AliceFraser

Edinblog: Day 2

Added 2022-08-06 14:02:39 +0000 UTC

Last night was hard work too! I’m glad I’ve run this show a bunch before bringing it to edinburgh, or I’d be starting to worry now. Something about delivering your jokes to a smiling silence makes you doubt everything. You tune into your own cadences and start to feel the words in your mouth. Am I still speaking English? Are these jokes?

Is it me? Is it the lighting? The space? Some ineffable smell? And knowing you have a reviewer in during a show like that ads a pinch of defeat to what is, actually, fine! I’ve been in quiet audiences where I’ve quietly loved every minute of a show. I KNOW it’s fine. It’s just… it doesn’t feel fine. At least opening night was good - so I know the show CAN work in that space. Maybe it’s the lighting. Maybe it’s the underwear I’m wearing. Sometimes the difference between a good feeling show and a weird feeling show is so tricky to identify that I understand why actors get superstitious.

In other news I cut off about half my hair. Nobody will notice, because I mostly wear it up, and the difference between long and very long is basically invisible, I think.

In other other news, I want to write an essay about how much people undervalue silliness. As one of the most human and vulnerable moods. As someone whose job is partly to make moods for people to have in groups, it’s one of the trickiest and most delicate ones to get up and maintain. So easily punctured by doubt or self consciousness.