Playing Mary

My show opened this weekend. It was amazing. There is so much to talk about and I can’t seem to write fast enough. More than anything I want to get on paper how amazing it feels to be able to be someone else. I literally let Mary take over for the 3 hours I am in the play. I let her feel, I let her physically react, I let her enjoy and cry and scream and laugh. I let her come alive and tell her story. It is so amazing to be able to put someone else on and walk around in their skin. It truly is an out of mind experience for me. The rehearsal process is interesting because it takes a while for me to get the logistics out of the way and let the character come play. Once I know where I need to enter and exit and who I need to hand a prop to, I am able to think less and play more. Being Mary is heartbreaking. It’s painful and it’s hard and it is causing me to look at my own life.

The musical “Merrily We Roll Along” takes the life of one composer and his two friends and walks them backwards through time to figure out how he ended up in the mess he is. How do you let 20 years fall away from you without even thinking about it? In working on this piece I have really started to look at my life and pause even more than I usually do. I am fully aware that I can never relive the moments I am living now. Some of them I don’t want to. But there are moments in my life I would love to relive. Or see again. Or just feel again. Feel the freedom of riding the trains through Europe without a care or schedule. Feel the rush of crossing the finish line of my first marathon. Feel the heat of the spring I first fell in love with my other half. Relive the three months I had nothing but time with my father. There are so many things I want to go back and relive, but can’t. So I try in vain to be completely present when I’m living now.

Playing Mary reminds me of that. She reminds me how fleeting happiness can be and how it is important to be happy with the life I have now. Mary shows me that even god back and looking at what was doesn’t change the now. I have to change the now today. Now. I need to remember to soak in the praise and the congratulations I’m receiving for my performance because those are fleeting too. I don’t know what is going to happen. But I know that I am doing my best and I am working so very hard to make sure my time here in this world isn’t wasted.

During the talkbacks after the show we get to talk about our process and the show and our characters. I keep repeating the message that more than anything I want people to leave this show feeling good about their lives. I want audience members to look at their life and say “It’s really good as it is” instead of “I wish…..” There is always time to wish. There is time to work hard and to dream and to push yourself. But if you don’t take stock of the now and really register how good it is, you’re not going to realize you’ve even achieved your dream. I hope people walk away from Merrily and want to make their life better. I hope people cry. I hope people go tell their best friend they love them. I hope they take their dog for a walk. I don’t think theater changes the world in broad strokes. Theater touches people one at a time and makes the world a better place one act at a time. That is why I let Mary come out and play and that is why I do what I do. And I love it.