I’ve actually been thinking about capping the gold greasepaint for good for the past year, it’s just been hard to turn down opportunities to do it, but I’ve also found it even harder to perform it.

When I first started doing it six years ago I was pretty insane, barely holding myself together. And performing that character was far easier to slip into, to feel some agency within an otherwise uncontrollable emotional/mental state.

I’m in a different place now, it’s a different time, and it doesn’t feel as natural and effortless anymore.

Beyond that, Lucas and I both agree that it was starting to earn too much of a reputation as a blatantly destructive and violent act, which was never the intention despite all the smashed appliances over the years. It’s always been about the magic trick of controlling the chaos, to spontaneously choreograph a treacherous ballet and spark more imaginations of danger than danger itself. A catharsis in the most Greek drama sense of the word, but with added audience participation.

I kept deciding to give it another go because it can be and has been some of the most intoxicating and personally rewarding stage experiences in my life. But it has had its run, and now Lucas and I will do something new, find some other experiences to have and to give.

I hope it’s engrained some of the weirdest memories in your brains and left some images that will be hard to un-see! That’s the final prize. As I always say in the show, the gift is not a gift until the gift is destroyed.