Guys I just... I really needed this today (long post ahead oofies)
I'm flying back to Canada day after tomorrow, and my uni's real intense due to a superiority complex it has from its ranking, so I never get time to see movies or shows or musicals over there in between school and side acting gigs, so I went and saw Mary Poppins Returns and was slapped in the fucking face with a personal revelation.
There's only one consistent personal thing that I can do on my own that truly makes me happy in this world, and that's musicals and performing in them. I'm always at my happiest either in the audience or on the stage doing the singing and dancing myself, and I've never experienced the extent of the dopamine high I get either watching or doing that smooth, perfect choreography or being driven to blindness even faster from a spotlight glaring in my face. Performing is hard, demanding, full of injuries, consumes all your free time and sometimes you wonder why you do this in the first place when you got all that combined with a super hard number that no one can seem to get the footwork of, but y'know what?? It's all worth it in the end, to finally get the footwork right to the correct tempo, or hit that belt you thought was out of your range, or to nail the opening number on opening night and hear the applause even if you can't see the audience behind the blinding stagelights or the lens of the camera.
We did the broadway version of Supercali from Mary Poppins in one of our revue shows, and that bloody song nearly made our choreographer wring our gotdam necks, especially at the staggered group bits, but to hear that cheer and applause every night we ended with it?? That was worth all the stepping on toes and the rib bruises sustained from peoples elbows.
And seeing Mary Poppins Returns today just kinda... made me realize I lost sight of that. I haven't joined any drama clubs, haven't talked to any societies, haven't done anything really past a few commercials for the money. I ended up crying in the middle of both A Cover Is Not the Book and A Light Fantastic because for reasons I couldn't fathom at the time I got so unnecessarily emotional over them, and it was after them that it clicked how much I missed actually DOING and ENJOYING that kind of thing, all the lights and costumes and music and dancing in such creative and collaborative ways while singing your voice out. Since I left home for uni, I hadn't watched a single gotdam musical until the day before I left to support my music major friend who was playing for A New Brain, and even then it felt like I was doing it for someone else, feel me??
Musicals and acting in them gave me a home and a fantastically dysfunctional family of weirdos who I felt finally understood and accepted me. I've never felt that kind of commonality and kinship outside of theatre circles, and never felt as wanted as I did when I did my little tricks and got applause for them on stage, despite being a self-taught vocalist on account of not having the money for vocal lessons.
And at the end there, I ended up in happy tears again, because I desperately want that all again. It makes me happy, and I guess I just want that back. There's something to be said for feel good movies, and this one really cut into the rough emotional patch I've been going through and ripped it out of my chest in order to remind me what really makes me happy, and that's the simple joys of musical performance.
Anyway rant over
