Running a small theater company these days (maybe all days since the days of The Globe, if Shakespeare In Love is to be believed, and I believe everything about that film, including the now-quaint notion that Gwyneth Paltrow was once delightful) is akin to wondering why one is at a certain age still single.
Being perpetually without a mate, it's an incessant question-answer session with your therapist brain. You look good. You work out. You have a decent career. You have loads of friends, and interests, and a great dog you walk to the park dutifully every Saturday morning hoping to find yourself in a meet-cute situation that will inevitably lead to rom-com hijinks and a triumphant traipse down the aisle. You are open to encounters with your preferred sex, be it online or on the karaoke circuit or as the obligatory non-plus-une at a wedding or in line at the grocery. You read advice columns in the glossy magazines at the doctor's office, you take advice from well-meaning friends, family, and casual acquaintances, you advise yourself late at night with book and beer in hand--all the while wondering, how is it is that you, whose dance card is always full, whom everyone and their mother insists you are good and smart and funny and handsome and talented and nurturing and just an all-around Goop-style catch sans the snobbery, remain consciously uncoupled?
Being perpetually without full houses during a run, it's an incessant back-and-forth conversation with everyone. You put on a good show. You cast people with talent to light up the stage, and more talented folk to aim those lights. You have 20 years of experience perfecting what makes your productions stand out in a crowd. You have built up an audience, you vary your content to suit all kinds, you tirelessly pursue rights for the next-big regional thing that will catapult your troupe into a happily-ever-after of sold-out houses and supersized donations and a company that isn't just about numbers but about living the good theatrical life. You willingly embrace new works and old chestnuts, deconstructing them to breathe artistic life into great works. You educate yourself on similar models, you study and learn from colleagues and patrons and supporters, you explore at cast parties and in front of the laptop post-run, you post and you hashtag and you chat it up at every opportunity--all the while musing, how is it that your company, which works its collective fanny off to engage, contribute, and discover, which everyone buzzes about season after season as being fun and interesting and hard-working and respected, why is this particular production not being enjoyed by the masses?
You have had good relationships with lovers and audiences alike. Like Gwynnie you have garnered high praise and broken hearts and lost your own, you have put your foot in your mouth and you have staged just the right comeback, you have reinvented yourself to suit yourself and then to suit someone elses, you have come out on top in terms of running the show on your own terms, critics be damned. It feels good to age into yourself, to be good in your own glowing skin, to enjoy your own company and your carefully collected best mates from over the years, to be honest about the work it takes to have this body and this body of work. But the hook is this: that niggling ticking following you everywhere you go in your own home, annoyed and confused and ultimately hapless in your efforts to find that sweet spot of success. The sliding doors of choices made, the what ifs, the unapologetic stance yet behind-the-facade worry over is this the right thing, was that the wrong decision, when can you just sit back for one night (or nine) and exhale in the glee that comes with hard-won success in life and in art?
Maybe it's the vegan-unfriendly references to meatloaf stroganoff. Who the hell knows.
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