Theater has always been a window for me. To something new. Something exciting and usually something inside. Something about the manic chaos and attempts to just make it through high school fit so well with Albert Peterson in Bye Bye Birdie. Emerging from the chrysalis of high school and evolving into college paired well with Kafka’s Metamorphosis. Showing up in a strange land looking to figure out what the hell was going on in Twelfth Night matched my move to Boston and transition into adulthood. There has always been a touchstone or connection between my real life and the show I was in. I could find it. Sometimes it took longer than others. But it was always there. It helps me process. Which is why theater has at times been my drug and my therapy.
In Brigadoon, love is the major theme. How love can make miracles happen. Especially the jmoy and intoxication of new love. Of that puppy love. It’s got a Romeo and Juliet vibe. There are at least three scenes I consider Romeo/Benvolio inspired. Not to mention the Love can conquer all vibe. But the thing is, my heart and my reviews on love have a lot of scar tissue built up. If theater before has been therapy, this has been more like rehab. Or physical therapy. Breaking down the scar tissue and the atrophy. Letting the body and soul relearn or recapture what it had before.
Love and theater has always been linked for me. Every time I’ve truly fallen in love it started on a stage. Ten years ago I walked away from theater and acting when lots of my life was falling apart. It was a self-defense mechanism. I was feeling so much. Too much. So I had to shut part of me down. I knew that acting opened me up and I felt it might be too much of a Pandora’s Box to try again.
I hate a love/hate relationship with love. I mean my favorite song as a 7 year old was U2’s “With or Without You”, so I committed to angst early. I loved watching The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis on Nic at Night which was basically the story of romantic and social failure for 30 min every episode. I know every word of “The Power of Love” by Huey Lewis. I listen to Hozier’s Somebody New probably once a week. The first three real roles I got in a musical, I sang “L-O-V-E” by Nat King Cole as my audition. So yeah Love has been a thing. As it is.
I took the chance to open myself to theater again two years ago because of my daughter. I saw her love for the stage, her joy in performing and the cracks in my hardened heart began to grow. Luckily the first role I played was a villainous man-child who wanted the fancy flying car. Greed and childishness is pretty easy for me to access. And it was fun. I got to play again. I saw the joy on my daughters face. Theater was therapy again. It was good again.
This summer has been different. I don’t get to access the easy emotions this time. I have to unlock and unpack some things that have been hidden for a long time. Locked away. Ignored. Neglected. In a way it’s fitting. It took me time to find the connection between my real life and this show. But I finally did.
It’s the 10 year anniversary of the biggest change and chaos of my life. The 10th anniversary of me taking a part of me and hiding it away. Of deciding that I couldn’t let myself truly feel. Of deciding that it was too dangerous to act. It’s probably past time to unpack that baggage.
I don’t need to fall in love. I just have to believe such a thing is possible. Possible for two people in less than one day in a magical Scottish town to make a life changing choice while attending a wedding and funeral.
Ironically, that seems more likely than me unpacking my baggage.
But I’ve been working on it. It’s opened up some memories and feelings that I haven’t processed in the past 10 years, 7 years, 3 minutes etc. It’s not always been a pleasure cruise. Yet, just as seeing my daughter’s love for theater started the cracks, trying and working and processing has helped them widen. I wouldn’t say you can process or work through 10 years of repression and emotional neglect in six weeks. But I’ve made progress.
I’ve made it to the point where I can admit that I believe there is someone for everyone. There might even be someone out there for me. I’m not quite ready to believe I’ll ever find them. But I can believe it for my friends. (At least I stopped skipping weddings years ago). I can believe it for others. I can believe it for Tommy and Fiona and some magical Scottish town that vanishes every night.
If it can make a 36 year old, jaded divorced man child with a checked relationship history and an extremely stubborn nature begin to unpack some of his baggage and deal with his emotions like an adult – maybe Love can do anything, even miracles just like Mr Lundie says.
Rosetown Playhouse Presents: Brigadoon!
Performances: August 3-5 & 10-13
Time: All performances at 7 p.m., except August 13 at 1 p.m.
Location: Como Dockside
Ticket Prices: $15/adults; $12/Seniors (62+); $10/Students 6+; $7/Children 5 and under
Buy Tickets - https://rosetownplayhouse.org/shows/brigadoon
