CLEVELAND PLAY HOUSE, November 2016
“How do I make myself hard enough to withstand all the bad, but stay soft enough to be the writer I want to be?” –Olivia, Sex with Strangers
As a director, I put my most intimate thoughts, feelings, and expressions as a human into my theatrical work. I spend hours of mental space researching, analyzing, dreaming, collaborating, rehearsing, teching, and fine-tuning every play I direct, sometimes more than a year in the making. And then there it is, after opening, the long-anticipated review. The printed response. The permanent proof of this ephemeral piece of art that I have spearheaded.
This makes me feel things. Sometimes really negative things, sometimes positive things, but the problem remains that these critics make me feel things. Things about myself, my work, my self-worth, things that I wish I was immune to and didn’t feel. It’s a predicament that I can’t seem to fix. I’ve been through many phases with the issue, and tried different solutions. Nothing has fully unhooked me from the problem, it’s ongoing. No end in sight.
But, I’ve realized recently that it’s a continuous process, not a problem for me to solve. I must stay the vulnerable, authentic artist I want to be, and because of that I must learn to be okay with feeling things.
Brené Brown explains beautifully in her incredible book Daring Greatly, “we dismiss vulnerability as weakness only when we realize that we’ve confused feeling with failing and emotions with liabilities. If we want to reclaim the essential emotional part of our lives and reignite our passion and purpose, we have to learn how to own and engage with our vulnerability and how to feel the emotions that come with it.”
I’m working on it.