#16 Get More Sleep
Apr 27th, 2008 by doing better
This advice is directed at myself, this week.
It is hard getting through the day when I know I’ll be performing in the evening. I feel sick with dread from the moment I wake up. I feel tired, and I don’t want to do it.
As soon as I get to the theater, I get a burst of energy and nerves. I feel sick and take diarrhea medicine. I warm up my voice and rehearse my lines alone in an empty, subterranean hallway that stinks of damp. When it is almost time for my first scene, I climb the winding metal staircase to the wings and wait in silence, breathing deeply and pushing against the wall to calm myself. I drink water until my bladder is bursting, but still my throat dries up before I go onstage. I feel as if I am awaiting my execution. Why do I do this to myself?
When I step out into the lights, mostly I feel relief that finally I can get it over with. The first few lines I speak sound false, and I have the terrifying sensation that people are staring at me. Then I get involved in the scene, and the audience laughs, and I begin to take delight in the ridiculousness of the words and the character.
At the end of the first scene I storm offstage. I have enjoyed myself, and I wish I did not have to wait so long to go on again. After the intermission, I have another couple of good scenes, and then, when it is all over, I am exuberant with a job well done. I wish it was not the end of the day; I wish I could carry all this energy with me into a new day.
Although I am exhausted, I cannot fall asleep for many hours because I am so hyped up from the performance. My lines repeat themselves incessantly in my head. Although I fall asleep much later than usual, my brain wakes me irrevocably before seven, and I am even more exhausted than I was the day before. I feel irritated, and I don’t want to do it again.
Then I do it again, and am happy; then I wake up the next day, and am nervous. And so it goes.
I suppose it becomes normal for professional actors to have the important part of the day at the end, but I’m not used to saving up my energy for the night. It is a strange, backwards life. Audiences should be encouraged to go to the theater in the morning.