All That Matters“All the world’s a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed.” From Joe’s Funny Quotes About Life.
This quote gave me a chuckle this morning and made my day, reminding me of William Shakespeare’s “All the world’s a stage” mentioned in a welcome speech by one of our dear friends, in her birthday celebration where she sang, on stage, “Just One Look” as Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, attired and almost perfectly mimicking Glenn Close in her Broadway performance. That evening’s theme was “West End”. Her dream was to be an opera singer and we connived with her and each other to make it happen. All in all, that night may have been the most memorable stage performance for her. Ever. In her mind, she was in Broadway or the West End.
MEMORIES OF GLENN CLOSE, SHIRLEY BASSEY, AND ELAINE PAGE
IN THEIR STAGE RENDITIONS OF "WITH ONE LOOK"
Our club, the Rotary Club of Baguio Sunrise, has all sorts of actors--except William Shakespeare’s infant, schoolboy and the extremely old. The lover, the soldier, the justice, the old—you can see them all. I belong to the senior group but I still claim to be the preceding three.
These past few days, we have been practicing our dance numbers in preparation for our club’s 10th charter anniversary tomorrow. From an easy, slow-paced, dance-by-the-number thing previously, today will probably see us frantically following our dance instructor’s steps while cadence counting in our minds in an effort to achieve a reasonable presentation. There won’t be any final rehearsals and the majority of us are “desperately unrehearsed”. That was the reason for the chuckle.
Picture this: senior citizens gyrating to Mardi Gras ala Brazil samba, mumbling the number and steps for each move in unison, thinking there is safety in numbers--each one hoping that the fogging machines will mask the mistakes and our light man will be kind and wise enough to dim the lights when we get too obvious. Despite the theme, I am quite sure the seniors won’t go skimpily clad.
But, the show must go on and so life must and will, without regard for anyone’s state of preparedness.
We all have our roles to play in various stages of our lives. Importantly, I think the question we should ask ourselves is, “How are we going to play it out?”. With youthful zest and purpose or with the infirmity depicted by a pantaloon? However unrehearsed we may all be for our own individual plays on this stage, we have the option to choose how we act them out. Personally, I believe the best approach would be to act as if this was your last sterling performance, one that will be remembered for all time--even if only in your mind.
That is all that matters.
tonybau
