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A Miracle of Degree
 
part 2
 
by J.(Channing)Wells

* * * * * * * * * * *
Full Circle
* * * * * * * * * * *

I stand, downstage, in costume, under the glorious lights, as the last notes of the anthem fade into the background. And, as the music fades, my fellow actors fade as well, back into the dark upstage behind the bright, white scrims. The set pieces vanish, too, in their own magical way.

Leaving me alone. On stage.

Silence. And pure, pristine surfaces all around.

This is my favorite moment of the play. _Sunday in the Park with George_ begins almost exactly where it ends... with a vast white space. A blank canvas. Fitting well with the nature of the sad and probably mostly-fictional artist whose life we are here portraying. It's a heartbreaking ending, in its own way... but I don't find it depressing in the slightest.

It's just another Empty Space.

Waiting to be filled.

_Sunday in the Park with George_ ends almost exactly where it begins. Rotating back to the start. Coming full circle. Which means that I end this play, the last, very last performance of this wondrous show, at exactly the same point that I began it so many months ago.

I love this moment. Barlow has chastised me in the past for milking it a bit _too_ much... but we've worked out a compromise that we're both satisfied with.

I like to leave it silent and clean and white up here. For perhaps... just one moment too long. To make them... the Audience... _think_ about it. To _feel_ the impact of the final words.

We, the audience and me and, of course, my character, stand silent, soaking up the power of this... potential.

I love this play.

I very nearly could have written it.

"White." Says George. "A Blank Page, or Canvas."

The briefest of pauses.

"His favorite." Says George.

Another.

And then...

"So many... Possibilities."

And then, the final, quiet chord.

Applause.
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