It's a strange world to fall into. It really is.
Not many know what it's like, it seems hard to explain, or in some ways so normal that people don't usually think to even describe it to friends who don't expect it.
It's a completely different world to that of the normal. It's beautiful; as if looking through a snowy veil with eyes of a newborn, or at least eyes that don't belong to you. You're suddenly another person and normal rules don't exist, because they don't need to, and also can't here.
Pumping adrenalin. Not constantly driving, but always there in at least a flicker. Sometimes stronger, and sometimes hardly noticeable, still though it always existed, lacing the edges and coating the sides. It was a part of acting. The supreme heat of being under the lights and the feeling of so many peoples eyes staring relentlessly, drilling into our very souls as we lay them out for all to see, our voices filling the large space with ease without shouting, our very whisper could reach the ears of the near deaf grandma in the very last row in the furthest corner of the theatre.
That was their mantra, almost, created by their teacher. "Images snatched from the blur of hours...A life lived in fear is a life half-lived, you're already in the show, even before you've bought a ticket, for the whole world is a stage, so live it as if you need to sell every seat, and speak as if the Grandmother with hearing problems has a seat in the back row because that's all she can afford." …Although it was a little hard to understand if you hadn't seen her play around it. It kept them strong though, and on task.
This was where we could create our magic. This is where people entered, and were plunged into darkness until the spotlight and gobos found their targets and projected light to show those that created a story. The gobos (special stencils which were placed in front of lights to cast designs) would create the atmosphere and back drop, and we would create ourselves into a way which told a story, using our bodies and our words, and there and then we would create. Simply create a world. One for the audience to escape into and be amazed, shocked. Laugh and cry, maybe even at the same time. Whatever we called for, we created, just for them.
There is a world that we fall into there, a world where we are who we really are not, where we can tell a story which changed the minds of those who watch forever. Where we can say and do what we like, and show them how ridiculous something they agreed with at work or with a politician could be if they saw it from another point of view. Here, we could change the world. We were bohemians, Children of the Revolution, Gothics, escaping into a world that was not their own, so they didn't have to be themselves for a moment, even the slightest, or Gothics who just needed to express. We were English enthusiasts, who just had a great love for the written word, and here they could make it be heard in a place people would actually sit up and take notice.
This is a world where everyone met to become something more than just one, so we could get something done that one person alone could not. This is where nothing else but the play mattered, where histories between you and someone else in the cast who you didn't usually get along with didn't even exist anymore. At the door you left your old self behind and became as blank as the black clothes which were our uniforms. Until you were given a character, you didn't even have a personality, not really. Until then you were simply a vessel.
The rustling of a cloak as a tall figure swept around, making to hit another, the shouts and screams for justice, the sobbing as a wife had to part with a husband and vice versa, a lullaby sung to her children, the sounds of a shout and thump as someone was thrown across the room.
The feel of stage makeup which was cold and plastered in many layers over the skin. It was so one wouldn't look washout out under the lights. The covering of highlights and dyed hair, tattoos, scars and piercings, hair now roughly mussed, hair tied back with simple clips and ties, no gel for anyone.
Such a soft accent covering everyone's voices, Puritan ways taking over the mind, body and soul, lines coursed back and forth, back and forth, for hours on end. Line which were known better than the words to your favourite song – words which made perfect sense to the minds involved and simply strung along line to line, page to page and scene to scene.
A new family, the new world we could create. People from all different years now, suddenly, family, as brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, sons, daughters, were born from the script into our lives, people you had never really taken notice of in the school corridors now, supposedly our new best friend, husband, soul mate. It was uncanny. A world where the real world did not exist. Someone you couldn't stand during school hours could now hold the power over you, could now be your new boyfriend and girlfriend, could now kill you with a single word or action, or save your life and embrace you with another.
It was the one thing that would bring us all together. Different years of a school, different ages, sexes, races, social groups, just everything that would usually separate us don't anymore, now that we're in a family of our own. It's not like we have a mother and a father and grandparents and brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc, It's just that we shared something that made us all individuals in a way that no one else could try to match or try to be a part of.
The chance to be someone you're not. Such a magical experience. Such a lucky chance, such grace.
Everything evolves into one, magical thing. People changed into someone they usually were not with simple fabric, different words, music or sound effects in the background along with a backdrop, a stage, set, props. Co actors blending with co actors to mix their words and create a story, create a statement. Create a play.
It was where most of us belonged, we felt our sanctuary was there, from the moment we walked through the doors and greeted the techies with our boxes and truck loads of sets, until the depressing and emotional time of when we would repack everything up, help the techies reset the stage and the lighting booth until it was the same as it had been before we had entered the space.
It was our home. Plain and simply, it was our home.