Barn Farce

Eleven days since arriving back in Denver and my sinuses are finally (re)adjusting to the dusty heights of Colorado's capitol city. When I first moved to Denver some...well, some years ago I spent the first two weeks beset with headaches and bloody noses. While this return experience isn't as intense as my initial introduction to these climes, I’m still playing the lead in an itching, burning, twitching and turning opera of the sinuses. It seems everyone here suffers from some sort of allergy or infection or sinus...of the times -- pollution and global warming are hell on the heady mucous membranes.
The play I'm currently rehearsing seems to be shaping up quite well. The cast is funny, dedicated and flexible. The director is a charming and talented veteran of the stage who's love for theater breaks forth from her delicious laugh at every rehearsal. She is also an amazing actress, which makes her sensitive to the actor's process and for that I cannot be too thankful. Stage acting is hard for me. I think partly because I love it so much. I get very hung up on doing a good job - so much so that I often set myself spinning in my own web of sweat and anxiety. Stage combat often heightens this tendency of mine because, again, I'm overly preoccupied with making that action believable and terrified of looking ridiculous - completely forgetting that half the fun of acting is looking ridiculous. The opening date for our show was delayed a week and I take this as a personal blessing. The extra time has allowed me to slosh and bang my way through the usual anxiety obstacle course and move into a more relaxed stage of performing. The show is nothing but farce - a string of silly jokes which rely entirely on how they are played and have absolutely not meaning or depth to support them. I love it. It’s the kind of performing I've dreamed of doing ever since I sat enraptured by reruns of Benny Hill and Three's Company as a television obsessed child.
This show marks a number of firsts for me. It’s my first time acting at The Country Dinner Playhouse (or "the barn" to the regulars); my first equity show (I'll have my card by the end of the run); and the first time I'm not only comfortable asking my mother to attend, but am actually excited about her being in the audience. A buffet dinner? A hydraulic stage? Prairie wagon decor? A farce set in the 50’s? Okay, it’s not the Mormon Tabernacle or Pioneer Memorial Theater, but otherwise it’s tailor made for her sensibilities. I’m really looking forward to this show.
I had forgotten how amazing the Colorado sky was during my four weeks in California. The clouds are mesmerizing. They billow like echoes or shadows of volcanic eruptions in reverse. They streak in breathing zigzags around the mountains. At sunset they bloom like translucent pink, yellow, and orange flowers -- the upside-down footprints of planets and stars arcing across the deepening cornflower sky.