The act of watching a performance somehow changes when you know the performers.  Even if you know just one of them.  Or maybe even if you’re only kinda familiar with one person’s real life out in the real world.

Assuming you like those people, you almost can’t help but root for their ordinary, out-of-character self as they’re up on that stage.  We want you to do well.  We want you to succeed.  Go, little engine, go.

It must be a phenomenon that all directors understand.  After mixing it up for several weeks with a cast, it would be almost impossible to sit back and give the show a neutral, impartial viewing.  By the time you’re invested, you want to see your actors and musicians use their talents to their fullest.  And stop doing whatever annoying quirks they’ve picked up during the last few days of rehearsals.  Of course, you want an audience to love ‘em as much as you do.

There’s something similar going on when I paint.  I get so focused on the details that it’s virtually impossible to back up and experience it like someone else seeing it for the first time.  What I try to do is to put my “finished” canvas in a new spot somewhere and hope that, when I wake up one morning, I’ll walk out and it’ll catch me completely by surprise.  For this trick to work, it’s got to hit the “experience everything the first time” part of my brain before it gets to the “hey, I painted that” part.  In the middle of the artistic process, I’m always imperfectly flipping back and forth between these two brainparts.  I wonder if actors can do this too – alternating between the fun of singing and the awareness of an audience.

Which is, maybe, why it’s dangerous to become too enamored of any piece of one’s own art.  When I’m too enthusiastic about something, I can’t stay fair about checking for fixable mistakes.  Or for a critical director to get too close to the actors.  When you know the cast, it’s much more difficult to watch a performance with neutral eyes.

Of course, you lose something by maintaining your cool.  If you had a crush on an actress (or one of your own paintings), then you really wouldn’t care about staying neutral, would you?  You’d get to watch her the whole time and beam.  That’s my baby.  And she’s singin’.  Ain’t she great?!?  Isn’t this fun?!?  Having that kind of enthusiasm might be priceless.

After being back in Birmingham for a while, it’s fun when I get to go to shows like the Levite Jewish Community Center’s production of The Spitfire Grill and discover performers that I’ve met in other ways.  Although I probably wasn’t the ideal target audience for this particular musical – I kept wanting zombies to come out of the woods and for the actors to make appropriate use of the prominent axe, knife, and gun – my lasting impression is that each of the six main characters all fully capitalized on at least one chance to truly excel.  I’m not sure I’ve ever seen another play where my choice of “favorite” performers shifted so fluidly and changed so many times.  It’s a compliment to the director – David R. Garrett – and the primary cast – Susan Cook, Stephen A. Fister, Julia Hixson, J. Heath Mixon, Holly Dikeman, and Rachel VanNortwick – that every horse nosed into first at least once during the show.  It’s not as hard to entertain people when your characters are likeable.

If I had a gripe, it would be more generalized than just this production.  Yes, I’m sometimes accused of being a Luddite, but I don’t want the internet in my pocket, I distrust gadgetry, and I’m often deeply suspicious of the “progress” of technology.  Long story short, I’m not sure why there’s any need to include electronic amplification in most theatre.  Just because the BJCC uses it doesn’t mean it’s appropriate for smaller venues.  What happened to actors just singing out and speaking loud?  Technical embellishments too often distract visually and otherwise from a performance.  My suggestion is that, if you’re going to use microphones and add a layer of difficulty, they better work seamlessly.  Otherwise, I don’t understand why actors can’t just play and sing to the back row.

Thanks very much to David R. Garrett, Mindy Cohen, and the Levite Jewish Community Center for orchestrating an entertaining show.