Green-Eyed Monster

‘Do you have anything lined up after this run is over?’ I ask one of the actors in Chekhov in Hell.

‘Well, I’ve got a couple of weeks off, then I start rehearsals for a show at Hampstead,’ she replies.

I’m amazed to feel a stab of outrage and jealousy. Another show? How is that possible? You’re MY actor. Does this mean so little to you? What, you just toss this aside like an old tissue?

It’s the weirdest feeling and completely unreasonable, obviously. Of course, it’s all about the intense promiscuity of theatre. We work together for short periods, shutting everything else out, it’s emotional, physical, sensual, we promise the world to each other, we meet in the evenings, we go to unusual places, confidences are exchanges over drinks, and then we move on. It’s like an affair. But actors are used to it. I don’t imagine they all feel the deep bluesy heaviness I feel the day after a show closes. It’s one of the uncanny things about actors. Their ability to access that well of feeling with sincerity and accuracy and then to leave it behind. I’m sure writers have an equivalent but damned if I can think what it is now.

I think the problem is seeing making theatre is falling in love. I need to think of it as just sex.