There I am.: Haunted By Angels.

All week I've been saying to myself, "Five weeks left." Then I would think, "Five leaves left." Nick Drake's first album from 1968. The music and the thought of the music makes me calm and a little sad. But, it is a good sad.

We have 2 shows tomorrow and 2 on Sunday. I haven't done an 8 show week in over 5 years. I have 2 understudy rehearsals a week. I haven't done that since ANGELS on Broadway, 1993! But it is all better than good.

Speaking of ANGELS (Angels in America, by Tony Kushner), I was recently approached through several round-about means, by a student doing her dissertation on ANGELS... She wants to talk to me about the relationship between George Wolfe and Tony and the creation of the stunning achievement that is ANGELS. I've ignored her for as long as I could. (She's contacted the Intiman, she's contacted my friends... persistant!) She will interview me the first week of August.

In my defense, I've been busy and I've talked to a number of students over the years about ANGELS, been recorded and included in school papers; I've done a web-cast, and, I know all of it is important.

Historic, really. ANGELS is now far in the past for me. I love that I'm so connected with the play, but theatre is alive and moves forward. I've done the same. I'll quote Tony, from Harper's last speech in

ANGELS, "In this world there is a kind of painful progress. Longing for what we've left behind and dreaming ahead." (Or... perhaps more apropos, a line from Prior Walter's final speech in Perestroika, "... and we are not going away.")

Tonight one of my long lost friends from high school came to the show with her husband, her (grown-up) son and her son's girlfriend. I'm not sure I've seen her in 30 years. I saw her after the show tonight with her beautiful family. Both women were still weeping when I got to them. RUINED is that affecting. Thank-goodness for facebook, and the fact that my friend and I had both posted recent photos of ourselves! She saw me and said, "There she is!" We hugged. It was (good) weird. We'd lost each other for so long. She'd not realized I'd done so much theatre. (She'd read my bio in the program.) ... She was so impressed I'd done ANGELS. She said she'd had no idea. ANGELS, again, haunting me.

I'm not complaining. I'm really not. I was 39 then. I've done so much since, much of it worthy of discussion and examination. Yet, ANGELS haunts me.

I told my husband at the time, 1993-94, "I'm so honored and happy I'm doing this, but I want it to be in the past. I want to remember it and look back." I was wishing away my life. The play was that hard. Ask anyone, anywhere, who has done ANGELS. SO Hard. I feel we are all part of a very select club. RUINED is equally difficult in similar ways. And yet, RUINED is, in its way, far more horrifying. RUINED is happening now. Both stories are true. One is of the present.

De dil lee.

I was so happy to see my friend tonight, and her comment about ANGELS brought out this blog.

What I'd really planned to share with you, dear readers, were a couple a three redundant pictures of Seattle!

The Sound... and a park!