So I get a call Friday afternoon from a friend. Haven’t heard from said friend in a while, haven’t seen her in even longer. Long story short, she wants to see a play on Saturday, a play at my old school, a play in my old theatre. Haven’t been there in a few years. Haven’t seen a show there in a few years. Had no real reason or incentive to have done so. But, a friend calls, a friend asks, and a friend shall receive.
We make plans to meet near the theatre for dinner. It’s a slightly balmy Saturday here in Cambridge, a relative first for the season. Spring’s been a bit late in finally arriving. I think it got lost in the Big Dig. So I walk to the theatre from my apartment. Hardly the quickest way to get there, but it’s nice, I’m enjoying the sun and the complete lack of jacket wearing, all is good with the world.
I get to the theatre and walk in. Funny how it seems so different and yet so familiar. The main lobby is lined with production shots of the professional company that inhabits the space in the three month student shows don’t get the main stage of this two-theatre building. The arrangements are the same, but the photos are different. Reception desk is still in the same place, but the girl is unfamiliar. Ticket booths still residing in the same area, but also containing strangers to my eyes.
And most tellingly, I’m now offering to purchase tickets for a show. At $12 a pop. I don’t think I spent $24 total in college on theatre tickets. The shows were either free of charge or I obtained comps, either through knowing someone in the show or, on occasion, getting them in exchange for sexual favors down by the pier. But here I am, some years later, laying down $24 not at gunpoint to see student theatre. I must be maturing.
See, for 7 odd years, the Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club (HRDC) was my life. It was what I did. And yes, seven years. That’s not a typo. I continued to do shows even after graduation there. At first, I did it for purely professional reasons: I had this dream of being a Broadway designer. Maybe even a rock concert designer. And Harvard gave me fully automated theatres and big spaces in which to do my craft, get some resume building, get some great photos, increase my chances of getting into a good grad program, and accelerate my progress towards super theatre stardom.
And for a while, that was great. And then I met Jenny on one of these shows, and life was even greater. Around the Fall of 2001, though, Jenny and I were both burned out. She was producing left and right, and I was designing left and right. Neither of us knew why we were doing shows anymore, other than that’s what we had been doing for as long as we knew. So in December 2001, I did my last show, vowing to return only when I felt it was right. Here we are, some two and a half years later, and it still doesn’t feel right. People stopped emailing me for help with shows around 18 months ago; they didn’t even email me at all soon after. So it goes. That’s that with that.
But there’s the overall context: walking into a building that, for all intents and purposes was home for 7 years, now feeling strange. Kind of like walking into your childhood home and seeing the place redone by the people who moved in afterwards. And maybe later this year I’ll be able to verify that analogy. But for now I’ll just work on assumptions.
So I’m asking for two tickets, and as part of Big Brother, the pert little blonde behind the window is asking me for my name, fingers ready to type in the info. I check for security cameras and ask why.
“Oh, just part of the process now.”
“Oh.”
“So, last name?”
“McGee.”
*types*
“First name?”
“Ryan.”
*types*
“Perpetual HRDC member?”
“Um, what?”
“That’s what the computer says.”
“Again with the 'what?'”
In the theatre’s address database, next to my name was simply “Perpetual HRDC Member”. Simply stunning. Location didn't matter to the person who entered these three words. Only their assignation of status did.
For those of you who’ve done theatre, you already know it’s a bit like the mafia: you may think you’re out, but it’s always looking for a way to pull you back in. It’s a lifetime membership. You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave. Insert your own cliché here.
So there I was, Saturday night, watching a show, surrounded by unfamiliar faces, watching unfamiliar faces onstage, and yet having an overall feeling that itself was quite familiar. I’ve had my closure with theatre, to be sure, but theatre still left the door open to me. Perpetually open, it seems.
And that’s kinda nice.
Posted by Ryan McGee at April 19, 2004 12:48 AM