THEATER. TELEVISION. FILM.

The Great Divide

An actor friend called me the other night very excited and said, “Hey, I have the greatest surprise for you!  You and I are going to be VIP guests at our friend’s live taping of his TV show. We get there at 5:45 on Friday and it gets out around 10. So just get a sitter and come with me. It’s going to be great!”

 I went into my agent’s office the other day and she said, “Oh, you’ve got to see the Christopher Durang play at the Public. My partner can get you staff rate tickets!” I used to see about a play a week, but now the idea seems impossible. In Eva’s three months on this earth, I have been away from her for about 3 hours total.

That is the toughest adjustment for me. I am pretty much used to the lack of sleep and the crying, but in my former life, B.E. (Before Eva), I saw plays and movies all the time, often last minute when friends would e-mail and say, “I’ve got a free ticket. The first person to respond gets it!” and I would.  Or I’d use my out-of-date student ID and stand in line for rush tickets. Friends still send me invitations for things all the time, free movie or play tickets, plays or readings they are in, etc. They don’t know how it tortures me. I love to always be doing things, out and about. It feeds me creatively. And now I have to slow down and just be with my daughter. The quiet can be deafening.

The other day we were in a cab and passed a line outside the Film Forum and I swear I saw my life flash before my eyes. My husband would say I’m being hyperbolic, but it is a kind of death. The old me is dead. The new me will forever be responsible for another human being and anyone who doesn’t have a child cannot understand the immensity of that. The loss and the gift at once. True ambivalence. It’s not like I’ll never see a play or movie again, but the freedom to just go is gone. It has been replaced with a beautiful, unique, loveable, lovely little dictator.

I did see a play two weeks ago. My friend’s husband was in  “Around the World in 80 Days” at the Westport Country Playhouse. We went up for a matinee and my friend watched Eva while Sloan and I saw the show. I nursed Eva right before we went in. I ran out at intermission and nursed her again, during the second act I checked my watch at least 5 times and when the play was over, I ran out because I missed her so much I couldn’t stand to be away from her any longer.  Nothing will ever be the same. 

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A Balancing Act

New motherhood, no matter who you are, is fraught with emotion, good and bad. Or maybe not BAD, per se, but ambivalent. When you are an ACTRESS, though, it gets downright confusing. Here is my most amazing creation, right in front of me lying on her activity mat having a grand old time. Yet somehow, I’m still not satisfied. I told a friend the other day that I still had the need to CREATE and she said, “Sara, you already did!”  So why isn’t my greatest creation of all not enough?  I know some actresses that have a child and quit acting. They say it’s just too hard to do both and I don’t blame them.  My husband asked me where Eva’s drug-free labor and birth ranked on my lifetime scale of difficulty. I told him it was the second hardest thing I’d ever done.  ”What’s the hardest?” he asked.  ”Taking care of her now,” I said. It’s not really the sleep deprivation or the fact that I can’t leave her alone for a minute.  I don’t want to!  It’s more the definition of self that I struggle with.  Am I still an artist or am I done creating?  

Well, it’s an ongoing discussion I have with myself. I have also talked to some really sweet fellow actress/moms who are making it work.  Which has opened my mind a bit. Musical theater actresses are all right!!!  I was close-minded on the subject before, but the ones I have spoken to could not have been sweeter.  I thank them.  They gave me hope.  But they also said that it’s OK to just BE with my baby.  To watch her grow and become who she’s going to be. To care for her and bond with her.  And to not feel like I have to return to work immediately.  I know they are right, but when you have been GOING GOING GOING for ten years, it’s close to impossible to slow down.  Today’s lesson: slow down.  I’m going to go make my daughter smile. She’s going to do the same for me, I know it.

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