My Past-Presidential Speech:
(I won’t be doing this as improv.)
There’s an old saying ... well, actually I made it up, but it was a long time ago, and so it’s an old saying. But as far as I know, only I say it ... so far:
“If things were different, they wouldn’t be the same.” (REPEAT)
This is a tautology, that is, it can not NOT be true, because really one half just restates the other, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t make a point.
In my mind it is connected with the episode of the Simpsons when Homer keeps going back in time and altering small details of prehistory, such as stepping on a bug. Each time he returns to the present, he finds that he has altered the course of history in various ways. In the end all the people have evolved to have giant donut heads and Homer is happy with that.
The point is that it is pointless to speculate over how things would have turned out if only a single change had been made ... because we really can’t know how that one change might have impacted other factors.
But I’m here to talk about my time as Cambrian president, not The Simpsons.
One thing that characterized my time as president was our uncertainty concerning where our home might be, especially for performing. At times we even also had some concerns that we might not be able to keep our studio and storage space at Simpson and Victoria, but more significant was our transition from performing at the Paramount to the Finlandia.
For the first couple of years of my reign of terror we continued performing at the Paramount, while rehearsing our scripted plays at our studio. However, during that time, and later at the Finlandia, we did have use of quite nice spaces at their facilities for our Sunday evening improv rehearsals. Yes, we do rehearse improv.
In improv you might often find yourself throwing yourself face down onto the floor, which was not that pleasant on the Victoria Ave. carpet which doubled as a performance space and thoroughfare.
Then we moved our performances to the Finlandia, where we thought we might have a home. In fact, there was even an announcement in the newspaper, with a picture of me posing in my theatre blacks on their stage, looking like a blend of Hamlet and Rodin’s Le Penseur.
But that did not become our home long-term, and so thereafter was a time of doing theatre on-the-road, so to speak, followed by the happy event of obtaining 818 Spring St., but that is someone else’s story to tell.
And so ... at times some of us might have thought: “What if we had continued at the Finlandia? What if it had continued as a performance hall, and we had come to an agreement to store a lot of our sets, props, costumes, ... and lighting equipment there?
Too many “what if”s, and that’s where my new old saying comes in. “If things were different, they wouldn’t be the same.” We really can’t know how that alternate timeline might have turned out. One version of events would have meant severe losses and challenges for Cambrian Players. Yes, we’ve had challenges in this timeline, but I, among many others of you, I’m sure, am glad to be existing in this version of events.
It may be that my tautological saying might now start showing up around social media, though probably attributed to Mark Twain, Albert Einstein, or ... Homer Simpson:
And so I conclude with these two thoughts: Go see Guys and Dolls opening Wednesday!
And, if things were different, they wouldn’t be the same.
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