Posts tagged theatre

“We’re kindred spirits, you and I. We see the world in a different way. I mean, look at all these people. Just stand back and drink them in. All you can see is how happy they are, all drunk on tonight. Good food, good music and good company, and that’s all they need, and isn’t that beautiful? Everyone so full of themselves - not in a self-righteous way, but full in the way that you feel after a moment. These are those moments. Look at everyone dancing - it’s the people that make times like these, not the way society’s run, it’s purely the people. They’re all young and beautiful and so full of life and energy, they radiate a light that only people like this can experience. Not everyone can see that.

And of course, once the food has been eaten and the wine is flowing freely, people get emotional. People cry and people argue, but people laugh and that’s the most important thing. People laughing like they will never laugh again. And the tears and the tantrums suddenly aren’t important, because it’s moments like this that you realise the saying is true. These are the friends we will keep for the rest of our lives and more.

I mean, I’ve got friends at home who I have known for eighteen years, and yet these people in this room, dancing on this stage, feel like true home to me. I could be anywhere in the world and the knowledge of moments like these would make me feel I belonged. 

That’s why we fit. That’s where we fit. In the place that nobody is the same, you don’t have to be a certain way to be one of us, you juts have to have the passion and the drive and the unbidden longing for life itself. Even if people don’t think they have it in them, it’s there. We can see it. Why else would there be nights like this, if people weren’t head over heels in love with this part of the life they were living. 

It’s moments like these where you can stop for a moment and watch from the sidelines, and be so happy you can’t put it into words. You don’t quite understand why, but there’s something there that puts a smile on your face and makes you want to dance like an idiot and hug everyone who’s in the room. 

And maybe it’s the alcohol - that certainly helps - but maybe, just maybe, these are the times of our lives.”

We don’t talk about home until most people have gone to bed, alone or in pairs, and then we will mention the dreaded word. We lie on our backs and gaze up at the sky, trying to see the sky even through the rain that will soak through our painted skin. We feel the nicotine race around our system and talk about our families, those that got left behind. As if they are dead. As if we are dead. There is no room for nostalgia in lives like ours, because there is no point. We can never go back. Even if we did manage to make it, through the fire and flames of other people’s judgements, through the hurt and apologies and disdain, through our ouwn pride, there would be no place for us. We would always long for something other that the everyday. And so we lie there in the grass, or on the concrete, or on the roof of an abandoned building, and we talk of home as if it is a foreign concept. Like we were never there to begin with. And maybe we weren’t. Maybe we were born ghosts.

Curtains down, and it’s back to our warped version of normality. Wiping away the layers of make-up and lighting a cigarette in the same fluid movement, knocking back paracetamol with vodka shots to dull the ache behind our eyes. We tell offensive jokes to thicken our skin, and laugh until it hurts. The air is electric, everything is powered by our own energy. We come alive in the night time to lose our minds and we never endevour to find them again. Someone starts to play music, a fire is lit, and we tell stories of the worlds that we should have been born into, worlds where people could fly and animals could speak and the pavements didn’t need to have cracks for people like us.

But under the spotlight, where it all matters, we look perfect. The flaking make-up, the shaking hands, the breaking hearts all disappear once the limelight illuminates our talents. For you, our spectators, our audience, our judges, we are flawless. We cover our world in glitter and hope, knowing that this is what you want, knowing that if we were to show you what our world really was like you wouldn’t give us a second glance. So we find the strength and the desperation to act as if nothing is wrong, as if this is the fantasy that everybody else dreams about. Resisting the urge all the time to laugh at the look on your faces. Repressing the flinches and winces when we pull muscles and crack bones and force our minds into places too small for the ideas within. Roll up, roll up, come and see the greatest fakery on earth. And you love every moment of it.