the timboucher experience

Did some reading today about superstitions related to theatre. Somebody asked me if I believe in them. I said it wasn’t so much a matter of believing in them, as that they were practices. Things that were traditionally done. Simply because that’s how it’s supposed to go. I’ve heard people talk about Judaism in that way, actually. That its the customs and the rituals which convey a sense of identity. That you don’t even have to believe in God to be a good Jew. That sort of approach to life is making more sense to me these days. That what you strive for or against internally may not make as much of a difference in the end as what you actually do, what your practice is.

I was “riding” (ie, falling from) my unicycle the other day. Somebody said to me, “Are you practicing?” I nodded. They meant riding the unicycle, but I meant it in the other sense, the religious sense. Spiritual discipline. That’s what the unicycle has become for me in an extremely concrete way. Finding your center of balance, falling gracefully, maintaining the machine which supports you, experiencing moments of sheer frustration followed immediately by exhiliration and success. I figure somewhere down the road it gets easier, you learn how to ride. For now, I enjoy the sweat and struggle.

When the girls set up our prop table for the first show of the season, they used brown butcher paper and then used a marker to draw lines around each prop and named it. This made me unhappy, so I set about putting together the next one. We painted the table tops black, and then used white artist’s tape to outline where each object should go. Then, in all caps, you write the name of the prop which “lives” in that particular box.

“Why are you doing it that way?” one of the girls asked me.

“That’s how I’ve always seen it done,” was my response.

I was able to cook up a few rational reasons for it afterwards: high contrast in the dark between black and white makes things easier to see, all caps are high impact, easier to read quickly. But the “how it’s always done” part, the tradition is almost just as important. For that’s what theatre really is, is a continuing set of practices derived to produce specific results. Some things work, some things don’t. Some work better than others, and some rules are best thrown out the window. Safety rules to me, are sacrosanct. They are priority number one, because if safety fails, all other progress towards the Great Work fails immediately.

The ghost light is both a practical and spooky superstition, as the name implies. Traditionally, theatres at night will put a 1000 watt bulb on a stand downstage (closest to the audience) in the center. It’s closest to the edge of the stage, closest to the orchestra pit and obviously prevents people walking through or across at night from making a misstep at night and possibly injuring themselves or dying. Stops them from becoming ghosts. But it’s also said that the ghost light exists so that the ghosts themselves – theatre ghosts have their own special categories and rules, it seems – can see in the dark. Or so that they can put on their own shows late night when no one is around. Theatres, traditionally, are also “dark” at least one night a week – usually Monday. This simply means that there is no show that night. Lore states the reason as being so the ghosts can use the theatre that night to host their own performances. Ghosts of actors doing shows they’ve done over and over again, coming back for one final moment in the limelight (lime, it was discovered, burns a brilliant white, hence the term’s use in theatre). Which reminds me of paranormal research I’ve done on the types of hauntings: one type being a kind of imprint left by an event in time. Like a historic battle. People will sometimes see soldiers in twilight marching across a line of trees at battlefields like Gettysburg. Or a murder or trauma will cause such a discharge of psychic energy that it leaves a mark, a stain on a place which becomes like a broken record, and continually recurs. No wonder theatres are haunted.

Also on the morbid side, it’s considered good luck traditionally to give the director or the leading lady after closing night a bouquet of flowers stolen from a graveyard (though, never give flowers before a performance – bad luck! Real flowers are also never used onstage, according to superstitious tradition). The rational explanation being that actors are poor, and freshly-dug graves a ready source of free flora. But is there something else hidden behind such a tradition? Some forgotten, but still felt connection between the theatre and the spirit world? Actors could be considered in some sense shamans crossing between the worlds, bring audiences with them, acting out catharsis for the collective, taking the pains of the whole upon themselves for the purposes of transmutation, transfiguration. That graveyard flowers are given on closing night, I suppose, would also simply symbolize the death of the show, that it’s all over – the fat lady has finally sung – and ought to be put to rest, so new life can grow.

Yellow and green are said to be unlucky for historical reasons. In medieval morality plays, a green vest or a yellow tie might indicate that a character was actually the devil in disguise. In hearing such things, it occurs to me that if I am to write a first-person historical account of the roots of performance traditions, I will need to travel to those places where the history actually occurred. In order to get the level of detail and emotional context I desire, in order to find the spirit of the place. My santero told me years ago, as part of my original Dilogun consultation with him, that I would have to cross the ocean in order to find my true home. I’m thinking Europe generically would be the place to start, France, Britain and Italy to be more specific. Though I’ve taken a special fondness for the Portuguese culture that lingers on the edges of waspy Falmouth, Massachusetts.

Peacock feathers onstage are said to be capable of destroying entire productions. No one really knows why. I suspect Ma’at may be the cause, or similar. Some ancient Babylonion or Sumerian goddess whose wisdom and magic lies hidden in the bird, and whose rites required certain sacrifices before an altar which, if not made, or if made improperly or thoughtlessly would result in catastrophe. That’s just a guess though. Some things I will need to dig deeper in order to find the answers to. Some of these things will never be explained, but it will be in the process of discovery that more important things will reveal themselves.

You’re not ever supposed to complete a performance without some kind of audience in attendance. So if you’re rehearsing, it is customary to leave out the last line or lines of a play. Likewise, small audiences are typically invited to attend a dress rehearsal. This, to me, hearkens back to the mystique surrounding the stage door. The backstage area is ground zero for the accumulation of what’s most easily described as the “magical power” used in a stage performance. If you keep the side door open while outsiders are milling around, you risk tainting the aura, or having all the precious manna dribbling out, waning like the Full Moon emptying itself. To enact a full performance, in essence is to enact a ritual. Whether or not it is specifically religious, the psychological and perhaps spiritual import of it is the same. Catharsis was the end goal of Greek theatre, the release of pent-up energies in a collective setting upon the altar of a fixed social context with a specific moral lesson. So to run through a show without an audience is to miss essentially the key purpose of drama and stagecraft.

Though I’ve read that Dionysus is the patron deity of theatre – which makes sense, considering the wine and debauchery that actors tend to engage in – I also discovered today an interesting story about one of two patron Catholic saints of theatre, the one in question being St. Genesius, the other being St. Vitus. Evidently, Genesius was a comedian who converted to Christianity. The story goes that he was performing a farce baptism onstage, was struck with a revelation during the performance and refused to continue. As a result, he was tortured, torn with hooks, beheaded and burned onstage. The Romans, it seems, had very specific theatrical tastes. Anything for a laugh, I guess.

• Small Town Theatre Restoration Project
• Cemetery Superstitions
• The religion of art
• Consumerist Theatre
• Spiritus - Psychic Theatre