Curtain Call Crying

an excavation

I cry at every curtain call. You know, the final bow at the end of a show where a whole cast or band or troupe line up and genuflect to the audience. For the last 10 years or so every time I witness a curtain call I turn into a blubbering mess. It’s a phenomenon I can’t seem to solve.

Curtain calls are a neat act of reciprocity that has some tactical use. The idea is that everyone takes off their mask for a second and says whoa look at what we just did! Thank you for being here! And the audience responds with look at what you just did! Thanks for having us! It provides a bookend to a production and indicates the event is now over please go home. It creates a transitional space for an audience to go from playgoer to normal person, softening the blow of returning to real life (whatever that is).

I’ve been racking my brain to figure out this crying conundrum. For years I never cried at a curtain call. Perhaps I’d still be a little wet from a moving final scene but that’s different. Is it that I’ve seen only exceptionally emotional and powerful theatre in the last 10 years that I didn’t experience in the first 25? Decidedly not. Let me tell you I’ve seen my fair share of stinkers. I’ve sat through productions that I whole-heartedly regretted attending. Nevertheless at the end of the night when everyone takes their bow, I find myself fighting back tears wondering how this turd of a show provoked such a reaction.

Perhaps it is a deep longing to get back on stage, a raw desire bubbling up to the surface. I haven’t been in a fully-staged play or musical since 2011. I really do miss it. There have been moments on stage where I’ve never felt closer to god. Being a part of a good production is one of the most thrilling and fulfilling experiences I know. And yet my curtain call crying conundrum isn’t theatre-specific. I find myself weeping at the end of concerts and dance recitals and everything in between. Whenever someone is bowing on stage and I am in the audience I will be crying. So I don’t think it’s some unconscious force of longing pushing those tears out at the end of the night.

For a moment I thought it was the simple act of a bunch of folks doing the same thing at the same time. The symmetry, uniformity, and collective action of a curtain call must be what’s choking me up. Given how many years of choral singing I’ve done, this makes sense. And yet I absolutely hate (and I mean hate) flash mobs. A group starting up a spontaneous dance or song or, god forbid, scene in public gives me peak anxiety. My skin crawls and I have to look away. Even those sweet wedding videos where the bridal party breaks out into a choreographed dance make me run for cover. So it isn’t that.

A few weeks ago I got to experience this crying phenomenon again. As a Christmas present to ourselves, my friend V and I went to Cirque du Soleil. At a nearby restaurant we shoveled chips and salsa into our mouths before the show. I was excited to the point of giddiness. I’d never seen a Cirque show before. In spite of their frequent stops in Atlanta, I had yet to make attending one a priority. As we filed into the Big Top, drinks in hand, and found our seats I was practically vibrating with anticipation.

As the lights went dark, a lone character stepped out onto a dim and smoky stage. I’d describe his costume as classy court jester. For what felt like several minutes he simply walked the perimeter of the rounded stage looking out at the audience with focused curiosity. Suddenly I felt my throat rise up and my face get hot. Was I about to cry? We were barely 60 seconds into this thing.

Over the next 2 hours I was awed and mesmerized and inspired and scared and overjoyed. I was also steadily and continuously fighting back tears. The show was stunning in every possible way. How they do what they do is nearly indescribable. The execution is a behemoth and every minute detail feels intentionally chosen. As the performers flew through themselves into the air and did gymnastics on a tightrope and sang and juggled and scaled walls and played instruments, I found myself wanting desperately to let those big fat tears just under my eyelids fall. When the time came for the curtain call, some tears dribbled out but I had to fight like hell to keep the deluge at bay.

That’s when I figured it out. I weep not because I want to be on stage or because people are moving in harmony. I weep because of the majesty of storytelling. Our genetic ancestors sat around a fire to tell the tale of that day’s hunt. Back when language was new and we were squat, hairy little creatures. We told stories long before we grew crops or built huts. Crafting a narrative and telling it to others is the most profoundly human thing about our species. Some might even argue that storytelling is what created our species. It teaches us how to be human while also making us human. It is written into our very DNA.

A curtain call feels like the answer to a birthright. It’s a nod to the Greeks, Africans, Romans, Native Americans, and every peoples in between who went before us in the same tradition. Telling stories, whether through a drama or music or dance or even juggling, connects us to the very cradle of civilization and all the many branches that came from it. It’s a gift to humanity and a gift from humanity. To honor all of that with reciprocal bowing and applause feels spectacularly magical and divinely human. Now that I think about it, I’m shocked more people don’t cry at curtain calls.