Life has been full lately. “Full” means busy, but being a California transplant from the Northeast, I despise the word busy, so I say full instead. It is full to the seams, bursting even. It can be frustrating, the finite container of a day filled. Despite pressing on every seam you cannot find a space where there is any give. As someone who deeply loves space, the big California blue sky, finding a deeper inhale, being the first one awake with an infinite day stretching before you, this is not my natural habitat, full. My natural habitat is space.
I went out one morning recently. I noticed the warm and sunny January air, the sky, the cars driving by. The soft music playing at the coffee shop, the scrape of the chair, the green of my matcha latte, the way green things find a way to sprout anywhere in Los Angeles, even amongst concrete. I noticed the people and the dogs accompanying them and the sun on their soft faces. After weeks of life being filled to the brim, I was delighted to find so much space in an ordinary moment.
Space can exist in fullness, I am learning. If you have only five minutes to find space, you will find it. For those of us who create, what a remembering.
Hello dear ones. We are, oh my gosh, how many days into 2026? Can you believe it? Does this happen when you get older? Do you lose track of time? Or even have the moment when it was just 2023 and you were doing this cool thing? Oh shoot, that was…..years ago. What does that even mean? I’m really curious young ones out there. Do you feel like the world is just passing you by? I say this because I am in search of what my New Year’s resolution is or what do I want from this new year and why do I have to make a decision on it?
I guess it’s a goal.
It’s something to push me through.
It’s something to motivate me and make me, I don’t know, be better?
Okay, so year in review 2025. Hmm, I don’t know what to say about you. Okay. I do know what to say about 2026 though. Since 2025 was kind of a slow year, relatively speaking. Let’s make some stuff happen in 2026. Let’s get some plays written. Let’s just get some writing done.
How’s that?
Super duper!
Okay, but how do we carry on? What do we do? What do we write about? How does it all start?
Ughhhh! I think that’s what it is. I have forgotten how to do everything.
During the pandemic, I took writing classes. It was how to write a play and just because, for me in my mind, I need a step by step or at least what something should look like. And I feel in the last year I’ve forgotten how to do it all. I’ve written random pieces of little bits of story and text and dialogue, but never anything complete. So this year will be, oh my goodness, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but relearning how to write a play.
I always think “how do you write a play” because when Native people talk about writing, it’s about decolonization and stuff. Western writing is not how we write things. It’s not, for Native people, we don’t tell stories in the Aristotelian way, right? There is no big climax. So saying that confuses me. What the hell is the story supposed to look like? It’s a circle, these wise elders tell me. What does that even mean? I used to sit with my grandfather and he used to tell stories. What, is it that it has no ending? “It has go out there young one and life will discover you.” uhhhh, what?
Oh my gosh, I don’t know that this is going anywhere. I don’t think this is good indication. I think this is an indication of what 2026 will be for me and my writing. A big blur, a big melange, a big pile of writing.
So, dear reader, I ask, how do you start a play? Do you start in the middle? Do you start with an idea? Do you know the ending? Do you outline? I’m curious on how people write. Because right now, all I have are journal entries and morning writes that I’m trying to get better at, sidebar, and write every day, regardless of how much it is. Where do I even start? Hey, dear reader, thanks for listening to me mumble and jumble.
When others demand that we become the people they want us to be, they force us to destroy the person we really are. It’s a subtle kind of murder. —Jim Morrison
The play A Subtle Kind of Murder written by Dale Dunn had its world premiere at the New Mexico Actors Lab this past summer, and it has just been nominated for the Broadway World Awards in the categories of Best New Play, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, Best Ensemble Acting, Best Scenic Design, Best Lighting Design, and Best Production! This achievement could not make me happier or be more inspiring for myself as a fellow playwright who offered feedback in the early stages of writing. I had the pleasure of being a part of Jennie Webb’s Next Draft Workshop with Dale back in 2021, reading early drafts of the script when the sinewy musculature hadn’t been fully realized and the thematic threads were not neatly tied. It is always satisfying to see a play come together after being a part of its developmental process. Dale knew clearly what she wanted to write about, but there was a lot of metaphor and symbolism within the overlapping worlds she was creating, especially tied to the multimedia aspect of her piece that needed shaping. What I remembered most about her play was that it was deeply feminist, and it spoke to the relentless sexism and abuse of young women who are trying to make something of themselves professionally. While I did not get to see the production, I reached out to Dale to read the latest production copy of the play. I’ve now just read it, and all I can say is that it leaves a reader breathless! I can only imagine what it was like to have a seat in the darkened theater. Five years in the making, and the final script is simultaneously heartbreaking, gut-punching and, dare I say, hopeful.
A Subtle Kind of Murder is a play seeded by a confluence of ideas (and worlds) that are all thematically tied to living as a woman in a sexually predatory patriarchy. Jane, an acclaimed novelist, has been hired to write a screenplay adaptation of the 1947 noir murder mystery novel In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes. Under deadline to finish the script, Jane sequesters herself in her childhood home, a remote Kansas farmhouse with the Filmmaker, her staunch but strict motivator who encourages Jane to stay focused and get the job done. However, the two are unexpectedly interrupted by the Woman in Brown, a young, bright-eyed woman who stumbles into the farmhouse after being followed by the Man in the Hat. The Man in the Hat, a shadowy figure whose voice and presence is felt by all the women, but never materializes until play’s end, doubles as the serial killer from Hughes’ novel and the bigtime executive who once sexually assaulted Jane in a Hollywood studio, when she was once a young, naïve assistant, whose dreams of making it big in the industry were killed from the humiliating transgression. Not coincidentally, Jane’s current writing contract is with the same Hollywood executive who assaulted her decades before; he does not recognize her because she’s taken on the pen name Jane Franklin, after Ben Franklin’s sister, a woman who never got an education nor a fair shot while her brother was given every resource to become the famous intellectual, inventor, and founding father. So, it’s fair to say, Jane has something to prove and an axe to grind.
As the play progresses, we start to gather that the Woman in Brown, like the Man in the Hat, doubles as the murder victim in the Hughes novel as well as the younger version of Jane. She is, as Jane describes her, “the young woman who had the nerve to think of the world as her oyster.” Both the Woman in Brown and the Filmmaker are versions of Jane at different stages of her life. They serve as figments of her imagination as she is haunted by the chilling veil of a man’s rapaciousness while she fights to claim her agency as a woman and an artist. Jane references her own acclaimed novel, which is the same title as this play, by describing a subtle kind of murder as the “the murder of the self.” Jane goes on to say “The subtle kind of murder leaves you in a sort of tortured half life….dazed…powerless…often fighting shame and regret.” As the three women argue over Jane’s chosen pen name, she declares “Jane. It’s every woman’s name.” Here is the crux of the play for me. Aren’t we women all Jane? Even in 2025, when there is lip service paid toward a #MeToo movement that holds powerful men accountable, it seems that for every jailed Weinstein, Cosby, or Epstein, there is another man lurking in the shadows, ready to decimate a woman as, in Dale’s words, “just another girl in the office.” Ultimately, as Dale describes, the play is about “self-forgiveness.” She says, “there are so many Why didn’t I?’s in life.” She is quick to answer the question: “Well, you didn’t, and it’s okay. You have to look at it. And then leave it.” She goes on to explain, “Jane is confronting her past, the assault that made her turn away from her ambitions, and she needs to see it for what it is in order to move past it and do the creative work she is meant to do.” The pain of regret and humiliation is suffocating, and it consumes so many victims of assault. But it’s not just physical assault that women contend with, it’s the multitude of micro-aggressions that tell us to behave, to please, to keep quiet, to wait our turn, to act right, to apologize, to shrink, to cower, and on and on and on. A woman must permit herself to reject it all, to say no, to get out from under the patriarchal power.
Dale Dunn, Playwright and Co-Artistic Director of Just Say It Theater
The play is a multi-media performance that utilizes film projection and sound to tell its story. Dale has a lot of experience using projections in her staged works. She sees it as a theatrical tool to serve as “an extension of the mind” and to be “inside the writer’s [Jane’s] mind” as opposed to being a place setter. Throughout the play there is the projection of Jane’s text as it is being typed, the thunderous and chilling projection of the ocean—the place where the Woman in Brown is found murdered—and of the diner into which the Woman in Brown escapes. All of the stage design and multimedia lends itself to the mirrored and mysterious worlds characteristic of the noir genre.
Dale herself is no newbie to the theater. She has worked in theaters across the nation including the Public Theater in New York and the Red Barn Theater in Key West. She co-founded her own theater in New Mexico called Just Say It Theaterand has years of teaching experience in both playwriting and production at New Mexico School for the Arts. Her longtime theater partner, Lynn Goodwin served as both the dramaturg and director of A Subtle Kind of Murder, which explains the synergy, flexibility, experimentation, and care that the ensemble carried throughout the developmental process from table read to production.
I asked Dale whether or not she had a recording of the piece that I could view; Sadly, she didn’t have anything, only a muffled and grainy recording that wouldn’t do the play justice. At first, I felt that this was disappointing, but I also realize it’s sort of the point. Nothing can replace the ephemeral magic of theatre. I truly hope A Subtle Kind of Murder gets another production; It’s a play that every Jane (and John) should see.
I attended the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe Mass last Friday, December 12th. In my local church, at Hyde Park, this Mass was mostly attended by the Latin community and was held in Spanish. Before the Mass, the Holy Rosary was recited and also spoken in Spanish.
Though I don’t speak and understand very little Spanish, I was determined to attend the Mass so as to steep myself in the wonder of practicing the faith. During Mass my thoughts wandered to the English version of a homily I watched on EWTN earlier that day.
I learned that the Virgin Mary of Guadalupe appeared on the hill of Teleya in Mexico on December 12th, 1531. She introduced herself as the Mother of God and the mother of all humanity to Juan Diego1, an indigenous peasant. She asked of Juan to build a shrine on the spot of apparition, so that she could show and share her love and compassion to believers.
Juan went to what is now Mexico City to tell the Archbishop, Juan de Zumarraga, of the encounter with the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Archbishop refused to believe the story without proof of the identify of the Blessed Virgin Mary. So, Juan returned to the place where Our Lady had appeared. In the second visit, the she told him to climb to the top of the hill and gather some flowers. It was winter and nothing would’ve been in bloom. On that day, Juan gathered flowers and presented them, gathered in a tilma, to the Archbishop. The Archbishop recognized the flowers to be Castilian roses, which are not native in Mexico. The tilma miraculously had the date and the image of Virgin Mary, with her head bowed and her hands in prayer. The details of the image on the tilma are rich in symbolism, that to this present day it remains a subject of fascination and study.
It was after this period that a mass conversion of the indigenous population to Catholicism reached its peak, estimated at 9 million. These conversions may have been by force and/or true belief in the mysticism. A transformation of the consciousness can happen while meditating upon an image. For example, fixating on a Tibetan Thangka2.
Among the details of the image on the tilma was the blue-green of her mantle. The Aztec Indians associated this color only with royalty hence the Blessed Lady was a Queen. Among their practices was to worship planetary elements of the sun god, the moon and the stars. The image on tilma revealed the Blessed Virgin Mary as cloaked by the sun, standing on the moon, and her mantle surrounded by stars. In their imagination the Blessed Virgin Mary had conquered these gods.
“Our Lady revealed herself as the Virgin of Guadalupe, which was a native word in Aztec that meant “the one who crushes the serpent.”
“The arrangement of the stars on Mary’s mantle is the exact arrangement of the constellations above Mexico on December 12th, 1531 – the day she appeared.”
The Bible is rich with stories of miracles and prophecies. The story of Our Lady of Guadalupe resonated with me, because it is new to me, and fascinated me deeply with its symbolism. I had been contemplating the words “Faith, Hope and Love”, most especially as Christmas Day approaches. In the gospels, Love is deemed as the greatest. But to me, faith is the hardest to manifest. I am constantly challenged to practice my faith, because I have my doubts, and I strengthen my faith by prayer and having hope, and meditating on the words and the messages in the words of the Bible.
“Believe” are emblazoned on Christmas cards. Isn’t “Believe” the same as “Have Faith”? During Christmas, both adults and children play at make believe. A common play theme is Santa Claus and the Elves, and all the other wonderful and fanciful characters of this season (Rudolf, Frosty, Scrooge, The Nutcracker). We resurface these stories every year, because there’s something in the human psyche that wants to believe in the super natural beyond the natural consciousness of the daily grind of life. We seem to gravitate towards believing in magic that gives a soothing balm to the pain and suffering of the rainbow of emotions and textures of the images of glaring humanity.
“The mandala in Tibetan Buddhism is more than just a geometric pattern, it’s a deeply symbolic, spiritual representation of the universe. Traditionally crafted with vibrant colors, precise symmetry, and intricate detail, these sacred designs serve as powerful tools for meditation, healing, and ritual. Rooted in centuries of religious tradition, the mandala holds a profound place in Tibetan Buddhist philosophy and practice, acting as a bridge between the physical and spiritual worlds.” – https://bstcthanka.com/blogs/mandala/the-role-of-mandalas-in-tibetan-buddhism↩︎
It’s easy to despair about the decline of theatre in America. Or America itself. Or the world at large.
Here’s a sign that the universe is not going to hell in a handbasket: Mexico is reading. A lot.
I’m here this week at the Guadalajara International Book Festival, selling a few of my Fina Mendoza mysteries in Español, talking to distributors to get my books on Mexican bookshelves and into school libraries. I’ve been surprised at the positive feedback from experts in the publishing world here. They don’t think I’m crazy – a gringa writing about an Mexican American child, the daughter of a congressman, solving mysteries in the U.S. Capitol, trying to interest an audience south of the border. They attentively listen to my pitch in Spanglish, assisted by an interpreter I hired through the book festival. They carefully appraise the physical books. And several were very interested. We’ll see what develops.
Meanwhile, I’ve been blown away by the festival itself. More than 900,000 people attended the Guadalajara International Book Festival – or FIL – last year. This year, organizers are expecting to top a million. To put that in perspective, the LA Times Festival of Books is about a tenth the size, drawing just over 150,000 people. The convention hall is PACKED with people, holding books, talking about books, buying books.
And here’s the surprising thing: the average age at the book festival is under 30! And they are as excited about books as are attendees at ComiCon about the latest Marvel movie.
Why?
At Guadalajara’s festival, two full days are set aside just for school kids. Outside the convention center, there’s a massive traffic jam of busses, all stuffed with middle and high school kids. Remember: middle school is when we lose readers to their phones. Mexico’s answer: make the book festival an annual field trip for schools all over the region. That translates into a culture of reading, of celebrating literature. That’s why you see so many 20-somethings wandering around the exhibits on the other days of the festival. It’s the place to be seen!
Why isn’t this a tradition in the U.S.? (I’m looking at you, LA Times Festival of Books: why are you not partnering with LAUSD to bring school busses of kids to the FOB – or introducing a Friday dedicated to school kids all over Southern California?) If we want to create that next generation of readers, we need to follow the example of theaters who direct those school busses to special performances or bring performances of plays into classrooms.
Meanwhile, I’ve really enjoyed the Guadalajara festival. There are few Americans here (and those who are here speak Spanish a heck of a lot better than I do.) We’re missing out. In my lousy Spanish, I’ve had wonderful conversations with 11-year-olds who were thrilled to talk to me about my Fina books. I’ve met a Puerto Rican kindred spirit who writes speculative fiction and works as a translator at the United Nations who wandered the shopping streets of the nearby town Tlaquepaque with me and a kid from Miami who’s created a child’s picture book about death who swapped contacts with me and a couple from Mexico City just starting their publishing adventures.
If you write in Spanish (or have your work translated) THIS is the place to be. More than 3,000 publishers are here from more than 60 different countries. There are literary agents here Monday through Wednesday, selling the foreign rights for books (and poetry and plays) in English to the world. If you’re looking to sell the rights to your plays or find a publisher, plan to fly down next December. If your Spanish isn’t up to snuff, you can hire a translator for less than $25 a day. Come to Guadalajara. You won’t regret it.
There were days throughout the end of 2023 and the entire 2024 where I couldn’t move, days when my body felt like it had forgotten itself. I cried for weeks on and off. I felt stuck. I had forgotten how to move in my body. I had to re-learn how each body part worked.
It took time.
It took intentional healing.
It took remembering how to live inside my own skin again.
Slowly, I found my way back. Courage, I learned, isn’t fearlessness. It’s learning to move through fear | fear of the unknown, fear of lost dreams, fear that an idea may never manifest.
Thirteen years of making work with little funding or support had finally caught up with me. The exhaustion had affected my nervous system; it was bone-deep. For a moment, it felt impossible to continue as an independent artist.
In 2024, I realized Theatre Roscius needed to slow down to understand how it wanted to evolve. After twelve original theatre & performace art works, four short films on Super 8, digital, and 16mm; four original physical scripts; my first exhibition; a new compilation of experimental pocket plays; two installations; numerous physical photography collections and two new sculpture series built from natural materials, it was clear I had earned rest and I took Tricia Hersey’s call to Black women to rest and reset as church. I felt I had earned the space to imagine the next chapter, and to act later.
In the midst of this self renovation, I fought to hold on to the voice I had spent years building. I felt it was violated at times and challenged by others. I had to sit with myself, it took long, lonely hours, until I found my authentic voice again. I had to listen to all the voices that lived within my head…and then I remembered: Alyson Mead.
I think about Alyson Mead often. We met during the early LAFPI Sam French days; she took me to lunch when I needed it most. Being an outlier in a city where it feels like everyone already knows everyone was difficult. She told me I would find my tribe, that my artistic voice would sharpen with time, but that the road would be hard. She was right.
Those first years after school were shadowed by hard times and scary nights, making work no one might ever see. Somehow, naivety, immaturity, and obsession with the work outweighed any sense of my reality. I kept going.
Then I found love, and my partner stepped in as unexpected support, taking on roles he never anticipated, and somehow we’ve made new work every year since 2013. And though I didn’t find “my tribe” in the way Alyson spoke of or how I imagined, Instead, I found with time something else: an international constellation of support that has been unexpected, powerful, and sustaining.
Time heals. Not gently, but truthfully.
Life bends, breaks, and reshapes us. And if you keep going, despite disappointments, despite violence, despite the impossible, you eventually meet the support you prayed for years before. I don’t know what would have happened without the emergence of residencies, fellowships, and grants. Maybe I would have continued self-producing. Maybe I would have walked away. Maybe I would have collapsed into a grief that swallowed me whole. But the “what ifs” are dead ends. What matters is this: time keeps moving. And we must too. Keep loving, keep empathy at the center, keep faith alive, and keep walking towards the light even on the darkest of days.
And 2025 arrived like a whirlwind. The last three years // the work, the political climate, the loss of life around the world // left my nervous system frayed. Sudan’s famine, Palestine’s devastation, Ukraine’s fight for survival, Lebanon on the brink… the world still feels unbearably heavy.
The past few years have been unimaginable, but I am excited for the now and the future. I believe there is always light inside darkness. I believe that moving toward hope changes the frequency of the universe. I believe theatre and performance shift the world, that every piece made in grace and with care transforms a small corner of our collective ugliness into something more beautiful.
“It’s funny the things you remember and the things you don’t.” — Karen, All About Eve
In October I saw something remarkable at the cabaret of The Agile Rabbit in Paris. (Forgive me, I just loved writing that.) My sister Susan and her husband Robert had gifted me a birthday adventure with them, and it was a dream come true: we stayed in an apartment near the Notre Dame Cathedral, ate fabulous meals, drank champagne, ate chocolate croissants, and saw dear friends. In short, it was a wonderful excursion, one I will treasure always.
But one of the most unexpected gifts, was the experience of watching the faces of the audience at a cabaret located in Montmarte, in a musical revue that was deeply touching.
We had researched some performance venues to visit while we in Paris. Perhaps we would go to the Palais Garnier, Opéra Bastille, (I’ve never been and someday I vow I will go to an opera there), or Les Folies Bergère, and then, just to bedevil Robert, we might go see the Moulin Rouge Paris show. Robert is back on Broadway right now in the musical Moulin Rouge, and had spent the last two years on the road with the show. But Robert had asked to see something more akin to a Parisian evening, and we kept looking.
And then I found a post online about Au Lapin Agile – The Agile Rabbit – a cabaret that has its own place in Paris history. We were looking for something authentic, not a Vegas style show, and this place sounded promising: “Au Lapin Agile is located in the Montmartre neighborhood of Paris and hosts intimate, traditional French performances. The atmosphere is cozy, dimly lit, and focuses on audience participation and classic French “chansons”. The current show, “Songs, Music, Poetry,” features a variety of performers singing old French songs, Parisian melodies, and drinking songs, with the audience encouraged to sing along.” We were intrigued.
And here’s a bit of it’s history:
“The name means the agile rabbit, or Gill’s rabbit. It comes from the commercial ensign painted by the artist André Gill in the 1870’s showing a rabbit skipping out of a frying pan. The rabbit carries a bottle of wine, and is wearing a red neckerchief and sash. Because the rabbit (lapin) was painted by Gill, the sign – which quickly became famous in Montmartre – came to be known as the Lapin à Gill (Gill’s Rabbit). By repetition this became Lapin Agile (Agile Rabbit), this latter name stuck.”
Image by the artist André Gill
“In 1903 Frédéric Gérard known as Frédé became landlord of the property that would become Au Lapin Agile. Frédé was well known in Montmartre where he would go round the streets selling fish carried by his donkey. Frédé’s crow, goat, monkey or his pet white mice would sometimes also make an appearance at the cabaret.”
“He also had another café called the Zut where Picasso was a regular, so Picasso came to the Lapin Agile too. Frédé was musical and easy going. Just like Lapin à Gill (Gill’s Rabbit) he too wore a bandanna around his neck and sometimes on his head. We can catch a glimpse of Frédé (wearing clogs), in Picasso’s painting Au Lapin Agile, painted in 1905 and hung in the cabaret. The work can just be made out to the left of the sculpture of the Christ figure in the attached photograph.” (The photograph shows him singing and playing his guitar as an attentive bohemian audience looks on.)
And yes, this is the place that inspired the writer/performer/musician Steve Martin in 1993 to write the play Picasso at the Lapin Agile. The play features the characters of Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso, who meet at the Lapin Agile in in Montmartre in 1904. In the play, at the Lapin Agile, they have a lengthy debate about the value of genius and talent.
On a beautiful night in October, friends traveled from London and Ireland and Montreal to join us in Paris, and we were a chatty bunch, out on the town. So we gathered our group together, and headed off to what was billed as an authentic Paris cabaret.
We arrived, somewhat early, I realize now; and we loitered around the closed front doors, as the singers appeared, banged on the doors with vigorous knocking, and were let inside. Eventually, the doors opened and we were escorted upstairs, to a large open room with square tables, an assortment of chairs, and a piano that was stacked with sheet music. We ordered drinks, and watched as more and more people crowded into every available seat, the noise and laughter creating its own kind of music.
Once the room was very full, the lights changed, and a quietly elegant musician sat down at the piano, which was right next to us. Then several singers appeared. They all sat down at a large table in the center of the room; nodded at one another and the music began. They started singing together, with the pianist playing such incredible melodies, without looking at sheet music, but referencing a play list that was announced with a nod, or a pointed finger at one of the singers. They sang drinking songs, and duets, and beautiful solo melodies.
And it was fabulous. It was unexpected. And also crowded and emotional and intimate. The crowd seemed to know every song, and would, on command, join in. Our friend Jennifer speaks fluent French, and sang along with such spirit, that it seemed she had been there before. My sister Susan knows and speaks French, and she could nod and comprehend the nuance of the songs and lyrics. I, other hand, could only marvel at the expression and nuance of the language, gauging my reaction on what was meant by the faces of the audience.
And here’s the gift of the evening – the faces of the audience: uninhibited, engaged, positively charged for hearing and enjoying the music. It was such a committed crowd to the singing – you saw the nods and then the laughter, and the anticipation of knowing what comes next. You could feel the transmission of the emotions and the receipt and acknowledgement of the audience – and it seemed so much like gospel in a church. The call and response. The encouragement and acknowledgement, all done with such enjoyment and connection. I haven’t seen an audience this energized and connected in a long time. It spoke of community and history and shared perspective.
There was also the performance of a man, who was introduced as a 93 year old singer, who sang several songs, and the crowd LOVED him. And wanted more. I couldn’t help but think of our American idea of youthful charisma on stage, and the contrast with this venerated gentleman.
We left at 11:00pm, as we had an early morning the next day, and the cabaret was going on strong when we left – our seats were immediately claimed by the crowd.
But I left with the memory of the faces in the audience. The singers who could create such magic with their songs and such exquisite vulnerability with the audience.
If you ever have the chance to go to Paris, and you’re looking for a conduit to the real night life, consider this encouragement to visit Au Lapin Agile. I hope you have the kind of evening we experienced.
A night blooming Peruvian cactus lived steps outside my door this past summer. On it was a single bud waiting to open. Last month, late one night, it finally bloomed. I thought about waiting until the next day to see it, tired from the day that passed, but curiosity finally won and I stepped outside. The creamy white flower was a stark contrast to the blackened sky, the petals lush and like a kaleidoscope, never ending. I took a few photos and went back into my home. The next night, I returned to look at the flower again, but it had withered, drooping over on itself, for the flowers only bloom for a single night, serving as pollination for bats, then immediately die, offering seeds to the birds.
Life is full of seasons, of phases, of things that flower, then disappear. Death of old selves. Death of old lives. Death of dreams. Ready or not, life releases, the only way the new can appear. This intensity exists all around us. The grapevines in the backyard wither too soon, before we can enjoy all the grapes the season offered. The hummingbirds start to leave the honeysuckle earlier and earlier as autumn approaches, long before we are ready for the shorter days. When it happens, we are often wholly unprepared. We leave the flower, assuming it will be there the next night, only to return and find that we are forced into the new. Change arrives whether we welcome it or not.
For what feels like a painfully long time now, my own writing has been shifting and changing and morphing, slow and directionless. Family drama, realism, surrealism, sci-fi, absurdism, climate crisis focused, what haven’t I written at this point? Sometimes you wonder why you create something that might only be performed once, if at all.
The only consistency in life, it seems, is death of the big and small. Death of who you thought you were, of who you actually were, of who you hoped to be as the new is ushered in. The night is thin, beckoning you to witness the flower that sorrowfully lives for only a night. We’ll attempt to capture it with words that are marvelous and sad, intense and happy, joyful and ready. We make plays that are ephemeral, alive sometimes for only a night, the creation existing for those who dared to come outside into the night and see.
The Peruvian night blooming cactus does not weep if no one witnesses the single night of its magnificent creation. The flower appears regardless. May that be a reminder to me.
This Hispanic Heritage month, I had the pleasure of teaching kids about the wonderful and amazing Frida Kahlo. While brushing up on my knowledge of her legacy, I was deeply inspired with how vulnerable she was to include herself in her art pieces. As a child, Frida found solace in creating art when her illness (polio) made it so unbearable that she was paralyzed and oftentimes bedridden. Her roots as a creator stemmed from communicating the truth of her pain. Frida found herself expressing her big feelings by centering herself as the focal point of her work.
WHAT? Girl, how?
“My painting carries with it the message of pain” Frida Kahlo.
When I write plays, I center those around me. My mother, father, sisters and friends. Where I’m from, my culture and parts of my upbringing like Spice Girls and double dutch. But when it comes to writing about me, I just don’t do it. I steer away from telling my story because I feel like I’m better at telling other people stories because it’s more relateable. It’s not like I’m not in there, I’m just not the lead… or supporting but more like the understudy. But Frida challenged me. And boy what a challenge it is.
Have you ever told the truth about yourself? Like telling the paper what it is you truly believe of how you really are and who you know yourself to be? My god, it is not for the weak. When Eugene O’Neill wrote his semi-biographical play Long Day’s Journey Into the Night, he made it so that it would not be produced while he was alive. The play is his truth. How he sees himself and the toll his toxic upbringing had on him. The play was so revealing, it exposed him in this vulnerable way that he refused to share until years after his passing. Baby, I get it.
Engaging with Frida’s boldness as a truthteller, I challenged myself to write a play about myself (cringe!). I am able to see myself on paper in a way I’ve only been able to think about and I don’t always like who or what I am seeing. A friend from my graduate cohort once said during a lecture, it’s important to “show your scars, not your wounds,” as to say if there is something we are not yet healed from, we do not have to feel pressure to write about it or share it with the world. And I agree. However, I have the scars, yet refuse to confront what caused them or who caused them due to the fear that more often than not, it was me.
Each scene in this new… experiment has me feeling all undone and exposed in a way I’ve never been in my life. I write a little bit then hide from it. Scared that it’s not good or I’m not good or that I’m not telling the whole story or that it’s a poor depiction of my memory and how I want to communicate who I am and how I think of myself.
In the portrait The Two Frida’s, created after her divorce with Diego Rivera, we see two versions of the artist holding hands. Both have their hearts exposed. While one (the traditional Frida) heart is bloody and open and… undone, while the other, a newer version, heart is closed. Healthy though exposed. For me, this is what I hope for myself. The chance to see a healthy part of me holding this raw version of myself with love. The way I’d like to approach that is through playwriting which is my art and accept myself through it all.
I look to Frida as my north star in writing about myself in the most honest way I can understand. I look to her for guidance as I think about how I see myself on paper and in the mirror. It’s okay to confront pain and lies and truth and my ugly through my art work. But I’ll also be available to hold my hand and allow for each version of myself to be seen, loved and accepted. By creating this work and even sharing it (if I feel like it) I’m giving each version of myself the chance to be visible by the world. A world who has been harsh, unkind and unforgiving to me but also, caring, generous and graceful.
I love you Frida Kahlo! Thank you for your truth which has set me free.
Should I spend $200 to buy my theatre pal Marc’s Olympus OM-1 camera at the end of my sophomore year of college????
Here’s some back story from my childhood to explain why this was such a big decision:
When I was in the third grade, men in suits came to the front door. I thought they were insurance salesmen because back then, those type of guys came a knockin’ to sell policies. But THESE Men in Black took the car away. Oh. NOT insurance guys. I later learned the term Repo Men. As in repossession. Apparently Dad had fallen behind on the payments for our Thunderbird.
We went through a bunch of cars the next few months. Dad had a little red Corvair for a bit…
… not to be confused with a snazzy little red Corvette and no need to cue up Prince’s song.
Then Dad got into an accident where the Corvair was totaled. Great. The guy living next door to us was a mechanic so he loaned us an ancient gray clunker from the 1940s. Eventually we got a green 1951 Hudson that was the color of Dino the Dinosaur (of Sinclair gas stations fame) – and it was about the same size.
At first I was okay with Green Dino, it beat to hell and back driving around in that gray clunker. I showed my aunt (she was just six years older than me) that the back seat was so wide I could lay down across it without having to bend my knees. She rolled her eyes implying the Hudson wasn’t even remotely cool, since this was the mid-60s. Shame washed over me.
About this time of us going through cars left, right and sideways, I became fascinated with Mr. Potato Head. I’m not sure why. I already had some Legos and had started collecting Matchbox cars. Maybe it was the fun of creating a funny face, so I asked my mom if I could have a Mr. Potato Head.
She said no, we couldn’t afford it. Wanna know how much Mr. Potato Head cost in the mid-60s? Ninety-eight cents. I’m not kidding.
I begged and pleaded with my mom until she finally drove us down to Ayr-Way where she bought me one. In hindsight, I’ve often regretted pushing Mom so hard for that toy… but when you’re in early grade school, how else do you stand up for yourself?
I did have a small plastic bank back then (it looked like a vault)…
… where I put my tiny allowance when Mom could afford to give me a nickel or a dime (my job was to take out the trash and dry the dishes). But Dad stole money from the plastic vault one Saturday morning when he thought I was asleep so he could go buy coffee at the corner diner. I ratted him out to Mom and she chastised him big time. I don’t remember him paying me back.
So you can see why I was nervous and my mom was freaked out by me wanting to spend $200 on Marc’s Olympus OM-1 35 mm camera.
How could I even afford it, you ask? Well, I worked summers at Eagle Creek Park in Indianapolis to save up for college, plus I did work-study jobs at the University of Evansville (set building, publicity, box office), and I got grants (BEOG – the Basic Educational Opportunity Grant) and scholarships. No loans, I did NOT want to end up in debt like my dad.
All of that added up to my bank account giving me the green light to buy Marc’s camera. Not to mention my intuition and instincts that were yelling, “GO FOR IT!” So, I bought it. And used it for close to 30 years. A truly fabulous investment.
(It says 28 millimeter but the film that fit inside was called 35 mm)
Now that I had this fancy schmancy camera, what was I going to take pictures of? Surely more than just water droplets on clover and raindrops on roses (as much as I loved Julie Andrews in TheSound of Music)…
Wait, hang on… I was in the Drama Dept. at U of E…
Yes, photo ops there started to call my name…
(An action shot of mine from The Boyfriend, a musical production at the University of Evansville)
