I fell in my bathroom last night. No blood. I’m okay. Adrenaline and shock are starting to wear off…
Roommates came running at the sound of my forehead hitting the bathroom wall. Had to push my Life Alert button for the first time, “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.”
Roommate wrangled the dogs, while another wrangled me. The paramedics arrived, lifted me to my feet, rolled my walker to me. And I walked back to bed. They spotted me, of course.
Point is, if I can rise up — with assistance — so can you.
If I can continue to produce — casting and working with designers — so can you.
From my short play & film, I ONLY CRIED TWICE, and dedicated to Charlie Hebdo.
I feel
Stretching
Heart in my chest
Not pounding
But expanding
Sinews of my rib cage
Rage
Touching down
Tornado points
Eye above
It’s tail lashing
Like a cat
Switching, pulsing, hot, red
Rage
Wanting to claw out
Their
Everything
That they
Stole
Want not justice
But bloody revenge
Pick bullets from air
Tie gun barrels Into red bows
Take their dehumanization of me
Into my hold
Twist their bouquet
Wring them
Until I hear
Feel
Bones popping
Organs shattering
From my fine pressure
Wash my hair In spurting blood
Until I am sated
Rage
Exhausted
So I can sleep
Like the dead
Then maybe
I can dream
His life
Again
Create joy.
Feel joy…
But Spread the joy, my friends.
And joy will return to you.
A health set-back in July 2016 brought about my retirement after 17 years in libraries. I sold my home of 10 years and downsized from a 1725 square feet beloved home with a 2-car garage and 2 large backyard sheds to a 1255 square foot manufactured home that I’ve grown to love, but with 1 small (shared shed).
While I’ve given away 3/4 of my physical stuff over the last year, I also made my peace, finished my trust, filed my 2016 taxes, and am working hard to rehabilitate and learn to manage medications.
Perhaps most importantly, I decided to document an actresses performance. She led a small ensemble of four in a staged reading of my short play, I ONLY CRIED TWICE, last Nivember.
The inspiration for this act was not preserving or creating or documenting my creative legacy, but capturing her moment in time; giving “it” back to her and in memory of those killed at Charlie Hebdo in January 2015.
Much to my amazement, friendships from one to forty-three years long became my legs and lungs, and together we created a short film. I provided lots of good, healthy food and fluids, and too small honorariums made possible, in no small part, to my retirement and the sale of my home.
I produced and coordinated using my smart phone last December and January. And hosted a luncheon/screening for forty-five cast/crew.and friends/family last Sunday. And I forced myself to attend. My oxygenation dropped from 95 to 73 percent within those 3 hours, but I survived.
And I gave away more physical stuff and as the joy spread, it returned to me again.
Next up is documenting my slam poem, BLOODLETTING AND POE. We’re recording the VO on May 14. Onward and upward!
I’m home-bound.
A shut-in playwright.
A retired librarian
Who looks outward,
Sees beyond shuttered windows,
Feels not left behind —
But free.
There is a perfect symmetry
Behind the light glowing
Thru sheer curtains
And shuttered blinds.
There is a street out there where
People walk their dogs, and
Drive to work
That I rarely see.
My senses have turned inward
As if mining forgotten
Crevices in my minds eye
And, it sates me.
I’m not blind,
Not deaf,
Rarely physical,
Surprised by human touch,
My olfactory muscles,
Diminished by 24/7 nasal cannulas and
Oxygen face masks,
Do not smell.
I’ve lost my sense of taste…
Though I really enjoy food…
I love to chew
Hot, buttery, salted, corn-on-the-cob.
I love to swallow
Chilled, buttery, and raw fish.
I love spicy foods
From pineapple curry
To Tom Kha
To Spanish rice with diced green peppers.
I love to drink
Cold natural spring water
And icy sweetened diet drinks.
But as much as I love food,
It does not compare
To my love for you.
Hi. Erica Bennett here. Last Friday playwright Diana Burbano shared Chekhov’ six principles that make for a good story on her Facebook newsfeed from Siddhartha Mukherjee’s breathtaking, must read New Yorker Cultural Comment, which was “adapted from a keynote address given to the recipients of the 2017 Whiting Awards for emerging writers.” I feel compelled to share them with you with no comment:
1. Absence of lengthy verbiage of a political-social-economic nature;
2. total objectivity;
3. truthful descriptions of persons and objects;
4. extreme brevity;
5. audacity and originality . . . and;
6. compassion.
The other night, I went out for a bite to eat with my friend. We are both dorky weirdos who decided to start asking our server, Jake, about himself.
After some questions about whether or not he was going to Coachella (no) and where he was originally from (Nashville), it came to light that he was involved in musical theatre. Though I don’t write musicals, musical theatre is my first love. I was, understandably, excited. I squealed.
“What’s your favorite musical?!” I asked, loudly.
“Oh that’s way too difficult to answer,” he responded.
“Not for me!” I said. “I love Wicked.”
That’s when I knew Jake and I were not about to become musical theatre buddies. He sort of shrugged and looked down, away from me.
“Yeah, that’s a really popular one,” he muttered.
I’m not unused to this scenario. Wicked is, in the eyes of many, a frivolous, commercial musical for teenage girls. When I first saw Wicked a decade ago, I was a teenage girl. Now, all these years later, it’s still got a place in my heart. Why?
Wicked, though it was originally written (and then later adapted for the stage) by a man, explores a lot of topics that are important to me as a woman.
As a female playwright, I think it’s important to highlight the experiences of women on stage. The unfortunate issue is that often, plays that do this are seen as frivolous or trivial.
Sure there are plays, like Nottage’s Ruined, Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues, and Vogel’s How I Learned to Drive, which get the recognition that they deserve. But these plays deal with especially heavy topics. What about plays that discuss the everyday issues of women? The complexity of female friendships? Work-life balance? The everyday microaggressions that women endure? Trying to succeed in male-driven businesses and industries?
Shows that deal with these issues aren’t the ones receiving acclaim and I believe that a major step toward gender parity in the world of playwriting is for us to normalize these subjects on stage.
If I can watch 8000 plays about a guy who tries to find himself in his art, or through some woman, men can watch a few more plays about how difficult it is to find clothes that fit well.
After completing my first show, I thought the next one be easy. But now I collect bits and pieces of different stories I want to tell, never quite finishing a scene, but amassing a variety of stories, each with its own theme.
My one-person show began as my collection of writings grew. With every new writing class I would take, more pages emerged. With every writing exercise I would do, my stories sounded the same. Different names, different situations but the story was the same. As a first time playwright I did not realize this. I did not think of it as me working through something. These were just the stories that came out when I sat down to write. No conscious thought. Just writing.
Those were the days. To just be able to sit down and write. The freedom of it. Now I feel this invisible pressure on me. That each file I save on my computer must be a piece of brilliance, lest it just be taking up space on my hard drive. Everything has to be perfect the first time around. I’m not sure where this absurdity came from. But here it lives. My writing is done in my head before it even, if it even, makes it to the page. The stories, the dialogue are figments that talk to each other in my head. I try not to edit and produce the text to no avail. I’m not sure where this need for a perfect first draft came from. I, by no means, am a perfectionist. I make no bones about saying that I have no clue what I am doing and nor do I search the internet on how to write a play (I usually Google the heck out of a topic before I even start). It did take me quite some time to actually finish that first draft of my show. But that was more fear than perfection. Fear of what the audience would say and think. Would they get it? Would it be ok to say those things out loud? To people? Who am I to tell this story?
But now as I move on to part 2 of the show, and anything else I write, I am now haunted with the thought of ownership. Who can tell these stories? Do I need permission to talk about this? Who are these people who police the art?
To finish that first play was excruciating. But the worries I had never came to fruition. No one voiced, to me anyway, the ugly thoughts I had had in my head. Listening to what people thought of the play was freeing. It wasn’t about me, my story was just a window into that audience member and how it related to their life and how it made them think and feel. In the end that’s all I ever wanted. Sure it would’ve been nice if they “got” my message, but even more it helps me to keep writing and remember why I started in the first play.
The delicious set for THE BOOK OF WILL by Lauren Gunderson. Set design by Sandra Goldmark.
This is the third year I’ve flown to Denver for the annual festival of new play readings. In the past, I’ve attended Humana, CATF and the National New Play Festival, but the Colorado New Play Summit at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts is my favorite. Seven new plays in three days! It’s like a combination of cramming for midterms, eating everything in sight at a buffet table, and using all your season subscription tickets in a single weekend.
As a playwright, I find it extremely helpful to see that much new work all at once. It allows you to see trends and fall in love with new playwrights and come away with 101 ideas for your own plays.
Here’s a few trends spotted at this year’s Summit:
STRONG WORK
It was a particularly good year for new plays in Denver. Strong writing, big thoughts.
MOST LIKELY TO BE PRODUCED A LOT:
THE BOOK OF WILL by Lauren Gunderson is a love letter for every Shakespeare theatre in America. The late Will’s friends race against time and lawsuits to publish as many of his scripts as possible. It’s a big cast show, a perfect complement to a season of TEMPESTs and HENRY IVs. Round House Theatre in Maryland has already announced it will be part of its 2017-2018 season.
TWO WORD TITLES:
Don’t ask me why, but I’m fascinated with titles. Maybe because I’m so bad at writing them myself. This year, the trend seemed to be plays with two word titles. HUMAN ERROR and BLIND DATE were two of the new plays featured in readings. THE CHRISTIANS and TWO DEGREES were onstage for full performances.
POLITICAL PLAYS
I predicted that we’d get a flood of anti-Trump plays NEXT year, but they were already popping out of printers by the time I got to Denver. Political plays were everywhere.
The cleverest of the bunch was Rogelio Martinez’ play about Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Gorbachev, and the battle to come up with a nuclear treaty in BLIND DATE. Call it ALL THE WAY for the Reagan years. Very well researched, very funny. Martinez carries off an interesting balancing act, portraying a much more savvy and sympathetic Reagan than you’d expect, perhaps looking back at him with different eyes now that there’s a very different sort of president in the White House. Bravo. (I’d vote for a better title, but that’s my only complaint.)
The politics of Nazi Germany were the focus of a play by the man who wrote ALL THE WAY. Robert Schenkkan’s piece HANUSSEN is the tale of a mesmerist who dabbles in Nazi party politics. It has a highly theatrical beginning, and ends with a pretty blatant rant against Donald Trump.
Schenkkan pulled off a very difficult trick: bringing Adolph Hitler onstage and allowing him to come off as a rather likeable character. Perhaps it’s because he followed the Hollywood solution to making villains less unlikeable by giving them a dog. Hitler’s relationship with his annoying dog was quite delightful. (One wag of a fellow playwright at the conference observed that our new standard for unlikeable characters is now to ask: is he/she more or less likeable than Hitler?)
TWO DEGREES by Tira Palmquist is a climate change play. It received a fully staged production this year, after its debut as a staged reading at last year’s festival. It featured a set with panes of ice that actually melted as the play progressed.
There was also a nod to the protestors in pink hats (I actually spotted one or two of those in Denver) with Lauren Yee’s play MANFORD AT THE LINE OR THE GREAT LEAP. It’s a lovely piece about a young man’s search for an absent lost father, basketball, and Tiannamen Square. How can someone that young write that well? MANFORD is terrific and should get productions everywhere.
WHERE ARE THE LADIES?
Two of the five new play readings were by female playwrights, as were two of the three fully staged productions. (Thanks to Artistic Director Kent Thompson who established a Women’s Voices Fund in 2005 to commission, develop, and produce new plays by women.)
Yet, despite the healthy representation of female playwrights, there was a decided lack of roles for the ladies. Of the 34 named characters, fewer than a third were female. And with the exception of the terrific family drama LAST NIGHT AND THE NIGHT BEFORE by Donnetta Lavinia Grays, few plays featured roles of any substance for actresses. Nearly every one flunked the Bechdel test. The sole female in one particular play will likely be best remembered for her oral sex scene. Sigh.
PLAYING WITH TIME AND PLACE
I always come away from new plays with new ideas about what I want to steal for myself. In this case, the overlapping of scenes in different times and places happening at the same time on stage. Lauren Gunderson’s BOOK OF WILL very cleverly juxtaposed two scenes on the same set piece at the same time and it moved like lightening. Look something similar in the play I’m working on.
CHANGE IN THE AIR
The man who made the New Play Summit possible – Kent Thompson – is leaving. Kent’s gift – besides putting together a rocking new play festival – was making playwrights like me – those of us not invited to bring a new play to his stage – feel welcome. At the opening luncheon, all playwrights – not just the Lauren Yees and Robert Schenkkans – are invited to stand and be recognized by the theatrical community with applause from the attendees. That may sound like a small gesture, but it’s symbolic of the open and kind community Kent created. He made every one of us who pound away at our keyboards feel that we are indeed a vital part of the new play community. Thank you, Kent.
PS
In the interest of full disclosure, I will share that I had my agent send my LA Riots play WESTERN & 96th to the New Play Summit this year. It was not selected. I never received an acknowledgment that it was even received or read. But the non-rejection does not diminish my affection and admiration for the Colorado New Play Summit.
Knowledge. Word play of know and ledge. Knowing is being on the ledge to go beyond the limit. It is the edge. I have this strong fascination of Phillippe Petit’s high wire act of 1974 when he honored the calling to walk on the wire tied between the Twin Towers of NYC. What was and is the inherent capacity in him that sleeps dormant in many of us? The artist within is awaiting for the birth of creativity, “The Birth of Cool” a la Miles Davis. We’re all capable of doing something capricious and daring, to rise to our most audacious potential. What knowledge within us lies dormant? What’s keeping me asleep?
The clock on the bottom right corner of my laptop reads 4:34 AM. The page is framed by the edges of the screen. The Operating System is Windows. Windows have frames. Windows are portals to the other side. The scariest thing is going to the other side and not having a return to the familiar frame of mind: seeing someone we love differently, or an enemy as a friend, or home some place we can’t go back to anymore.
For Phillippe, the Twin Towers were probably no longer the Goliaths towering awesomely into the clouds. After he was forced by the men in blue to get off that wire, I bet he was still walking in air when he was back on his feet on ground zero. On a clear night from his backyard, Neil Armstrong probably looked at the moon very differently after he had walked on its surface in 1969. He said “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
When an employee tenders a letter of resignation to her boss, especially when the boss never thought the employee was capable of quitting, there is that humungous leap and change of perception on both sides of the table. We both let go of that boss-employee relationship. Though the umbilical cord of security of a regular paycheck, benefits and routine was severed, I found a lightness in my being. My breath is easy. My mind is expanded. I feel free.
I’ve been struggling this week to write a blog. Mostly because my life was consumed by the responsibility of passing down what I know and what I do to the successor of my old job. Also, I’m experiencing a rainbow of emotions born from a spectrum of thoughts – from the ultra-violet aura of spirituality (the 7th chakra) to the infra red glow of survival instincts (the 1st chakra). I walk the duality of being human. In between the 1st and 7th chakras is the 4th chakra which is the heart center. What my heart told me was it was time to move forward to the next phase of my life journey.
My boss was delighted that the transition has been one of the easiest she’s known. “Really?” I said. I know of a situations when someone packed up their things on a Friday evening and sent an email of quitting then left their pass key behind and walked away for good. I’ve walked in the shoes of someone who had to draw out the knowledge and practice from someone leaving the company and the person was reticent to convey what they know, because of a grudge. There was also the time when another person exposed their dissolution and bitterness in their exit interview. I sense that the HR person did not check the box “Rehire”.
Yes, “Really”. There is a range of going to the edge when leaving behind a job. I am conscientious to do a good job of teaching and training someone what I know because inherently, I’m a teacher. I don’t do it because it’s polite and gracious, but it’s who I am. I couldn’t leave anyone behind in a lurch or without a rope no matter how well or poorly the relations had been. In the end its better to err on the generous side than on the stingy side, because the path I choose would be what I am at the moment and that precipitates what I will be. My state of mind now is what my state of being will be.
My old job is like my old habit that I will stop wearing, like a nun leaving behind the habit of her convent or even an ex-convict, reformed, having done time. There is a beautiful quote from an interview I heard on the radio. A soprano singer described the suffering of a character as a cleansing of the soul.
That is an edge for me. The edge of being aware of who I am now. Mindfulness of the states of consciousness of my being. Projecting my future by my thoughts now. I’m not a high wire artist, though I am longing to be aloft and experiencing the high. The closest I’ve been to that state was hiking to the peak of a mountain. It’s so much work getting there and the body produces endorphins that gives that “high” feeling. Though the descent from the top can be tougher than the ascent, it’s part of what could be a pernicious journey. Any trip worthy of growth and evolution has the price of danger and loss of the original self. In Joseph Campbell’s analysis of the hero’s call to adventure the possibilities are: Sacred Marriage, Atonement with the Father, Apotheosis, Elixir Theft. For me it is Apotheosis.
