Any dream in which you share the stage with David Tenant ought to be remembered, at least as best as one can. That was the case tonight.
I was on stage with Tenant himself, and even if I was just his shadow, I was brilliant! If only there were a way to get a transcription of a dream. I’m left with memories only, and incomplete, fading ones at that.
He was finishing a stage play, and I was behind the scrim, that shadowy fabric that can be translucent, obscuring but revealing the action of the people on stage behind the scrim.
In the dream, I was more of a reverse shadow, projected on the back of the scrim, and as he finished his performance, I spoke up, becoming visible to the audience, if there really was an audience.What can a shadow on a scrim know of the audience?
If only I could remember my dialogue. I know that I spoke of being there, unnoticed, during all his great performances. Which is of course as it should be. I had some great word play on some of his lines, offering insights into drama, the art of stagecraft, the greatness of Shakespeare, the ephemeral nature of art and, by extension, of life itself.
And then I woke up. Lying in bed, the real me was fully aware of the dream version of myself slipping away as those those chemicals in the brain that erase the memory of dreams began to work.
As my waking brain tried to steal away some of those scenes, I realized how the dream must have ended.
The actor, after interacting with his shadow for a time, and possibly gaining some insight into the nature of his art, raised the scrim so he could meet his alter ego.
And in keeping with Twilight Zone classification of dream, the shadow disappeared in the glare of the stage lights.
Because, of course, it was never really there.
It was nothing but a shadow.
Nothing but a dream.
(c) 2015 by Phillip W. Lamb
Pitchforks and privacy 