The wings were dark, and at least somewhat quiet.

I was trying to escape from everyone and everything and settle into the deep alone-ness of my character in the moment before… she walked back into her world.

The music was too loud, it was unnerving me. I felt myself getting angry at it.  I was bugged because I felt the presence of other people, I didn’t want other people.

I climbed Madge’s ladder… the backstage way she gets into place for an upcoming scene – a very mundane tool to create theatre magic.  I stood on the narrow ledge and plastered myself against the black theatre wall.

I held my cheek against its coldness, my palms flat against its rough walls.

“Kevan, where are you? I need you!”

I have felt the presence of my friend, Kevan Klawitter, who died in March.. many many times as I have worked at the theatre. It was now that I really needed him and it was now that he didn’t appear.

“Please… please… Kevan. Please come out.”

Kevan once said my performance was flawless. I can’t even remember which one or what situation, I just remember him saying the word to me. “Flawless…” Is there a greater gift for an actor to receive than kudos from a beloved peer who is further along the path?

I looked up at the ceiling. I saw the dimmed lights flickering. I heard the voices of the audience, returning after intermission.  My time onstage was coming.

I lowered myself from the ladder and bent at my waist, resting my upper body on another platform.

I closed my eyes and saw my funeral. With no one there. Just the minister, sprinkling dirt.

No one will come, I thought. I am unworthy of anyone’s presence at my funeral.  I am unworthy of anything…. I will die utterly alone…..

I saw the pity on the minister’s face.

I saw my coffin, buried six feet beneath the surface of the hushed cemetery.

I pulled on my deepest aloneness, my darkest fears, my lonely spaces where I normally didn’t dare go.  My underbelly – the place where I am the most vulnerable, the place where some people may find it sport to take the knife and spin it around a bit.

I let myself feel the pain, my blood leaving my belly.

The lights dimmed. Time to walk out on stage and once again become Rosemary.

= + = + = + = + = + = +

"Picnic", written by William Inge and Directed by Barry Wolcott, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1953. It explores the hopes, fears, excitement and sorrow of following our dreams while we make choices that impact the ones we love. It is playing for two more weekends at Bakersfield Community Theatre. Make your reservations now by calling 831-8114.