kwaiyó the cast of Agamemnon woi dad

I've worn Agamemnon's blood three times -- made of cocoa, it was, quite tasty when it ran across my lips -- and the play is over. I love the way a play accumulates. We had enough time for this one, and enough energy was put into it, and enough of Clytemnaestra's mother's sewing skills. It's highly satisfying improving my own performance as I go, but watching everyone else improve is that satisfaction multiplied by the number of cast members. Sostratos the elder progressed out of stiltedness into fluidity and then into the real emotions of having this king whose childhood he remembers come home, and not being able to believe that things will be alright, and not knowing why. Clytemnaestra got better and better until a couple of weeks before performances, when she became slightly stilted in an over-rehearsed sort of way, and retained that quality until the last night, when she was better than she'd ever been.

Three nights, no major difficulties, which may be a VATS record. (The theatre wasn't even double booked, despite a booking system either designed or operated by demons of the Crowley sort). Each night was different; on each night a different moment was the best it had ever been. (The most noticeable line fumble we had was the sentry at the start saying, "I will tell the wife of Clytemnaestra! I will rouse her from the house!" which intriguing alternate play we were sadly unable to improvise in response.

I have been reading Always Coming Home, which I may write more about -- but one of the many, many telling details which add up in that book to a description of a society where people think differently about aspects of the world ranging from the uses of acorns to the shape of time, is that the people of the book divide the concept of love between six words or phrases. One of the six refers to a warm regard either brief or just beginning, the same feeling as close friendship but without the duration. I found running into that term useful for describing my feelings about the cast to myself, for the warmth I feel towards them all which, lacking time to make eleven new close friends, can't achieve other expression than in the group and in the play itself. (Although last night we proved false somebody's prediction that we'd never all be in the same room again; proved it till the early hours of the morning, which is why the space between my eyes feels stuffed with cotton wool and yet I am happy).

And I have a new story idea involving wizards and eight incompatible timelines, because I had a project about seals to finish. In similar spirit, I have signed up to audition for the Summer Shakespeare.