During the shows was another matter though. I don't think we'll ever do more plays when Lynn is still at work. She was exhausted spending all day writing jokes for her brother's voice and then performing at night. The adrenalin produced during the performance doesn't dissipate easy and so sleep can be tricky.
Our youngest also was finding sleep difficult. He decided that he didn't like that we were out and so refused to sleep till we got home. He was up till 11:30pm for all three nights and his face turned a kind of grey color with the fatigue. Being that tired really messed him up. He was pretty much always in a good mood when we got home, though he appeared to be trashed; all staggering, uncoordinated and slurring his speech. He was even just as uncooperative, but easily fooled, as a drunk...and so each night I tricked him into his bed.
Sunday was our first day without any visitors, or work, or shows to prepare for. We all went to bed early on Saturday night and so when our younger dictator awoke at 6am, we grabbed the opportunity and headed for the beach. We could not have had a better time and had a timely reminder of how wonderful this place can be. I think we need to go to the beach more, hike more and most importantly sleep more.
So for our www.OneHourTheater.com projects we're firmly in the "never again" school of thought! And so we're now preparing for the next run of Heart & Sole in February.... I know, we're gluttons for punishment but somehow each time we learn more, we can't help but set a new goal...
Great family photo! Frame that on the mantlepiece. Also enjoyed trying to reverse engineer how it was taken.... (Twister, anyone? ;-) )
ReplyDeleteThe great thing about your posts, Mark, is they're always relateable, but I got a special kick out of the timing of this one. I'm in the middle of one of those work/art burn-the-candle-at-all-3-ends marathons myself, with some upcoming deadlines for my new project. I know that performance-adrenaline-sleep problem, but in this case the problem is its cousins, working-on-an-interesting-problem-insomnia and lots-to-do-by-the-deadline-but-i'm-on-a-roll-insomnia. Long art-bender Monday night. Tuesday morning, I was sure I had hit sleep-deprivation rock bottom and was trying to put myself through Never Again psychoanalysis. How could I be in this situation after all my previous Never Agains? Don't I ever learn?
Think I figured out that I don't seem to repeat the same mistakes. But I'm always finding new mistakes to make, which, in retrospect, I should have known better than to make. But I also know I'm not the first artist to say, "If I'd known what I was getting into I would never have done this project." So I suspect this is a necessary condition.
I think you've stumbled onto another insight in your post. Maybe all those Never Agains leave us a little punch drunk, and so we're easily deceived into the next Never Again.
Perfect prescription
ReplyDeleteOne day at the beach PRN.
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