I had a strange dream last night…I was walking in a field of red
poppies, they were surrounded by huge strawberries.
So many of them
that I was crushing poppies or strawberries according to my choice. After a
time I decided to crush the strawberries, the poppies looked too fragile, but
each step was creating a flood of red liquid like blood, more and more until I
was almost drawn in the rising blood.
I woke up drenched and trembling…I stayed a moment in the dark
wondering why I chose to crush the strawberries instead of the poppies.
Why do we make choices, which sometimes are so obviously wrong?
It reminded me of a
the decision made by a singer friend of mine, a few years ago, who left his
engagement without a word to anybody ... not a word to his wife, to his
children may be because they were babies and will not get it, to the director
of the company, and of course to his management… He just packed and quit after
one day of rehearsals and two coaching... He just drove back home after having
driven for 13 hours to be there. He sent an email later saying that he was done
with this business, it was not for him, he did not feel good doing it, he was
loosing himself in a parody of life, so he asked to cancel his upcoming
contracts and become a normal human being again.
It was his choice.
First I was shocked, then amazed and surprised, then as usual
angry, then I smiled, then I admired him.
How many of us will have this courage? To realize that we are
living an impossible dream, that we are wasting our young life to pursue
something, which will never happen, and we are throwing, in our search for the
unknown and self punishment, our family, our other us.
Of course some reach the impossible dream and make it a reality
and that is why we all believe it is now our turn, and we continue for months,
for years, for life to pursue a ghost, the ghost of success, the ghost of our
irrelevance.
To have the courage to suddenly break this, to say no more, even
if it is a terrifying decision, is admirable and a proof of great strength, a
proof of becoming a responsible adult.
Then the day went on ... And this decision soon became the past
since we live in a world where the next event is the present and we are
conditioned to assimilate as fast as possible what happened three minutes
ago... But while the event was digested fast, I had a lot of thoughts about the
meaning of this gesture...
Is our life a list of decisions? Did I take the right decisions
in my life? Did I make the right choices?
I remember what my grand mother told me while I was still a
child:
“Be sure all your life to take the trains passing, look at it
and take it”
She was obviously not aware of the trains going to Auschwitz.
“But Mamie, what if some trains do not pass”
“Trains always pass but people do not look”
“But Mamie, what if the train goes to the wrong place?”
“The wrong place can be better than the stagnant place, you are
strong enough to leave the wrong place later if necessary…What our family is living now makes you very strong”
All this mixed with the invading reports of the holocaust, the
first images of the concentration camps and the gas chambers; we were living in
a constant mood of panic.
“Yes Mamie I will look for trains and I will take them, I
promise, nobody will stop me, I am a strong man” I was 11 years old.
She died soon after that, she never saw me taking trains, but
her voice was and is always with me.
I know it is the second time I am listening in my youth to an
older woman, may be that is why I never listened to another woman in my
life... JUST KIDDING
When 6 months after my Raskolnikov and Tania Balachova, I was
asked to be the star of a play in a legitimate theater in Paris, while I knew
nothing about acting and was not really ready for that task, did I take the
passing train or was I foolish?
When I was asked to be the French voice dubbing big American
stars in blockbuster movies a few months later, did I take the passing train or
was I incapable of discerning reality?
When I was asked to go to a Famous college to teach theater and
literature for the summer in America, did I take the passing train or was I
again an arrogant young French guy? I was 26 and never been to the states and my
students were older than me.
When I was asked soon after to start a French theater company in
Boston, performing in French, did I take the passing train or was I totally
unaware of anything?
When I was asked by Sarah Caldwell to direct the dialogues of
her opera production of Faust and then participate intensely in the staging of
the whole opera while I had never even seen an opera in my life, did I take the
passing train or my total ignorance was blinding me?
When after 5 years in the opera world, I was offered to be
general and artistic director of Tulsa opera and a year later general and
artistic director of Montreal opera, did I take the passing train or was I
suicidal?
Did I take the right decisions? Did I really choose?
Or fate was leading me?
It seems that some people make always the right choices and some
always the wrong choices, is that dictated by fate?
What pushes some people to make perpetually the same mistakes,
to choose always the worst for themselves? The worst job, the worst partner in
life again and again, the worst everything and others instinctively choose the
right path...
It reminds me a great line in a Moliere play
LE MONDE CHERE AGNES EST UNE ETRANGE CHOSE
THE WORLD, DEAR AGNES, IS A STRANGE THING
Is for us theater a strange thing or the only thing we can
really apprehend? The only way we can continue to accept who we are, who we are
not, whom we wish we were, who we hope to become?
Theater saved my life but does really theater saves the life of
all the ones who throw themselves into it or can it be sometimes just a way to
pursue an easy dream of success in life?
I know that sometimes Theater can bring us unbelievable joys,
incredible moments of truth, deep pains and sorrows…It should NEVER leave us
indifferent, after each rehearsal after each performance, we should have found
a new aspect of our self, a new challenge, a new MOI…I want joys to be real
joys, smiles to be real smiles, tears to be real tears, pain to be real pain, I
do not want to imitate myself, even as a director theater is the only place I
can be totally myself.
Life brings to some of us very difficult moments, very hard
challenges. To try to overcome all of this, it is not enough to just walk in
the street of Paris or New York with sorrow and tears, and even if Hate is now
gone, pain stays forever… Theater helped to accept the pain.
IF
theater IS a necessity and THE ONLY WAY FOR US to stay alive so yes lets go for
it, lets have the courage to look at our self and dig out the buried chapters…
IF it is not
a necessity but just another pastime of life with the pretext that we have some
kind of talent, lets have the courage to renounce, to say NO, no more of this
quest, we have to look at it, smile and go forward.
Bravo again to this singer who took that decision.
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