I have so much to do, I have entries to write, I have a script to read and write intelligent notes on, I have darkroom work to do, I have late birthday presents for my mother to get (that's not quit right, I think), I have plenty to do at the office, I have to start thinking about the French festival, not to mention all of the things that have been on my Things to Do pile for centuries, but I cannot do a goddamn thing until this play opens.

It is sucking out my energy and my soul and my life and leaving me with nothing but a dry husk. A dry husk that has no time to do anything. I work all day, I rehearse all night, I get home, feed the cats, try to clear a little space on my TiVo, go to sleep, and then start the whole thing over again. I certainly relate to these two comics!

I cannot think about anything that isn't the show, I cannot concentrate on anything that isn't the show, there is nothing non-show related in my worldview at this time, it's all Show and Not Show. Anything going on in the news, on TV, on the radio, or in any print medium, Not Show. My mother and anything she wants to relate to me, Not Show. The fact that Monty probably needs to get flea drops again, Not Show. The constant streams on baby ants in my sink, Not Show. Doing any kind of overtime at all so that I get a reasonable amount of money in my paycheck, Not Show.

Anything Not Show will be dealt with after Sunday. Or even after Friday night, because once Show opens, the director's work is done, but I have a feeling that Show will be like when nervous flyers feel that they must stare at the wing and will the plane to stay in the air--Show will need all of my energy and glaring eye-beams to stay in the air. Or rather, for Alex not to fuck up.

He's a kid, he's nine, I shouldn't be so hard on him in my head, but I was a child actor too, and I learned my lines and remembered my blocking and listened to the other actors and realized that the lines were a linear conversation and my answers made sense with the lines that the other actors were saying, and I didn't have to be told things over and over. I played the lead in The Little Clown Who Forgot How to Laugh when I was five, and there was a long monologue in that! God, that's so, "When I played Hamlet at the Old Vic..." but you know what I mean.

Never, never again will I work with a child actor who does not have on-the-ball parents! His mother is great, but she has another acting kid and she spends all of her time running them all over town and her husband is still at home (they are only in NY for the summer) and so she doesn't have time to lean on him about his lines as though they were his homework. Neither do I, for that matter, so I have assigned Moira, who is already doing much of the Alex-wrangling, to spend some time taking him over his lines. Thank Christ for her, I don't know how I would have done this show without such an involved, unselfish actress.

I was so happy when I got him, so afraid that I would have had to go with an adult. Now I wish that he had gotten that commercial he was on hold for and I had lost him after all. There would have been so much less agita.

It sounds like I don't like him, I do, he's a very engaging kid, he's just not experienced enough to do this role, particularly not without the support that he needs from home. But he's what I got, and he's what I open with on Friday. And I have invited everyone and their mother to come see the show, I really have a strong cast and think it will be great, it's just that directing is like spinning plates, and this show has an awful lot of plates to keep in the air.

Last night's rehearsal was good, but not good enough. What we did was extremely good, but we only did part of every section, and Alex knew his lines but then he didn't, and we open the day after tomorrow, and at one point we paused for a moment, and I realized that I was so overwhelmed with exhaustion that I did not have the mental energy available to listen to him try to remember another section, so we all went home.

It was a 3 1/2 hour rehearsal that felt like a week, at least.

Today's horoscope:
In sharing ideas, you're unsure how much to shock others and how much to avoid making waves. Mental comfort vies with innovation.

One year ago today:
"They told me that you were dead, but I knew that it couldn't be true."

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Last Updated Wed 17 July 00:51:09 2002