Last night I performed my role for the last time. Months of learning, weeks of rehearsing, and six performances later it was all finally finished. I will not step onto the stage to inhabit the role again, at least not as part of this production. It’s done but, like a jet-lagged brain trying to readjust to a new time zone, I haven’t quite realized it yet.
This morning I slept in, and actually got enough sleep for once, and then got about my day. I had a doctor’s appointment, and I when I headed for the door I grabbed my score and my water bottle instinctively before realizing that, for the first time in six weeks, I was going somewhere where I wouldn’t need them. I held on to my water bottle anyway, since a singer can never be too hydrated, but I put my score back down. I placed it slowly onto the table by the door where I had flung it so casually the night before as I spun into the house, exhausted and exhilarated from closing night. The stained, dog-eared, beaten up book of music was an oddity to me – something I had clung close to for such a long time that I would probably never need again. Later I will put it up on the shelf with all of my other opera scores until the day when/if it is needed again. Goodbye, old friend.
My castmates have spent the day sharing photos and memories online, just as we spent the evening after the performance last night sharing drinks and memories in real life. They are all my friends, and some of them I will never see again. It doesn’t matter. Any one of them could show up on my doorstep a decade from now and I would give them a couch to crash on and whatever I had to eat in the house. We are more than friends; we are family. We have done a show together, and there is a bond that will never break between us now. Like my character in the opera, whose military friends from his time in Vietnam show up to visit, we have been through things no one else can understand. There is a closeness and familiarity that comes from doing what we do. The inside jokes, the secret language, the connection between any and all of us is lifelong. I’ve done many shows in the past, and am friends with most of the participants on Facebook. Are we “friends?” Perhaps not, but my doors are always open to them. And I miss them.
The lines of the show still run through my head. I long for someone to sing them to. They will fade, yes, but today they are strong and vibrant. It doesn’t help that the show was in English, because many of the phrases I have heard sung so often are also phrases that I hear spoken aloud in the world. I cannot hear anyone say any of them anymore without adding the tune in my head and orchestrating our conversations, silently but determinedly.
The show is done, but it is not done with me, and I am not done with it. It will take time. I need to integrate back into my life. I need to return e-mails and phone calls that have lain waiting for me. I need to catch up on, well everything. There are dishes to do and children to play with. I need to remind my wife what I look like. I need to close the score. And I am doing it. Slowly.
Image credit:Â Lydia Lowery Busler