A play is a prayer

Our play had its performance yesterday. There is something incredibly satisfying about making a piece that is only shown once. Theatre is an ephemeral art, and a single performance gives it all to the gods.

I have seen something even more rare and beautiful. I was assistant-directing for Akropolis Performance Labs' Jeanne The Maid. We had this old vaulted space, the Seattle Mime Theatre. But our run fell during an August heat-wave. People stayed away in droves.

One Sunday we found ourselves, at matinee curtain-time, alone in the building. Not one spectator.

This is not as uncommon as you may think in fringe theatre, who bravely perform for 4 to 10 people. What was unusual was Akropolis's reaction. Most theatres would be frantic, frustrated, blaming. But at Akropolis, whose rehearsals are great pools of silence, it was... a relief.

"I think," said Joseph Lavy, co-artistic director and director of Jeanne, "That we could use a run for ourselves." Ahhh. A rustle of assent. Like having the cathedral to yourself.

So, on that dim and drowsing afternoon, we ran the play. At performance intensity. For ourselves. Jennifer had left to work on her paper. Joseph and I watched from the audience, as the judge, priest, and monk gibbered and burned the girl. Pater noster qui es en celis.

A play is a prayer.

Sometimes you do it for an audience, sometimes you do it just for god.