b. my lamps, c. a long multicolored scarf I have, for King Verence to use as a belt (to make his costume look less like a bathrobe, which, lo and behold, is what it is). I also managed all my changes backstage, without any curtaining (one of my costumes involves a long and flowy skirt, which I used to change under) although I did give myself a rather spectacular muscle cramp in trying to fasten my bodice. In the future, I'm thinking it might just go on first and just stay under my other 2 costumes. I know it fits under the latter one, just have to check the earlier one. Amusingly the majority of my costume (but not all of it) is made of my own stuff. Overall rehearsal was a lot of fun, and went pretty well. If my tolerance for crowds was just a bit higher, I wouldn't have had a problem. Actually, the other part of the problem was that I was brooding a bit over a conversation I'd had with Efi just before dinner- a worthwhile conversation, although one he wasn't quite putting together, but one that kept things brightly in mind that I am trying not to think about too much. That last is starting to sound like certain parts of last year. Go figure. Must be a bad pattern of mine- once something is in my mind, I tend to brood over it. I need to learn to do less of that.

Comments

[tovaks.livejournal.com]

**HUG** I know that doesn't help much, it being electronic and all, but I'm sure you know that I'm here for you (not that I'm particularly needed, what with Dave et. al.) :) For your information, a lot of people were stressed and distracted by the end of last rehearsal, and you're definitely not the only one who wanted out ASAP.

[bobtheslinky.livejournal.com]

eeeee tova!

Maya, I couldn't imagine being backstage the entire show; it's perfectly understandable if you felt overwhelmed. I'm sorry I couldn't have been more help.

[tirerim.livejournal.com]

getting into things like bodices is what stagehands are for. :-)

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

We don't have them. This is a small, low-budget and low-experience show. Getting into that bodice (it's not a tight one, actually- it's just that the fastenings are in a weird place) will be easier when I'm not doing it under a skirt. I'm not your world's most modest person, but there was a lot of confusion backstage, and it didn't seem polite to just strip my shirt off when people wouldn't know not to look. ANd I do have some modesty- just not like some of those folks. (Well, clearly, I was changing in public, regardless.) It's one of those thigns that's hard to describe well.

[belu.livejournal.com]

We don't have them. This is a small, low-budget and low-experience show.

In small, low-budget shows like ours, fellow cast members fill roles that stagehands would otherwise fill. So yes, if you want to use us, then feel free; at least people who know what needs to happen in small, low-budget shows will offer to help.

I would expect most people to be modest enough to avert eyes, at least to the extent as is possible, on happening to see that someone is changing. I dunno. I just think the curtains-backstage idea is a bad idea; given how cramped it already is back there, putting in more stuff will just make things worse.

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

I don't really care- I may end up asking someone to do part of my fastenings: they're terribly awkward, and the friend who made this for me presumed someone would be helping me get dressed (the lacings for the corset we never finished are in the back...). I can do them though, it just takes some doing- not like I don't have enough time.

I'm not so much worried about people looking as people thinking that I wouldn't be worried about people looking... I don't know. I think we have to Try to get curtains. If we don't- I don't know What certain of our cast members will do to change. It's all fine and good for you or I to just change- but girls who won't even wear pants because a man would see the gap between their legs? I think having someone else hold up a sheet would work just fine too...

It wouldn't be quite so cramped if people didn't bunch up towards the entrance to the stage. That said- you seemed a bit down today- is everything ok?

[belu.livejournal.com]

you seemed a bit down today- is everything ok?

Enh. Not really, but it's nothing beyond any sort of expectation. It's just that we're coming down to the wire here, and everybody's stressed, and the stress likes to reverberate between everybody and grow into a large generalized stress. There's a reason it's called Hell Week, and you're seeing it, and not just in me, but everybody there.

That and how nobody was focused nor had any energy, and we just seemed to lose it. It fell onto everybody, as far as I can tell.

I'm not so much worried about people looking as people thinking that I wouldn't be worried about people looking.

Why's this something to be ashamed of?

To be honest, I think the ideal world would have curtains. I don't particularly want people to be looking at me who wouldn't want to be looking at me. I myself avert my eyes even if the person changing has told me that they wouldn't mind my looking. I just didn't see the space, and while moving people away from the entrance would ease the crowding, putting dressing rooms in would eliminate the space that people could move into.

but girls who won't even wear pants because a man would see the gap between their legs?

Oy on multiple levels. Yeah, I think the sheet idea is better, even if only because it's temporary, and won't be a permanent drain on resources.

Talk to me in person sometime (after the play is over) if you want to hear my thoughts on other levels of that.

But, at least as far as my experience is concerned (and this ties back into the first point I responded to), people aren't fully themselves backstage. They have to be their character onstage, and backstage.. well, sometimes they're still their character, sometimes they let themselves through a bit, and sometimes there's some sort of void there, perhaps the character in the form of unseen therefore blank and nonexistent. (I think I fall into the void category, at least to a noticeable extent). I might be extrapolating a bit too much, but the actor doesn't do whatever it is that's happening.

I'm rambling. Bug me elsewhere if you actually want me to go on saying stuff.

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

So as long as it's just (just?) hell week blues, I won't worry too much. But I'm very much a Jewish Mother In Training- I Have to worry.
Why is people thinking that I wouldn't care be shameful? (I think that's what you're asking) I guess the short version is that they think it's shameful, and I don't want them to think badly of me. And some of it's ambivalence on my part, I guess. And just not knowing exactly what I think.
We should talk for real after the play is over, and we can both breathe again. THese are things I'd like to talk about with someone who's got a clue about it all, and from an angle outside my usual influences around here.