Theatre people say funny things in funny ways.
The idea of the audience “breathing with us” was I believe imparted by our Illustrious Jules (honestly Jules, Illustrious has become your official title/first name at Duke).
Theatre jargon has a lot to do with breath, because theatre has a lot to do with life. Organic, resonant, spatial, experimental, meta-life, as a theatre person might say. And though I knew that “breathing with us” may have been metaphorical, I found myself listening for the audiences’ breath. In that fantastic humming silence, in those painful pin-drop pauses, between teardrops or chuckles, I listened for breath.
I heard.
Some nights I heard it from the audience truly, that cavern of eyes; some nights they sighed and gasped, “ha!”ed and “huh”ed, “aww”ed and “hmm?”ed. Some nights they fell asleep in the front row but some nights they breathed. But every night we breathed. Every night I heard the life-air of this pulsing aggregation of human beings pumping in and out of every act, an assemblage of cells forming this body, taking turns being the heart, a living, breathing thing. Vanya Lived. And the Others? Most nights Lived too, another force breathing back at us, exhale for inhale, or perhaps even in tandem, perhaps one body together, feeling the same hurt and bubbling up with the same laughter, breathing the same breath.
Maybe one of the unintentionally wonderful things about having watchers onstage was that while we watched ourselves, we also watched ourselves watch. I mean that in act 3 as I (somehow, still) gasped at the gunshots, I could see in the dark the earnest alarm, or at least concern, of the people watching us watch. I watched them laugh, and laughed myself. All eyes and eyes, mouths and mouths, breath and breath. When in theatre can you sit and watch it happen? But I saw my friends laughing at Thomas, sighing for Cynthia, covering hands with mouths when Nick and Ashley kissed or when they thought it was the end for Phil, I saw my parents and my friends’ parents and complete strangers watch and listen, as I watched and listened.
Everything about this experience has been so corporal and fundamentally human for me so I can’t help but say this funny thing in this funny way. I won’t project that every person every night was with us in such a spiritual way, or even with us at all. Some were confused about the doubling, or about the time period, or didn’t really like either. Many were depressed or unsatisfied, or at least emotionally exhausted, which in itself is good feedback. In many cases even if the show wasn’t completely digested, a solid appreciation for the incredible work, talent, design and music was reliable. We heard floods of good things, especially from people whose opinions at least I respect and whose admiration I crave.
But I have to say, no matter how organic-visceral-absurdist-meta-theatrejargon it may sound, that even on nights when the audience didn’t breathe with us, Vanya’s heart kept beating, and the breath of the show and the people breathing life into it
took my breath away.
–Faye G.
Faye, this was beautiful 🙂
I really loved this phrase:
“Vanya Lived. And the Others? Most nights Lived too, another force breathing back at us, exhale for inhale, or perhaps even in tandem, perhaps one body together, feeling the same hurt and bubbling up with the same laughter, breathing the same breath.”
I really resonated with what you said about watching ourselves watch. I wrote in my own post that I started noticing my own reactions to the audience’s reactions, and how interesting I found that. But I didn’t take it that far; I mostly felt myself watching the audience watching us. (Although honestly now I’m confused about what I’m trying to say. Too much meta.)
But on those nights when they breathed with us we were definitely one being 🙂 reacting at once, crying at once, gasping at once, sighing at once. Vanya became so much more than the play itself, encompassing every living soul in that theater (and for some of us, even extending beyond).