#174: Lessons From the Theatre

With the exception of my wedding and a few special New Year's Eve celebrations with Mrs P, I have spent the best parts of my life on stage. Acting is the only job I've ever really loved. It is often painful, always rewarding, and on rare occasions, positively mystical.

It occurred to me today that I've spent so many years playing characters who endured trials, I might turn to them to learn how to conduct myself during my own survival journey.

The first time I played Tevye I knew that I wanted to spend my life performing. On opening night, as I stood high atop my little milk wagon taking in the applause after If I Were a Rich Man I was positively drunk with the audience's approval. It was many years later - around thirty I think - that I was able to play the role again, and learned about the heart of this big, beautiful man. For him, family is everything. No matter how hard the world is on him, no matter how far away his children travel, he and Golde remain bound with cords of love that no Tzar or Cossack can sever. The dairyman from Anatevka taught me that love is the source of our strength and our life.

The Tempest is Shakespeare's story of a wronged Duke, Prospero and his revenge on the brother who unjustly banished him and his daughter on a deserted island. He has every right to be angry, and using magic powers he conjurs a storm that maroons the cruel brother and his fellow travellers from Naples. Prospero and the fairies who serve him devise more and more powerful ways to torment the party, but just at the moment when his final vengance is complete, the old magicial changes his mind. He himself is tormented, not by guilt, but by the innocence of his daughter and his sprite, Ariel. Prospero chooses mercy over justice, and because of that choice, he is redeemed.

I also have a lot to be angry about. I've been mistreated by the insurance company, old employers, friends who disappeared when things got tough. I could spend - and to be honest, I have spent - lots of time blaming and fantasizing my own vengence on the people who may not have caused my cancer, but have certainly made it more difficult for me and the people I love. Such thoughts are tempting, and perversely gratifying, I must admit. But they will not help me to redeem my life back from the disease that is trying to lay claim to it. Like Prospero, I have not choice but to forgive the people who torment my nights.

Nick Bottom is a complete jackass. So much so, that he is given a donkey's head in which to woo Titania, the queen of the fairies in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Bottom has little talent and less craft, but by golly he loves his friends and he loves the theatre. The chance to play makes his heart soar and his enthusiasm lifts his fellow mechanicals to heights beyond their wildest dreams. Bottom loves unconditionally. It's as simple as that. He finds wonder everywhere and ecstasy in the crazy poetry of life. He gives himself away completely, and in doing so, he is glorified.

I lack Bottom's purity of heart, but I know what it means to love what you do. In that, I am a lucky man. I know what it is to love the people around you without reservation. In that, I am a rich man. No matter how much depression and cancer may try to convince me otherwise, I know I have a reason to live. I need to live, because I am not finished loving yet.

In the dark days ahead, I will remember the lessons these teachers have given me. I gave my all to do right by them, and I know they will not abandon me in my hour of need. And when the Dark Angel has passed me over at last, I am determined to return to them. I am not finished learning yet, either.