So we arrive at the end of Double (XX) Fest 2.0: WEEK TWO. Last night, in particular, was electric...sort of ridiculously irreverent in that despite the fact that I was fired, it was STILL my night. The "theatre" decided to have a "party" after the show for "week two participants". Coincidentally, this was the night when all "my" people decided to come. Also the night MM decided to come. I didn't know this until after the show, though - and funny, I had spent each preceding night steeled for the possibility of coming face to face with her. I'm not a person who loves confrontation but I won't back down from one either if it needs to happen. At any rate - I didn't even need to dismiss or tell her off - my posse's actions, apparently, did that for me before the show was even out. They told me after the fact. After the show, I stood out front, talking not only with "my" people, but with people who wanted to congratulate me: not only on the two shows I was in, but on the festival selections themselves, among other things! I was in a flurry of chatting with visiting playwrights and other well-wishers when MM walked out the door and slunk past me and didn't even bother to make eye contact, much less attempt to make nice. I was in conversation and didn't pause to acknowledge her anyway. Honestly, I'm not sure she even has the self-awareness to realize my people were dissing her.

It was kind of an eye-opener for me, really, as someone who has always had to FIGHT DOGGEDLY for every inch of anything. It was so nice to have people in my corner without my even having to ask. That was a luxury I didn't expect, and it warms my heart. Whatever happens with my unemployment claim, that felt like its own little victory. Truly, creating good art and having people who love me are the best revenge. I feel bad for her, honestly: I get to walk away and never set foot in SST after next Sunday. She still has to be herself for the rest of her life, and that's a hard, hard thing.

ONTO WEEK THREE!!!

It is really perverse that something that is bringing me such joy daily, that I will miss tremendously when it's over is also paradoxically giving me pause. I'm speaking, of course, of my former baby, the Double (XX) Fest. 

I'm acting in three short plays for the festival, and I love them ALL. Wonderful to be able to dig into each one without much of a distraction. In certain respects, I'm blowing myself away as an actor, particularly in the fact that I'm seemingly able to 
"go there" multiple times in succession, and get there each time, making new discoveries along the way. I'm starting to really notice my weird actor habits...don't know if I'm able to correct them, really, but at least I'm noticing them. And starting to notice that I'm a little bit lazy, and could totally bust out of that, and sometimes DO. 

First, The Bridge (Kate McCamy), directed by Glynis Mitchell, costarring Pearl Klein. Ultimately, this character is probably the closest to who I am though still quite removed as a materialistic, Wall Street executive who's just lost her job. She's about to commit suicide by jumping off the Brooklyn bridge, when God, possessing the body of a homeless woman, stops her. It's quite existential, and I am surprised each time we run it that it hits me so hard each time. Ha ha, and it certainly isn't without its parallels to my own life, although ironically, she talks about having gone to art school and having wanted to be an artist. Funny for me, since I chose that path for myself, and yet, you still find yourself with heartless bosses who'll throw you under the bus. That is not limited to Wall Street NOR to finance. 

Second, The Cleaners (Lindsay Joy Murphy) directed by Lenore Bensinger; costarring Curtis Eastwood. I get to don a very large, white plastic HazMat suit, which in and of itself is totally comedy GOLD. After putting it on, I really don't have to work very hard, in terms of the funny. The suit just brings it. All I have to do is show up and remember my lines. Had so much fun last night at rehearsal - collapsed into helpless giggles last night, when we first started working with the suit. The fun comes in that my scene partner is hitting on me the whole time I am cleaning brain in this totally unsexy, shapeless costume. It's supposed to kinda turn his character (Jerry) on even more than my character (Rita) already does with her firecracker, ballbuster personality. And then there's this knee-buckling kiss, also in The Suit (which I think has become the 4th character in the show, behind the Dead Guy we're cleaning up). Physical intimacy onstage is always so bizarre, especially at first. We're comfortable with it now, but it was totally awkward at first. Boundaries are always interesting, and of course the niggling thoughts about *actual* significant others and how they're potentially going to deal with it. I am lucky that Ian and I haven't had any issues with this so far, and he's seen me smooch plenty of other boys onstage at this point! 

Which brings me to the third play, It's Not Really Suicide, Is It? (Persephone Vandegrift) directed by Julianne Christie, costarring Michael Mitchell(John) and Chris Allen(Brian). There's another smooch in this one, though it was never quite as awkward to work into as the former...but it's also not as intimate a circumstance, I suppose. My character (Nicole) is grieving her boyfriend, Brian an Iraq war vet, who just committed suicide. They are at his wake, and his ghost has appeared to his brother, John, but Nicole can't see him. Nicole is at that messed up burnt-out matchstick place where you've done all your crying and you're just spent and can't cry anymore...and the weird emotions that lie just beyond that. She kisses John, because she knows he loves her, because she's grasping at any straw she can to make herself feel okay again. Boy was it ever interesting to muster that end-of-road place for THREE RUNS tonight. I'm glad I have the whole first part of the play where it's just the two of them talking, to immerse myself in those circumstances. By the time I come out for my entrance, I have to be done bawling. I managed to do it each time tonight, but boy am I exhausted. Impressed with myself, I must say, but exhausted.

So, next week, presenting the first two to audiences, and the week beyond, the third. We'll see if performance anxiety comes by, or if I manage to ground myself enough to keep it mostly at bay...or maybe even work with it. Usually, if I can manage to stay present, it's not an issue. We shall see. I think all three of these plays are some of the best work I've ever done. And it's a pity I feel so ambivalent about recommending Double (XX) Fest 2.0 to people, which is entirely to do with not wanting Stone Soup Theatre and the woman at its helm to make any more money off my talents.  It's hard for me to get beyond that. 

Come and see it if you wish - it will be the last show I ever do with Stone Soup. 

Far, far away and

Dreams of falling sounds of cloud

roaring in my ears as I fall out,

shadow of the Boeing above me

wings suddenly melting

ground below rushing closer, panorama of

Everything

And




I’m not falling, I’m flying towards the rain

skimming rooftops and

Treetops and

Mountaintops

I don’t fall

I never fall

Just speed through time

Solid and stoic




Where’s the plane? My security, my grasp

Illusions of solidity

A tin can hurtling through space

the universe I cling to

all a fake

sweet, sticky nothingness

just a quick sugar-rush

and then?

My tongue closes on air

air rushing, still rushing




Where’s my place?

Put me back; I can’t find

My place.

A space needle in a haystack

Things I never told you, like

Sound and Mighty Olympians

Glittering Emerald, Cascades, concrete

…and a Troll keeping watch under a bridge.




And I’m

Falling away from you

In my little car on I-5

Up and Eastward

Through the overcast

Falling up and sideways and out

But always away, far, far away

Always lost




My ghostly footprints remain

Wraithlike trails of a life

A universe of

Waking dreams upon slumbering dreams

All left behind

To fly closer

To the sun?

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This is the next chapter of my life,

Comfortingly familiar yet so, so wrong.

It is miraculous and at the same time just plain truth:

The dead pester me with their attentions

There might be any opportunity one could dream about

The wine has made me courageous and bold 

I float inside the spaces between molecules

Am I a ghost? 

The night listens

There is surrender 

I have done nothing to forgive.

Dreams aren’t logical the way real life is 

I am wind, and I uncover things – I stir things up.

What is the essence of purple?

He tries to cajole me from within my block of ice 

the dead are all around him 

Is he merely hiding?

I thought if his wings were big enough, he could fly high enough 

It was nothing like that at all 

I cannot help but follow the breadcrumbs dropped for me into this mystery

It swallows every other tiny tragedy:

Forced to swing back and forth, like a demi-goddess pendulum 

All I have to do is surrender: 

There are pieces of his shrapnel embedded throughout my body. 

I have survived him.

I just want to be a part of life.