I don't understand why people think it's ok to hang out in the house after a show (and I mean the theater house, not your own living room) in costume chatting with friends. The whole point of being in a show is to portray someone else. It's not you onstage, you're playing another person. And the whole point the audience has come to the show is to see characters, not people they know onstage. (Yes, they've come to see their friend Joe Schmo, but they've come to see their friend act, not be Joe Shmo onstage. Big difference.) So putting on the costume and make up changes you from Joe Schmo into whoever you're playing. So TAKE IT OFF before you go see your friends and family after the performance! The costume and make up and wig create a mystique. They separate the fantasy from reality. So if before a show, or during intermission, the audience sees you in costume, you've completely blown the fantasy world for them.
This is why I ABHORE those closing nights, walk-off-stage-chat-with-the-audience things. And it's why I WILL NOT talk to you before a show if I'm in costume. Also, if I am visiting a friend in a show, I don't want to see her in costume either! Keep it together until afterwards and we'll go out and have a drink and chat. But until then let's all remember why we are in theater in the first place, and separate our characters from ourselves and the imaginary from reality.
I couldn't disagree more actually. I don't need to fool the audience into thinking this is a "fantasy world" -- they are helping to construct it, so they're already in on it. My favorite RAW shows that we've done are the ones where there is no backstage. Backstage is actually in the house. Part of what the audience loves about these productions is actually seeing the *craft* of what we are doing. One person commented on it last year seeing Patrick move from playing the drums in the back of the house and then having to walk up the aisle to become Seyton in *Macbeth* and they loved watching sink into that character. I just love this! I am never going to *fool* someone into thinking that I *am* a witch in *Macbeth* -- they know I am an actor playing a role. They know that together we actively believe in this world, and I think that is way more powerful. I love doing quick changes out in the audience and letting them in on the process of how this works, and it's exciting for me to know they love it too!
ReplyDeleteI know, however, that we are very much in the minority on this. And I'm ok with that.