I am going to be spending a lot of time over the next few months thinking about the nature of dreams: as in, what is the nature of a dream? I find it remarkably interesting that once I decided to start keeping a dream journal, in order to personalize the process of directing A Dream Play, my dreams started to take on what seems to be, a greater meaning. Maybe it has to do with the fact that along with rehearsals just having started, I am working my way through the dream dictionary that Beth got me for Valentine’s Day.

At any rate, the dreams that I am having have been rather vivid and filled with a lot of the stereotypical dream symbolism. There are always a ton of people that are in some way a representation of myself, or at least how I view myself. There is often some form of violence, whether it is toward an object (such as the aquarium that broke over my head the other night) or toward a person (seemingly always self inflicted). There are doorways, there is falling, there are very clear allusions to the play. I think what it comes down to, or at least how I am choosing to view it, is that in this case my conscious personality is winning out over my subconscious one. Perhaps I have, at least in terms of dreaming and this play go, conquered the tension that exists between my conscious and my subconscious–though that is not likely the case. Whatever the case is, I am beginning to become very emotionally invested in the process (which is what I should expect of myself), and I am quite connected to the majority of the working concept that we have.

I am unabashedly excited about the team of people that we have assembled for this production. We have such a fantastic core of actors and designers, and even though I have my definite hesitations about portions of the show, as well as a healthy fear in my ability to direct it cohesively, I am filled with complete confidence in the team’s ability to make it happen, even if an aquarium breaks over someone’s head.

-Rob