Fear of failure
February 14, 2012
There are people in Christchurch, New Zealand, whose homes and lives are still wrecked. There are young men being blown to bits in Afghanistan. So I feel a bit silly when after a scene goes badly in a Clapham rehearsal room I feel like running out of the building and into the traffic. And not even badly, really - just not up to expectations.
We're sort of into the last week of rehearsals for each play now and would like to feel that we're on track for our ground-breaking performances on opening night. But these continuing run-throughs can be weirdly destabilising when we don't reach the peaks we're aiming at.
The big deal for me, at the moment, is the opening scene of Comedy. It's physically trying because I'm being water-tortured. There's a lot of words. There's a lot of feeling. There's a lot of story to get over. The entire cast is watching. Halfway through I know exactly what Nizar (Zuabi - the Director) is going to say about something I didn't do and that irritation is going to bug me and do its best to undermine me for the rest of the scene. Yes, Nick, but there are people being gunned down in Syria.
Several of us are feeling like this, I know. Let me give you an image. An aeroplane sits on the tarmac all ready to go. Much preparation by many hands has brought it to this point. The scene starts, clear for take-off. The throttle levers are pushed forward, we move off down the runway with a sense of excited trepidation, the captain says 'rotate', back comes the stick... and the wheels resolutely stay on the ground. Well we won't be flying today, ladies and gentlemen, we're just on a tour of the airport checking everything is where it should be for next time.
It's funny - I think it's just this fear of failure that keeps us going. You have to conquer something in yourself. That's also why I like sailing where there are real dangers to your crew, your boat, and yourself. I've had a couple of expensive mishaps where unexpected circumstances drove holes through my competence, and my boat. We're all hoping these fragile things, our performances, can weather what the remaining rehearsals, the tech week and the previews will throw at them and not throw our competencies open to question.
This is it. This is all I do. I walk and talk my way around a confined space in a way that I hope tells a compelling story to those who are watching in a compelling way. I do that for a living. They pay me to do it. You pay me to do it. Pay me to be very good at it. So if it turns out that I'm not, what then?
Photo: Stepehn Hagan sharing the pain?
(The What Country Friends is This? plays are; The Tempest, Twelfth Night and The Comedy of Errors, and are part of the RSC's World Shakespeare Festival)
by Nick Day
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