Matinee

Sunday was the matinee. I hate matinees.

I should point out that I think it’s a very good idea to have matinees, and that in fact I think we should probably do more than one. There are people who (for one reason or another) can’t get to the evening shows, and part of the point of community theater is for the community. You know? And then there’s the part of the community that lives in a different state and doesn’t want to drive three hours home in the middle of the night. OK, not so much the community, but still.

The problem is that the matinee throws off our entire rhythm. First there’s the call, which is, let’s say, an hour before curtain. Curtain is usually at eight, so call is for seven, and people start arriving around six-thirty or so. It’s how we set up our day. We finish our afternoon stuff (on Friday, that’s generally our day jobs), those of us who eat before the show eat our dinners and those of us who don’t eat whatever we do to sustain ourselves, and we head for the playhouse. For the matinee, though, curtain is at two, call is for one, and we’re all messed up. There’s too much time in the morning to not do anything, but there’s not enough time to make a day of anything. We arrive at the playhouse just after noon, and wander like lost souls. There’s too much light. We can’t really believe there’s a show in the middle of the day, and can’t settle into it. We left this place only twelve or fourteen hours ago, and it looks different somehow, and worse.

We walk in out of the bright sunshine to put on our layers of woolen clothes, our hats and overcoats. In Pyggie, particularly, the opening scene is at eleven at night, in a cold rain; outside it’s eighty and sunny, and kids are throwing Frisbees. There’s an extra layer of unreality to it. We close the stage door to keep the sunshine out, and also because the matinee crowd, like the actors, have arrived early and are wandering around, their rhythm off as well.

Once the show starts, there’s an odd quality to the light, even though there logically shouldn’t be; there aren’t any windows to let in the sun. Still, we can feel it. And the audience is more restless in the middle of the day, less able to settle into their seats and be absorbed. Our rhythms up on stage are just a bit off, which sets them further off. We don’t lose our lines, but they come out a bit different, the words in a different order, the emphasis on a different word, the gesture at a different spot. Costumes, somehow, pick the matinee to open their seams or stick their zippers. Offstage, we are noisier. There’s more whispering in the wings, more chattering and cursing in the greenroom.

When the show is over (and for all my kvetching, it was a good show), we emerge into the daylight, blinking, and realize that there’s a good two hours before dinnertime, and then the evening after that. The combination of adrenaline and exhaustion that usually sustains us after a show—final curtain around ten-fifteen, washing and changing, chattering and drinking, people coming back behind and saying “Marvelous! Marvelous!” more chattering and drinking perhaps, and eating (with this group, much eating: fruit plates, veggie dip, cupcakes, brownies, doughnuts, pasta salad, cheese and crackers&#8230 someone brought an entire roasted chicken to Opening Night and we did a pretty good job of finishing it) and then off to our various homes to tumble into bed and sleep the sleep of the just for however many hours remain until morning—is now working against us as we contemplate the rest of the day.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.