Now You See Me…

I seem innately predisposed to making myself invisible

(Telephone by Al Chasan)

It’s so easy for you, isn’t it…

My email box is chock-a-block full of messages from friends (and acquaintances)who regale me with their theatre projects and urge me to support them by attending their latest performance, staged reading, directorial accomplishment. I realize that these messages are sent to possibly hundreds of people, but I always feel these entreaties are accompanied by, “so are you coming”? And, in, fact some of them do come with a “hope you can make it” added on.

When I get these messages I at once feel a) guilt (if I don’t go); b) repulsion (by the blatant self-promotion) and c) admiration for the ability to do something I can’t bring myself to do-which is tell the world when a play I’ve written is being produced, or there’s a play in which I’m performing.

…but not for me.

I’m somehow drawn to the notion of the strong silent type who needs no positive reinforcement as an ideal. I don’t really get this as I’m hardly John Wayne, and you’d think with all my insecurities (including fear of heights, doctors, physical pain, abandonment, and if you listen to my wife-fear of closing kitchen cabinets) I’d do whatever I can to elicit praise.

I have no idea where this reticence comes from. But its most likely from my father (a frustrated Borscht Belt comic) who said to me when I was a teenager, “there’s a reason you have an inferiority complex, you’re inferior” (ba-bum). I seem constitutionally unable to generate a message saying, “I’m in this, come and see it”. The thing is, I really do want people to see my work, and tell me how wonderful it is (or else lie convincingly), but I just can’t ask. The idea makes me feel like Oliver Twist (“Can I have some more, please”).

And the hits just keep on coming.

The emails I get about other people’s work are relentless and just reinforces my feeling of inadequacy that I can’t do the same. Even if I relent and buy a ticket online, because the guilt has overwhelmed me, or I really do want to support a friend, or (surprise!) I actually want to see the play- I STILL get these emails asking me to buy a ticket. It’s just a relentless reminder of my pathetic inability to promote my work.

I make only occasional visits to the strange country of Facebookland, mostly when I’m waiting in a doctor’s office to distract me from my anxiety about my headache which is almost certainly a brain tumor; or when I’m on a long line at the supermarket; or waiting for the inconsiderate person in our apartment building who has used three dryers, to empty them.

The emails I get pale in comparison to the running commentary on Facebook, detailing the progress of every step leading up to the event. First, it’s getting the gig, then announcing the cast, then we have to hear how the rehearsals are going (leaving out of course that the lead dropped out because he got into a screaming match with the director) and then, finally, the avalanche of posts about how great this show is, and that everyone has to see it.

What’s wrong with me, anyway?

I can’t imagine doing something like this but it’s clear this is what’s expected.

Everybody is selling something and it’s mortifying to me. Like many of my generation, I was taught that it’s bad form to boast about yourself (Oh God, I sound like a character out of Downton Abbey!) But the reality is, if you want your work to be seen by someone other than the pens and paper inside your desk drawer, or your immediate family, you’ve got to put it out there.

I still can’t do it.

Occasionally, when I’m with friends, someone will ask me if I’m working on anything. This only happens occasionally, and never with my family (whose idea of theatre is Ice Capades), and can’t conceive of why I would spend my time on something that doesn’t enrich me financially (“Really? That’s all you’re getting?”). That rare question about what I’m doing, gives me permission to (modestly) talk about a short play of mine that’s just had a production, or someone else’s in which I performed. At that point I always hear the same thing: “You should tell us when you’re doing something. We’d love to come”. That’s my cue to adapt an “aw shucks” pose and verbalize the obvious-that I’m just bad at self-promotion (you should read “because I’m focusing on the work”). “And anyway”, I say, “people I know won’t come, everyone’s busy, it’s too far”, and as many other ways I could think of why I should not promote my work.

Finally, during one of these spasms of false modesty (because I did, in fact, love the opportunity to spew out my forthcoming credits) my friend Michael said, “So what? Don’t make the choice for them. Let them choose to show up or not”.

Aha!

And the light bulb went on. Why hadn’t I seen it before?

This made sense to me. I could let people know what I’m doing, but simply understand that no one is showing up. What I do get to do is pre-empt the “You should have told us” line.

So now I had to figure out how to get past my reluctance to ask people to come.

No. I’m not doing that.

I’m simply telling everyone on my list that this show is happening. No appeals.

My first chicken shit way around this was to wait until the producers, or someone in the cast of a project I’m working on, sends out a Facebook message. When I see it, I stealthily approach my keyboard like it has a land mine attached to it. The SHARE button might as well be the detonator of a bomb in every secret agent movie ever. I push the button expecting the explosion that, of course, never comes.

More proactively I go to my email list, attach the flyer for the show, and type the message “This is what I’ve been up to”. I then go through my contacts fighting the urge to skip people for whom I think, “it’s too far for them”, or “they won’t like this play”, “I didn’t show up at their birthday party, “they’re anti-Semites” (Wait, what are they doing on my email list?). I close my eyes and push SEND.

I’ve done it. The first step in becoming a shameless self-promoter, all the while knowing no one will show up.

And the result is…

Now when I see any of these people, I have a different problem. I must weather an onslaught of comments like:

“Sorry I couldn’t come. I was out of town”
“We were planning to come, but Brittany had an ear infection”
“I’ve just been so busy with (fill in the blank) moving, work, building the deck, colonoscopy prep”

See. I told you so.

But lest you think I’ve made no progress in letting others see my work, let me point out one thing:

You are reading this, aren’t you?