Why aren't I sick and depressed???
Maybe growing up affects my approach to creative work
The post-production crash has always been a thing. I’ve gotten sick after nearly every performance I’ve been involved with. Part of this was due to the communal nature of the art form - you can hardly shut a quorum of people into an enclosed space for hours a day, days at a time, without it becoming a room-sized petri dish. On top of that, the storm and stress of getting something done in constrained circumstances - inevitably paired with less sleep and worse eating (bolstered in my younger days by much more drink and smoke) - opened my doors even wider to the parade of pestilence marching through the group.
And that’s only the physical aspect. Emotionally, the collapse could be even more severe. After grinding away at a big project for months at a stretch, I was suddenly dropped back into the frightful desolation known as the “real world.” The guiding principle of my days and nights had vanished - who was I now? What was my purpose? Even living with my primary collaborator, life would suddenly feel very lonely, as everyone I spent my nights with diverged along their own tracks, which at least temporarily pointed away from me. Sure, some relief and relaxation might be mixed in, but the overwhelming sensation was a dull, pervasive gray.
As diligent readers of The Jeff Stream are aware, last Saturday was my return to the stage after more than a decade of resisting its siren call. I’m happy to report that, as of Wednesday morning, none of these things have happened to me! But this is reflective of a very 2023 set of circumstances.
Some of this is the product of middle age. As I’ve written before, this project was intentionally conceived to be low-key and low-stakes. This isn’t to say that it didn’t take a lot of effort - anyone who was able to see Saturday’s performance could see exactly how much passion and hard work my costar and muse Bob Laine threw into every moment he spent on stage. It’s not exaggeration or flattery to say this show wouldn’t have been possible without him - it was literally built upon his imagination and collaborative spirit. But that speaks to an important lesson that informed this show from the start: If you choose your collaborators wisely, working with them will GIVE you energy rather than taking it away.
Limiting the number of variables in the show also allowed it to be more angst-free than any show I’ve ever done. We started working on this back in February, and, while I don’t want EVERY project to take eight months from conception to fruition, confining it to just three of us (me, Bob, and Hope as our director) allowed us to really ease into the process at our own pace. When unexpected obstacles arose, it was not difficult to postpone the show for a few weeks. And within the show itself, reducing the physical complexity of the production allowed us to go deeper and weirder in terms of what we were trying to do. The long gestation and intimate approach gave us the space to focus on what was most important and detect what was inessential in order to leave it behind. Not overextending ourselves - what a weird sensation! (This is also an excellent place to shout out Michael Gardner and his generosity in offering us use of his Crawlspace, which was the perfect, easy-peasy venue for a project like this.)
Probably the most 2023 aspect of my post-show experience was unrelated to the show itself, but it still revolved around prioritizing my health. At noon the next day, my whole family got our COVID boosters and flu shots. As usual, I was completely flattened by the vaccine, and I spent about 24 hours utterly useless in bed. Maybe this experience absorbed the effects of any standard immunity crash and encapsulated them into a neat little package rather than drawing them out over many days. I had some really weird dreams, too, and perhaps this helped me process things emotionally. (In one of them, I had to regularly spit out the fake teeth that were proliferating in my mouth, while my real teeth grew increasingly weak and loose. In another, Quentin Tarantino made an extremely boring movie about sports.) Don’t mess around, folks - get yer jabs today!
As far as my feelings about the show go, I’ll say that, while the low wasn’t as low as it’s been in the past, the high also wasn’t as high. The response in the room was very warm, and we received a lot of great feedback. But I wasn’t as elated as I’ve been in the past.
Some of that is a reflection of the process - a less intense buildup will result in a less intense release. But I also don’t seem to crave and seek that outside gratification in the same way I used to. I LIKE it, to be sure, but it ultimately doesn’t feel like the point anymore. I’ve given up any illusions of turning this activity into a “career” or a “success story,” so I’m not always on the hunt for what other people can offer me. With this show, for the first time since I was a kid - before I had real ambitions, when I did stuff mostly to entertain myself - the work was its own reward. It’s taken about 30 years to get back to that feeling. I’m sure it won’t last, but I intend to enjoy it while I can.
With that in mind, The Nerve will continue. Bob and I are planning to do at least one more performance here in NYC, maybe more (which is a reason I haven’t gone into much detail yet about the show itself - I hope more people will get to have the experience of seeing it firsthand). Beyond that, The Nerve was also developed as a template, one that I hope to employ with other collaborators in the future, with widely varying results. I look forward to talking more about that a bit down the line. If all goes well, this is the beginning of something, not the end. No crash required!