INTERMISSION

We all travel for what we believe is our work, our call, our destiny as artists…We go from place to place, from hotel to hotel, from city to city, sometimes from Paris to Barcelona, other times and for the majority from Cleveland to Louisville.

Once I was in a city directing another masterpiece that I had done 12 times, and was so excited to do it again with a stellar cast who could not sing it or act it or understand the language.

One evening, after a day spent in rehearsals in the joy of each moment then the pleasures of my life wasted in the room of a second-class hotel, where you cook in a kitchenette and where you wash your clothes in a dirty laundry room, watching news on TV for entertainment, the directors of the company, the general director and the artistic director invited me for dinner, not because they wanted the possible pleasure of my fascinating presence, but more by professional obligation.

I arrive in this restaurant chosen by them, a Chinese “gourmet” buffet restaurant where we can ingurgitate tons of food of all kind, with a guaranteed gout attack the following morning or during the night…the attack when you wake up in the middle of the night with an acute and devastating pain in your elbow, your knee, your big toe, a pain which makes you regret the moments when you could be tortured on a pole by five men who really hate you.

So, I arrive in the restaurant; one of the company leaders is already there, sitting, with an angelic smile on his face of old bandit accustomed to sell genius ideas to a board of directors gaga of the pleasure to be part of the musical creativity of the city.

He welcomes me with politeness and even a hint of enthusiasm and asks me if I have before “dined” in this place of debauchery. Before I can answer, he continues by telling me that he came before with his wife and daughter…he finds this restaurant too expensive, that the price is exorbitant, and that he almost threw up his artistic heart, when the bill arrived last time he was here…but for today he found a coupon in a magazine which will reduce 20% of the bill and he is hoping that the coupon will be accepted…because really this restaurant is too expensive… ALL THIS FILLS ME WITH PLEASURE AND OPENS MY APPETITE.

His colleague, the artistic leader, I will call him from now on the clown, arrives with obviously the attitude of a man who just fought with his wife because of the “gourmet” diner she was not invited to attend…. He sits…looks at me …smiles…and smiles… I smile back.

The waitress arrives, smiles and asks (She is not Chinese but of course she has a Chinese accent since we are in a Chinese restaurant) what we want to drink… The host, leader of the company whispers to me with a voice full of apprehension:

-       Do you drink wine?

-       Excuse me?

-       Do you drink wine?

-       Yes, I do.

-       Aaaah! You do? ( The aaaaah sounded like he had received a bullet in the heart)

-       Yes, I do

He looks at me, breathes heavily, looks at his acolyte and adds:

-       But we do not need a bottle, do we? Since you will be the only one to drink wine.

I ask the waitress to give me a wine list by glass… I have to choose between a Chardonnay from California and a Chardonnay from New York State…I choose the most expensive, which in a Chinese buffet restaurant is still very affordable.

The leader asks for a beer and the clown asks for a coke.

The clown looks at me and smiles and… smiles again… The leader asks me:

-       How are the rehearsals going?

-       All is great, all are wonderful, I am so happy to be here, working for your prestigious company…

-    We try the best we can, but I know we have a good quality product because we care for what we do, you know when I arrived here the company was not…

He goes on and on about his achievements and the sacrifices he had to do for the company…

I am thinking of my painful fate to be here and to have to listen to all this verbiage and I wish I could be in wonderland or mowing my grass, or even sleeping in my car…

He comes closer to me, and with tearing eyes he adds:

-       But I know we are in the right direction, our product is now at the top of the industry, we recently…

And he starts a new diatribe about all the incredible strength he has to use everyday to convince a sleeping board of directors.

I nod and whisper from time to time: “Yes, yes”… the clown smiles.

The wine, the beer, the coke arrive. I take a sip of the wine, refrain myself to cough, I look at the leader and say: “MMMMMMM”

The clown stops smiling, looks at my glass, at my face and says:

-       This wine looks delicious; I think I will have a glass of it too.

The leader gives him a murderous look and does not touch his beer. The clown does not order a glass of this delicious Chardonnay from Poughkeepsie…

We all smile at each other…We get up and go to the huge buffet and fill our plates with an enormous amount of different food, mixing chicken and fish and vegetables, fried food and steamed food and sweet and sour and mustard and soy sauce since everything has the same taste it is not a real problem,  we sit and swallow and get up again and go back and forth… we eat without exchanging one word ten pounds of “gourmet” Chinese food of all kind, punctuating our chewing with moans of satisfaction in order to show how much we appreciate this fine cuisine…

The clown smiles between each bite, the leader does not touch his beer and look at my glass of wine with obvious anguish, praying in silence for me not to drink too fast and then order another glass.

After more than an hour of stuffing our face, we look at each other and breathe heavily; nobody really burps but only mentally, so we know we are full…

Finally the bill arrives, the clown smiles, the leader becomes green, probably noticing the price of the unique glass of Chardonnay I drank, but he does not mention anything, after all he has class…

He presents his coupon with obvious apprehension not to have his 20% deal, the waitress takes it, looks at it, turns it, the suspense is now unbearable, she finally carries it with the company credit card that he had given, he relaxes and looks at me with happiness and pride, he is protecting the budget of the company, he just saved $25.

After a few minutes of talking about the last movie that none of us has seen and commenting on the acting and the cinematography, we get up, we leave the restaurant, we are in the street, we shake hands, we say goodbye, see you tomorrow, I say “thank you for a great evening” and I walk back to my luxurious hotel room of the magnificent hotel called “The Vagabond”.

I am in my room torn between two desires: The desire to throw up and the desire to burst into laughter…I do neither, I watch TV… a cooking channel about Chinese food.

I wake up the following morning with no Gout attack and I am ready for another day of intense creativity in rehearsals, after all I have been hired and will be paid to defend and protect the great “product” of this company.

And that is the life we have chosen, because we love what we do. We spend most of our time alone in hotel rooms, going to rehearsals for a few hours a day… Talking on the phone and texting people we don’t necessarily like or appreciate just to kill time and loneliness, because we love what we do. Rarely one of us makes it to the top, and the others go on, because they love what they do.

Does an artist have to love what he does?

Did Van Gogh love to paint? Did Mozart love to compose? Did all writers love to write?

Are these few rare moments of love and real joy in rehearsals enough to justify all the silly dinners and the loneliness?

YOUR CALL !!!!!

Lets just try to spend more time learning from the others, not rush out of rehearsals when our scene is over, but observe our colleagues, learn from their mistakes, learn from their successful attempts to create, and try to spend the minimum time in silly dinners or silly occupations…

Time and life go too fast, knowledge sometimes goes under our nose and we do not even notice it, too overwhelmed by our own self-appreciation of our talent. We can learn from almost everybody and we do not, too often we believe we are above, we know more, we have the secret.