LJ: A couple of things...

First, one note that I forgot to mention about the outside world in my review of 2002: The one-year anniversary of 9/11 came and went with quite a bit of to-do. For a small period in the spring and early summer, things started feeling normal again. Then sometime in August, everyone started talking about it again, where they were, that sort of thing, just sharing our own perspectives of this massively shared experience. All of that lead up to 9/11/02. I listened to Howard Stern that morning, because he was replaying his show from a year previous at the same time of day that it was broadcast a year earlier. Sitting in my car (on my shortened commute, since 8/1), then pacing around in the shop, listening to them watch the TV as news of the Pentagon crash broke, then the towers falling ("Oh my God, they're both gone.")... it was all so immediate. I was there again. I was standing outside the health club of that hotel watching the TV and the people walking by, and I broke down again, because that day just hurt so much.

That year hurt so much.

But after we got past 9/11/02, and maybe 9/12/02, everyone sort of let it go. After a solid year of memorializing, and letting go, and hating, and remembering, and trying to get on with our lives, we went back on 9/11 this year, took the time to say goodbye to everything about that day (easier said for me, since I lost no loved ones that day), and relegated the events to history.
And it seems like a long time ago sometimes.

But sometimes, like during Kathleen Ackerley's monologue in Anger Box, and Goode's describing watching the second plane arc into the South Tower, we're right back there again, and it just seems like it all happened yesterday. Ian and I were talking about that monologue, how well it was written and all that, and as he was talking about the drawbacks of doing a full production of it in a year, he was concerned about how relevant that monologue would be. I said, "Remember, though, that all that happened almost a year and a half ago, and the piece was still very powerful." He agreed and said, "That's like our Pearl Harbor." He's right, he and everyone else who has called 9/11 this generation's Pearl Harbor. The World Trade Center is no longer simply a place that was and will be again. The words "World Trade Center" will always conjure images from that day for those of us who lived through it, whatever those images are - for me, it's that image of driving past the Pentagon that afternoon.

But after 9/11/02, the constant reminders kind of faded away, and somewhat quickly at that. We had a little help moving on from the snipers, and then this continual beating of the war drums by Bush II? both of these things have, in some perverse way, helped the 9/11 recovery process from emotional and sociological points of view. But I also think there's little chance that we will ever completely leave it behind, especially after the surprisingly strong reaction I and everyone else apparently had to Kathleen's monologue.

Speaking of Anger Box, it happened. It took 2,147 days, but I finally got back on stage in front of a paying audience. I went first, so that alleviated a great deal of my trepidation. I went first, got it out of the way, did a passable job according to most (surprising some, apparently), was thanked by Ian for not sucking, and hopefully sated whatever want there was for folks to see me on stage. It's not that I didn't enjoy it - actually it was fun. I enjoyed feeling all those things I felt as I was getting ready over the past few weeks, enjoyed realizing that I remembered a lot of stuff from Mary Jo & SU, even enjoyed the humbling feeling produced when I realized I have a slew of bad-actor habits - things I've seen Ian hate or things that I personally dislike in performances I've seen down here - and didn't have the time to break myself of them before the show.

The show as a whole went over far better than Ian suspected it would; 105 tickets sold, about 120 total in attendance - an over-sold-out crowd for Warehouse. Because of that, and of the positive comments the show garnered, it's almost a surefire bet that he'll be mounting a full production of the thing for next season. (I'm sure it's also a surefire bet that I will not be in it, something that causes a little bit of jealousy - I mean, that was my monologue, and now someone else is going to get their slobbery actor mitts all up in it. I'm being 95% facetious about that, but a small part of that is genuinely how I feel.)

Once the whole thing was over with, sometime this past weekend Ian allowed as how he was quite nervous about how my performance was going to be. After all, he'd not auditioned me at all, just sort of offered it. Once we got through the first read, though, he was not concerned at all. He sees that I have several habits that I'd need to get out of, and he did somewhat agree with Stefan Aleksander when Stefan said, "I hope this isn't the last time we see you on the stage." I do enjoy the positive feedback more from performance than that which I get for the SM stuff I do - not sure why, but I'm sure it has something to do with the level of investment I have in a performance - it's a far more emotional thing, that act of creation stuff, than pressing buttons and moving sliders is. I can remember how I felt when people would come up to me after Accidental - and this sort of feels the same way. I wish I could remember all of the people who said something to the effect of them being pleasantly surprised by my performance? folks whose opinions I do hold in some regard. Among the people I remember complimenting me were Bridget O'Leary and Chris Griffin, along with several of the other cast members (especially Barbra Catrett and Glee Murray). I'm not planning on changing my mind about getting on stage regularly - I still don't like the thought of going through all the asinine things actors have to go through, especially auditioning. But it's nice to know that people were appreciative of the modicum of talent I still have.