During the week I was fortunate enough to be able to attend stunning theatre performances, not once but twice and I came away filled with total admiration for those who had whisked me away to a world of imagination.
Hot on the heels of attending a fabulous production of Waiting for Godot in An Grianan Theatre, Letterkenny on Tuesday night, I was in Cork on Friday evening for Performance Platform 2 – a series of one person performances.
I think it was during the three performances by Anna Rose Hennessy, Katie Porter and Maggie Donovan that I began to realise what power there really can be when talent is used to its full potential.
I was reminded of a quote I had read once from an American musician called Lawrence Welk who said:
“To be granted some kind of usable talent and to be able to use it to the fullest extent of which you are capable – this, to me, is a kind of joy that is almost unequaled.”
He might have well just have written that on Friday night.
The three performances, which all lasted roughly half an hour and followed immediately after each other – were completely different in terms of theme, content and delivery.
All three were emotionally charged and over the course of the night the audience went from laughter to tears, joy to anguish, almost every emotion was tapped into.
What I really noticed though was how, within just one or two sentences, each of the three performers, starting in three completely different fashions, had managed to captivate their audience.
They commanded the audience attention, controlled the silence, prompted the laughter and manipulated the mood.
They were amazing.
As clips of all three performances replayed through my head and I recalled how all four shows I saw this week had ended with well-deserved standing ovations, I began to wonder how many of us ever really use the talents we have to their fullest?
Do we spend so much time bemoaning our weaknesses that we fail to play to our strengths? Do we not realise that we are all created with the equal ability to become unequal?
I mean, we all have different talents, gifts and abilities. We have different traits and personalities and yet, by using what we have to the fullest, we can stand out from the crowd.
Thomas Edison once said that if we did all the things we are capable of, we would astound ourselves.
Have you astounded yourself recently?
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