Tater Tots and Temper Tantrums

I am getting a little bit sick. I didn't want to admit it because sometimes I think that if I don't acknowledge sickness it won't actually happen, but I have, it's true, if nothing else, a little head cold.

I spent last night breathing through a single nostril and not really sleeping. Lovely.

So I am not going out this week after rehearsals, at all. Really, I'm not.

On Monday I did go here for a birthday drink with a friend. (Their birthday, not mine).

It's cool. I like the vibe. And they have a picture booth at the back. And tater tots. I didn't get tater tots, but I noted that they were there.

The location used to house a Salvadoran/Mexican type restaurant that we would go to occasionally while rehearsing Titus! at the now defunct Source Theater. One particularly memorable evening was spent there on the night that, two days before opening at the Summer Festival, I burst an artery (metaphorically) by blowing up at the actor who was then playing Aaron (not the actor mentioned in the article).

He missed an entrance for the third or fourth time in a row during a run and suddenly I found myself channeling the spirit of Jerome Robbins or the artistic director of that Shakespearean Theater in Chinatown, DC, who is known for his temper.

I rose from my seat in the audience, tripping over seats as I descended on the stage. Actors had continued on with the show, working around this suddenly raving maniac (me) - notepad falling out of hands, pens falling out of pockets, eyes flashing, hands darting:

"What do I need to do?!" I bellowed.

The music grinded to a stop. I went on for several minutes, now the only sound in the room, ranting, condescending, spitting, snarling.

It didn't really fix the matter.

We had a break at the end of the run, and I scurried around trying to heal matters. Said actor wouldn't look me in the face when I tried to talk about it, his defenses and guard was up and in full force, and he still wasn't any better than before the blow up.

The band headed over to the aforementioned Salvadoran restaurant to get our drummer lubed up for the evening show (no joke - in typical drummer fashion he could not perform a show sober) and so I went over there to say hello and to try and make sure that their spirits were relatively high (ideally metaphorically, more likely literally).

So I walk through the darkened bar to their table to join the band and I realize suddenly that the fellow with his back to me is the actor I'd just reamed out. No one told me he was going over with the band.

He never, ever, ever, ever hung out with people from the cast, and there he is, eating a papusa.

He still won't look at me, I have to sit down because it would be too obvious to walk away at that moment, and so we sit, in complete awkwardness, no one really wanting to talk to me or the actor, for our thirty minute dinner break.

My point is (if I am to have a point) I guess, that yelling never really helps. I know that. Sometimes being firm is necessary, sometimes coming down on an actor is necessary. But yelling?

Nah.

It feels kind of good in the moment, but the rewards are not worth the expense.