Rape and Opera

Performance debrief. I barely moved on stage. I walked to one area and stood then another area and stood but mostly I sat in a chair. And I said my lines in the most natural way possible while making eye contact with the audience. Which feels next to impossible when you're doing something SO unnatural like performing in front of an audience. About rape! I laughed too much, I know that for sure. And I missed lines. But other than that, I think I did an ok job for this new style of performing. It's hard to know when it's so different from the joking, more animated, way more physical style of my last pieces. But my director told me that, for now, I needed to go to this extreme in order to get the other style out of my body. I couldn't even more my hands! They remained in my lap the whole time. Afterwards a couple people came up and gave me what felt like sympathetic looks and said, "thank you for sharing your story." Totes annoying! But I can see why this bare storytelling style would provoke one to say these kinds of things. I could very well have been in a therapy session talking to my therapist! I snuck into the audience after I finished to watch the following act. Everyone's eyes popped out of their sockets as this overweight guy came on stage and started operatically belting out about being fat. Epic fail to whoever came up with the order!