COVID-19, Now Playing Everywhere

When I first came out to California from the East in the 1970s, I landed in Hollywood and had an unpaid role in a friend’s student film. I had to play a dead body -- kind of a challenge, as the Method was no help with this role. Later, I moved to a resort city that was often a location for feature films. Many friends got jobs as extras. I could never take the time off work for that. But now, I feel like a character in a disaster movie. I only wish that were true; then, the story would be over in two hours.

We have a somewhat confused former TV personality playing the role of President. Not the greatest casting, as the part calls for a little more gravitas. I guess Morgan Freeman wasn’t available. 

Seems like every day now, the screenwriter arrives on set with script changes, and we all have to learn new parts because of the coronavirus. Many of us now find ourselves working from home. I have actually been doing this for years, but likely for many of you, it will be an adjustment. It sounds a lot better than it is in some ways. You have become used to a familiar routine which maybe included things you hated, like the commute, annoying co-workers, or an unreasonable boss. It may surprise you that you will find yourself missing some of these things. Maybe there was actually a little camaraderie. If you commuted by yourself, maybe that car trip was “alone” time, unavailable at work or a home with a noisy family. And now, you may have to be a teacher too.

Technology is saving us from some of the pain. We’ve been trained lately to hate Facebook and similar social media outlets, repeatedly told how we are being manipulated and our data stolen. But now these platforms may help us keep our sanity. We need that outside human connection, even a virtual one, beyond the family, or even the  dog, cat or other pet if we live alone. Further, the bosses may find they don’t need a floor full of folks in cubicles anymore. The traffic will become livable again. As we learn new dance steps, so to speak, our carbon footprints could shrink. A good thing for climate change, perhaps.

Safely seated in our old familiar routines,  some of us may have felt like members of a movie audience. The cataclysms of other places and other times were distant curiosities, but films showed us what it was like to live through them.

Now, we all have parts as extras or in speaking roles in this new production.  Like Scarlett (not Johansson), we may look out at the golden sky and say, “Tomorrow is another day!” We just have to get through today’s shoot first.