Lately, especially.
There is a lyric in a song I've been listening to everyday for nearly two weeks.
"These days my hands are tied. These days I think you'll find I'm not me now, the light has died. It's too real to run and hide."
And those lyrics have never been truer.
At this very moment, 8:07 in the AM, Sunday, July 21st I am sitting here writing a blog. What I should be doing?
Sleeping. For the last two nights I've played one of the most difficult characters I've wrestled with in my entire acting career. Not only is it physically demanding, what with the awesome, intense fight scenes, but this show is so emotionally jarring. So heavy. So intense and dark, the emotional and mental tole themselves should be enough to lay me out, minus any combat choreography.
So, why or how am I awake, typing this blog?
As I lay in my bed, thinking it over, it suddenly dawned on me...like those first few drops of water that hit your face when you get in the shower. At this point I'd like to warn any unfortunate reader that we'll be making an extended stop in 'Michael's Head' from here on in. Why am I awake? It's Macbeth. No no no, not the show itself. The character. The actual character.
At this point it's worth mentioning that I'm a very 'real' actor. When I'm out on stage, in costume, under the lights, in the moment...it's real. The character is real. The audience is irrelevant, save from some auto-pilot notions of where I should be facing when. I give the character life in every facet of the word.
Somehow, after every show I've managed to stave off the utter exhaustion to a point because in the back of my mind I knew 'hey, we have to get up and do this tomorrow as well, so stiff upper lip, whits about you, what ho!'...but today...oh no no no...not today. And some way or another..Macbeth knows that. Today it's as real as it can be, because tomorrow, for all intents and purposes, Macbeth is truly dead.
I am truly lacking the season of all natures. It's distressing, tiring, but in a way, fitting and justified. I don't feel the show will suffer for it. I do feel that with this performance...everything is going to come out...it will all come down...and I'm dreading the wreck that I will be after the final blackout.
It's an odd circumstance. In and of itself, for sure, but also in that I chose this. I chose this lifestyle. To audition for the show. I chose to accept this role and take it this far in. Some other actors may scoff, or look down on me for such treatment of a roll, and that's okay. This is what works for me.
And come on...how often does a guy get to play the Mad King.
