Cancun, Mexico
“One minute you are standing there with all your clothes on, next thing you know you’re looking at yourself in the mirror… naked as the day you were born… wondering what in the hell did you just do.”
One of the many challenges to working six nights a week on stage is to avoid the pitfalls. Pratfalls are all to the good whereas to fall prey to burnout is not.
What the audience might not know is that for the last three nights a drunk in your audience elected to go full improvisational on you.
It might have been the show in the saloon and the bartender’s use of the blender during your set that’s got you on edge. You lose a laugh here, you lose an applause point there, and pretty soon you’re not doing your show you’re doing that other show.
The grace we use to sustain our best self the first week we face these all too predictable problems are not necessarily the same level of grace left within us after seven or eight weeks of such obstacles.
There is nothing quite so healing as time off. That fuse that’s got shorter finds more length. The drive to prevail night after night is released. If we want to draw attention to ourselves it is one of many options. We can keep our big mouth shut. We can let the moment pass without comment.
We have to take life with a grain of salt. We need to bounce back from a bumpy ride and have faith that a smooth ride is always possible, at any moment, starting now. We have to bridle our expectations. We can’t get ahead of reality.
The main thing is that whatever might happen you want to be a contributor to making the happening steer off in a constructive direction. That’s the game right there. Don’t be pulled down by the obstacles, smile in the face of the adversity, and show an audience how to its done even when it’s almost not fair, because one thing is for sure, a performance is about being resilient even when everything else has gone to hell.
“You mow the lawn, do the dishes, wash the car, empty the garbage, pull the weeds, clean the windows, change the sheets, get the groceries, call the doctor, see the dentist, set the alarm, go to bed, wake up early, make the coffee, leave for work, and for god sake try not to burst into tears on your anniversary.”
