Festering

Instead of writing director’s notes I owe I am writing a blog entry. Awesome.

It is amazing the speed with which Helen Hayes photos have popped up on the internet. Facebook, Flicker, Kodak Gallery… My own set has been loaded onto my laptop perhaps to be shared with the world in some nearish future. But not too near. We got a show to tech.

The illness that has plagued this cast for the past two weeks is like nothing I’ve ever seen. Great big waves of infection crashing down on one person, then lapping up against their scene partner, ebbing and flowing so that the minute someone declares that they better they then spend the next night hacking into their pillow. Why us theater karma gods? Why now?

It is as if the despair that everyone in this play is choking on has planted itself in our throats and blossomed into a real life infection. Maybe that’s it. Maybe the play itself decided to show us what this feels like.

Other than that it is going well. Everyone is doing the right kind of work. And it is work—this isn’t one of those “Oh my god! It just popped off of the page and all of the answers were right there!” kind of plays. It’s mysterious and elusive and tricky and inappropriate and gratifying and funny and misbehaved. I am very glad we are doing it.

That’s about all I have to report. I am splendidly behind in everything else in my life. If I owe you an email, a call, a coffee date, a drink, an answer, a question, it will probably not emerge until after we open. Be patient with me. We got a play to deliver.