A Heartfelt Goodbye

After a long, rich process, the curtain has been drawn on Walk Two Moons.  Show closings are always marked by mixed emotions.  There is great joy in a final performance of a show that is dear to you.  For the actors, it is a chance to bring beloved characters to life for the last time.  For the director, it is a chance to get lost in the story once and for all, to set aside the director's eye and just enjoy the story for what it is in it's final moment of glory.

But for everyone involved, the final performance is also filled with sorrow.  Theatre is an art form that is transient--it has a short life.  Movies are defined by the final cut for as long as people have the gadgets to view them on, and they never change.  Paintings are frozen expressions of the artist that may mean different things to different people, but the paintings themselves never change, and the paintings will hang on walls and last as long as people know how to take care of them.

But theatre is different.  Each show has an actual lifespan.  It has a beginning, a middle and an end.  I can say with complete confidence that the production of Walk Two Moons that you saw at Adventure Stage is finished, and it will not come back.  Like the artists involved in the production, you too have already said goodbye.  It now lives in whatever special part of your heart that it sneaked its way into when you saw it for the first time.  There may be other productions of this play at other theatre's, but it will be very different from ours.  The one you saw at Adventure Stage has passed, forever.  

And yet ... I think this sorrow actually adds to the joy.  The fact that a play can never truly be duplicated is a large part of what makes it special.  A good play tiptoes into your spirit, and nestles into your life in a way that is unique.  It will stay there, hanging on the walls of your spirit for as long as you know how to take care of it.

I know that Sal and Phoebe will be with me for a very, very long time.  Tom (the playwright) and I began talking about Walk Two Moons a very long time ago.  We read and loved the book, we worked through many drafts of Sal's story, we workshopped it with actors, and finally we assembled a very large team of wonderful artists who eventually brought it to life in such a beautiful way.  We felt like this story was important enough to work on until we got it right. 

And now, after such a long labor of love, we have to let go of it and say goodbye.  And as a very wise man said a very long time ago . . .

" . . . parting is such sweet sorrow."

-Matthew Reeder

Director, Walk Two Moons