some final reflections on the Fire on Earth production
Over on the Fresh Ink blog, I’ve got a post up about my final thoughts on the fantastic production they put together of Fire on Earth.
Here’s the start of it:
It’s been almost two weeks since Fire on Earth closed, and I suppose I’ve recovered from the inevitable slump that follows being in rehearsal for weeks on end and then obsessively attending performances and watching the audience. (And mourning the loss of two shows to Blizzard Nemo. Curses!)
As a playwright, I’m especially interested in the role of audience as the final collaborator in any production, and especially in a world premiere. Everything we do in rehearsal has an air of the theoretical. We can have fun (and believe me, this group of five actors was a lot of fun to be around), and we can experience moments of great intensity, but we have no idea what it adds up to until we’re in front of an audience. It’s only then that the play and performances begin to breathe and fully grow. Every night, the audience was a little different, and thus so was the performance. As the run moved forward, the audience pushed the performances, and the actors developed and led the audiences further into the play. As a writer, part of my job, looking forward to future revisions and productions, is to try to understand, based on the different audiences (I saw the show six times), what this play that we’ve created really is, and how can I keep on shaping it into what it should be.