I’m trying to think of my favourite view. A mirror is a beautiful window of the soul. Looking straight into my own eyes is an exhilarating and sometimes horrifying journey.
But the place I feel most magically full of potential is in an old theatre. I love that quiet time before the audience is in or it’s really late at night and the orchestra has gone home. It’s an empty auditorium and you sit there and look up at the beautiful stage. I love that.
Yes, the theatre view is my favourite. Standing on stage. Looking at something where you can feel the history. When you can feel the ghosts of the people who’ve been before you and all the performances. How does it get remembered? Through the sweat of the costumes and the creaks of the floorboard. I love that theatres have the sweat of the hard work as well as the magic and I think about the interesting souls that have been in and out of those buildings. I love an old theatre.
I’m a stage creature. I love thinking, “Oh, I’m in the theatre where Sarah Bernhardt apparently hurt her knee and this is one way Marlene Dietrich walked in and immediately cleaned the dressing room.”
A part of me worries about the loss of those histories. I often joke on stage, “Come into the sacred space,” but I do feel it is a sacred space because of its transience. You have ecstatic experiences that stay in the minds of the people who see it. But it’s not recorded in that way of film or a book. It is absolutely this magic frisson. I really love that feeling. It feels both safe and dangerous. It’s not that I’m driven to be dangerous. I just follow my instincts. And sometimes they lead me to precarious places.