TheatreAddict.com - Bakersfield Drama Blog

"He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our despair, against our own will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God." --Aeschylus, Greek tragic poet

"Cleansed" closes this week. i don't even know what to say about it. this show is a personal experience for everyone who watches it but also for each of us who've been involved in the production of it. i'm not going to speak for anyone else in this. i just need to speak for me.

i am going to miss grace. i'm sad that the show is coming to an end and i'll have to say goodbye to her. through her, mysteries in my own past have been made clear. i know more about myself because i was able to become someone else and it will be hard to let her go.

this show did not go the way i expected it to. it changed the way i view a lot of things, from those deep, dark things i don't want to go into, to the way i relate to my fellow cast members. i suppose at the beginning i liked all of them well enough although, i didn't really know any of them very well. i assumed that being part of this cast would bring us closer, maybe? i don't know. i have become close with denise but, in all actuality, i feel more self conscious around the boys now than i ever did before. i'm sure it has nothing to do with them and everything to do with the show. given time, i'll get over it. it just wasn't what i expected.

nothing about "Cleansed" is as i expected it would be.

this is, without any doubt, the single best piece of theatre i have ever had the honor of performing in. i am so proud of it and i think that is why it is so painful that it will be over soon. i can't imagine how things would have been different if i had not wanted to be grace so badly. i wouldn't want to imagine it. i really love this piece.

Aeschylus said that wisdom comes "to us by the awful grace of God." sarah kane's writing is raw and open, absolutely brutal and, in the brutality, beautiful...and in the beauty is the wisdom. it may take time to see it or you may never see it. i don't know. what i do know is that she showed me something about myself that is at once awful and lovely and i will never be the same.

i'll miss you grace.

posted by TheatreAddict.com  # 4:05 PM