LilyBlog 10/2/12 – Waiting Like Flowers…

The Lily’s Revenge opens on October 14th—only 12 days away!—and technical rehearsals are in full swing. This week has been filled with scene work, run-throughs, and some (quite literally) pants-splitting choreography. Here in Massachusetts, we’ve been having gray and rainy weather that has made many people close off into their jackets and beneath their umbrellas in the worst of ways. Admittedly, I’ve been guilty of that behavior myself but walking into rehearsal has been a joy: there’s so much energy!

Of course, being so close to opening, there’s some frantic energy flying around. Everyone wants to put on the best show possible for you and it would be a lie to say that that isn’t a daunting task (one that every show faces). Rehearsals are work and it’s easy to get bogged down into the small details and feel like there hasn’t been much progress. Whether you’re in theater or some other form of employment, we’ve all had that feeling.

While that feeling is awful, it brings a huge gift: after doing the same scenes so many times, we got to the run-through and saw the play. There’s a renewed energy now because this isn’t that same-old scene anymore: this play is greater than each individual in the room and is going to bring a unique experience to so many more people. This week, we’ve all been reminded of that and seen that all of those long hours have started to pay off.

A few days ago, I found a poem called “The Passage” by a Syrian poet called Adonis (born ‘Ali Ahmad Sa’id) from his 1994 book The Pages of Day and Night(translated by Samuel Hazo).  I won’t go into a full analysis of the poem, but I willsay that there’s more about this poem that reminds me of The Lily’s Revenge than meets the eye. Consider some of these lines when you see the show:

I sought to share

the life of snow

and fire.

But neither

snow nor fire

took me in.

So

I kept my peace

waiting like flowers,

staying like stones.

I love, I lost myself.

I broke away

and watched until

I swayed like a wave

between the life

I dreamed and the changing

dream I lived.

Source.

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