Here’s a weird thing about my recent solo show, “You’re a Monster, Matthew Dicks” that I did not expect:
I kept crying after the show.
I stepped back into the wings at the end of the first night and started crying. This had never happened to me before, and I could not understand why. I was forced to retreat to my dressing room for at least three minutes before finally pulling myself together.
On the second night, I had a Diet Coke on a table in the wings, so when I stepped off the stage, I began crying again, but this time, I had a drink ready, and it dampened my emotions quite a bit.
Drinking something will often do that for a performer—the act of drinking forces at least part of the mind to shift away from its current state.
Still, even with the Diet Coke, I cried.
On the third and final night, I did not leave the stage. Instead, I finished the show and took my bows, and then returned to the microphone to honor someone in the audience. So instead of crying in the wings, I blubbered onstage. Not nearly as much as the first or second night, and perhaps more because of the person I was honoring, but still, I cried.
So weird. Unexpected and confusing.
Three theories as to why:
- I had just taken myself through some of the more traumatic moments of my life, living through them on stage again and in front of a sold-out audience, and the accumulation of those moments brought me to tears.
- My parents never really engaged in my achievements as a child. They never watched me pole vault. Never attended any of my band shows. Rarely attended a Little League game. Never visited me in my apartment when I moved out. I spent a great deal of my youth feeling unnoticed and ignored. So to sell out the theater with friends, family, and strangers, and to receive their appreciation and recognition for something as monumental as what I had accomplished, made me feel seen in a way that hit me right in the heart.
- The tears were a release of energy and stress accumulated over the months of preparing, planning, and rehearsing the show. For about six months, a considerable amount of my mental space had been occupied by the show, so upon stepping off the stage, the joy in knowing it had all come together produced tears.
All three theories seem entirely reasonable. Perhaps it was a combination of all three.
Either way, it was unexpected and strange, and when and if I perform the show again, I wouldn’t mind acting like a normal person as I step off the stage rather than a blubbering fool.
