The anger pierced my skin from the inside out.  It traveled

from deep in my gut and burst out my throat in a torrential

storm of vehemence

It is an image that will stick with me for a while.

I saw my friend, Sheila, standing in the wings.  I was

rehearsing, fully in the moment and angrier than I have

been in… probably years.  In a flash of energy I lost my

line-thought, it vanished.  What I remember was throwing

my head back and yelling an expletive because I thought

I had stepped over Rikk’s lines.

Sheila’s voice came out from the wings, “No, hon,

you are ok…”

So I kept breathing and finished. And stepped off stage

and whispered-or-did-I-shout-“Dammit!” I can’t remember

how loud I was with that word, I just know I felt it from

the soles of my feet to the top of my head.

I am usually pretty calm, pretty upbeat, so this seething

me… very different energy. I couldn’t even see for a

minute, my eyes were glued shut.

Jared stood next to me and calmly said, “I am having the

same problem tonight, I can’t seem to be able to

get the lines out.”

I looked at him, still angry, and said,. “I am just so

mad at me. I just so want to get it right….”

It had been a three-theatre-day in a weekend full of

theatre related activity, most of which was intense

and pressure-packed. I was teching “Macbeth” at the

Empty Space – a substitute tech for closing night

which brought striking-the-set on Sunday morning.

That mostly meant, for me, cleaning and carrying

stuff around, putting things away.

I sat in my idling car on Oak Street and California

after strike and started crying. I was doing some emotional

work for “Streetcar” and just let it rip as I waited for the light

to turn green. When we started moving forward, I noticed

Thomas Brill, a cast member from “Macbeth” had

been idling in the lane next to me.

I wondered if he saw me crying. In a flash I realized

I didn’t care. “I am Julie, I cry. How do you do?”

In the afternoon and early evening I was providing

support at the producer of “Rocky Horror”. I sat and

watched rehearsal, provided water, made sure the cast,

crew – everyone – had as much of what they needed

as I could provide.

I schlepped stuff for the band, restocked toilet paper

and brought bottled water for everyone to drink in

what feels like the perpetually overheated space.

I watched rehearsal, sitting in awe of the performers

who were giving it their all. I couldn’t take my eyes

off Caroline-playing-Columbia and the woman playing

Janet, a woman I have sang karaoke with at both the

Junction and Kosmos, I think her name is Terese.

She is so cute, so good – so quintessential Janet in

a 50’s Barbie style. Loved it.

Next it was rehearsal for Streetcar, the end-of-the-day

task doing what I enjoy the most – performing, being

onstage.  I had two aims for rehearsal – to work without

my script for the first time and to follow up on the notes

from the last rehearsal.

I needed to be louder in my angry scenes. I needed to

amp up my energy. 

My first scene went relatively well except for my inability

to remember the line, “That’s where you are now.”

I spent more time backstage, finding Eunice’s walk. Being

where Eunice is as the other action is occurring onstage and

she is not seen. I started to hear some of Eunice’s thoughts.

This always helps me in performance, when the Julie thoughts

begin to vanish and the character thoughts begin to take their

proper place on the forefront of consciousness.

It was time for seething, unleashed anger.

I have been known to say I don’t need to go to therapy anymore

because I have theatre. Rehearsal has been my greatest

medicine since my brother, John, died. It is almost like

my meditation, my release, my playtime, my play doh and

finger painting – detached yet highly committed to bringing

forth something of value.

I remember in “Into the Woods” when I faced down the

Giant in order to protect my son. My mother told me the

woman sitting next to her said, “Wow, she is really yelling!”

as if that was astonishing.  Her thought, I suppose, was that

I should pretend to yell or pretend to feel the importance

of protecting my little boy from sure death.

I loved fighting for “my son” because when my real-life

daughter died I didn’t have the chance to fight. I had often

said I would have traded my life for hers and this one – this

time – in character, I got to do exactly that. I (my character)

died and “my son” lived.  I wasn’t angry in that shouting

match, I was empowered, I was determined, I was Mama Bear.

This shouting match is different.

It feels like I am fighting on behalf of “woman hurt” overall.

Yes, I am fighting for Stella but I am also fighting, once again,

for myself and madder than anything that I have to keep

fighting this fight over and over and this, this, this fight

is quaking me to my core… again. I sense Eunice has said

these almost exact words before and she will, more than

likely, say these exact words again, for the Stellas and

whoever the heck else comes along and needs a protector.

And I also get the sense that Eunice didn’t have anyone to

fight for her, so that shows up in my show down, too.  Yes,

I am fighting for Stella - and more than that, I am

fighting for myself.

Fighting for myself. It brings another onslaught of tears.

Deb just wrote to me, concerned when I

told her I was busily “writing and crying.”

I responded, “I am emotional. Crying isn't bad. I am

processing. Crying is cleansing.”

Interesting. In allowing myself the space to cry through

all this I am wrestling with myself. I am stretching the

muscles of my Julie Self. I am becoming comfortable

and settling into this latest version of me.  I am consciously

bringing on the tears, daring myself to feel through everything,

completely, complexly, creatively.

Theatre, among my favorite art forms – the place where I

experience transcendence and discover me, more fully me.

Richard O’Brien’s Rocky Horror Show opens May 4 at Midnight

at Bakersfield Community Theatre: 2400 S. Chester (just north of

Wilson) and runs for three weekends with shows at Midnight on

Friday and Saturday with 8 PM shows on the first two Saturdays.

Call 831-8114 to make reservations.

Streetcar Named Desire opens on May 11 at 8 PM at the

Spotlight Theatre, Located in the Historic Hayden

Atrium Building in downtown Bakersfield. 

Call 634-0692 to make reservations.

Participating in theatre is like medicine for my soul.

No matter what “stuff” I am experiencing away from the stage, when I am there, doing my thing – everything else falls away so that I can be pure with my work. I can be pure in my process.

Last night I was late to rehearsal and I do not like being late. Emma had a performance in her show choir and as the sole means of transportation for her performances, I had to schlep her there and back.

I had called Bob to tell him I would be late it and he said it was ok – but nonetheless, I went to rehearsal out of breath and concerned that my absence was problematic.

It wasn’t. I arrived in my out-of-breath, apologetic state and they were in the midst of the part of the scene before my arrival. Bob stopped them and they re-ran the scene up to that point before continuing on.

I thought, “I wonder if Bob stopped and had them restart so that I could become present, so that I could ease into the rehearsal and do a respectable job instead of an out of breath, apologetic job?”

Konstantin Stanislavsky said, “Never come into the theatre with mud on your feet. Leave your dust and dirt outside. Check your little worries, squabbles, petty difficulties with your outside clothing -- all the things that ruin your life and draw your attention away from your art -- at the door.”

It came to the time for me to do my thing on stage and I literally ate up every moment. This is my shortest time on stage in a particular scene but I so enjoy telling Stanley exactly what I think of him and handing it to him on a chipped, cheap platter from the neighborhood five and ten cent store.

Rikk said during our break, “I felt like I was getting in trouble, that I got caught by my Mom.”

My first instinct was to lament that I am not all that much older than him.

My second instinct was, “Hey! I was doing my job!”

One of my commitments to myself during rehearsal time is to always be acting, to not be “calling it in”.  In the case of this rehearsal, Bob, as the Director, really assisted me in the process by backing up so that I could catch up and allow “the worries, the squabbles, the petty difficulties” fall away as I sat in the audience, watched, and reviewed my lines before going on.

I even managed to do some breath work during my first read of this scene. Perhaps that helped Rikk to feel what he felt, which created a real response for Stanley – and would lead to his very authentic, heartfelt request to Eunice which, naturally, she shoots right down.

I have been living a tough chapter of my life lately.  I found it exceptionally syncronistic the way the schedule for “Streetcar” managed to unfold exactly in the way I needed in order for the crisis point in my life to subside, just a little – and begin to step back into my new normal.

It feels so right, so replenishing - when I accept and live within this wondrous medicine for my soul.

Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, Directed by Bob Kempf, opens at the Spotlight Theatre on May 11, 2007 and runs for four weekends, including Sunday matinees for the first three weekends.  I hope to see you there!