Solidarity

"To have and to hold, for richer or for poorer, for better and for worse".

Let us focus today on the "for better and for worse", because this past week has included both.

For the past month and a half, my sweetheart and I have been involved in a show at our local theatre. We both hate it, for a variety of reasons. It's last-minute, thrown together, and the director isn't quite the best at communication. It's been more stress than fun. And, frankly, the show just isn't that funny.

But of course, in my usual way, I have resolved to do my best with this show. I can't be crummy and expect the theatre to (eventually) let me direct, right? And, you know, the good of the show is the good of the theatre and so on...

He has no such feelings. In fact, he gives so few fucks, that he quit the show. An hour before we opened.

I'll give you a moment to pick your jaw off of the floor. Oh, yes. My beautiful bastard. Thursday, after a rather unpleasant final dress rehearsal, he admitted his feelings to me. He felt the show was a sinking ship, and that the whole group was a giant clique. What could I say? He wasn't wrong. I didn't take him too seriously, though-Surely, he wouldn't do that.

The next day, it became apparent that he meant it. he meant it a lot. He was joyously describing the look on everyone's face when they realized that he wasn't showing up.

It was a rough two hours before I went to the show. We had a long talk(not an argument, believe it or not). He explained his reasoning, and confessed that his only source of guilt was that everyone would assume that I was in on the plan.

There were tears. All mine. The majority of those two hours were spent with him telling me how much he loves me, and how sorry he is that he's doing something that's going to cause me so much stress, and me telling him that I understood, and I wasn't angry at him-that I was tired, and stressed, and worried about how I could look these people in the eyes and tell them there would be no show. My dear friend Tony Snark(whom we kind of.. forgot for awhile)livetweeted the entire thing. Read from the bottom up, because that's apparently how Twitter works?

Ignoring the AWFUL pun in the beginning, he did highlight my favorite part. My beautiful pulled me close, and told me that he loved me, and always had, and always would. Call me pathetic, but I couldn't even focus on the show-dropping part.

I finally reached a compromise; I would show up to the show acting as though all was well, and he would call Mark to give his resignation soon thereafter. All I had to do was act the part to preserve my innocence(if I couldn't convince him not to drop, I could at least not be the one people blamed). The plan worked, they got another actor to replace him, and all is now going well.

Now, the point of the story. Monday, we had rehearsals for the Christmas show, which is largely improv-based. An actress that I have continuously shown irritation with for dropping out of a show during tech week(to be replaced by yours truly) was assigned to the group improving the scene where the star of the show doesn't show up. Of course, the first line out of anyone's mouth was "He pulled a Kevin." Ok. They're all a little miffed, and I can't blame them at all. But later, as my group came to the stage, I heard this particular actress say "Good job on the Kevin line, I think it was the funniest one", as I walked by. I will, for now, disregard the timing of her comment and the fact that there were several funnier lines in their skit, and focus on the pure hypocrisy. I turned and said "I didn't think it was that funny. Besides, it's not like nobody has dropped out of a show before." I finally understand the metaphor of words dripping with venom. I turned on my heel and strode on stage, holding my head high and feeling good.

I can't defend the choices he's made, but you can damn well bet I'll defend him. That's what "for better or worse" is. That's what solidarity is. That's what love is.