Italy: Part One

This gull sat on top if St. Mark's square like it owned the place. It doesn't even know who St. Mark was. (Neither do I.)

Nevertheless, on an evening stroll in this same square, we heard a gorgeous orchestra version of "My Heart Will Go On." That morning we tried to have coffee in the first cafe it was sold in Italy. It was a 12 euro fee to sit. I ate a small flower-shaped cookie on the sidewalk and we had lattes around the corner. We caught a boat to the cemetery island to see Stravinsky's grave. Men with roses shove them aggressively at you. I tried very hard to learn the phrase for "I would like" but it escapes me always, so "please" has to do.

Ideas from Clybourne Park

When I read Clybourne Park last year I didn't really like it. I got its merit, but I was like, "Meh." To be fair, I read half, and I was in a bonbon coma trying to read 30 plays in a day for a Production Committee meeting. I was still excited to see it, and oooooooh my God, ohmygod you guuuuuys (yes, that is a Legally Blonde the Musical reference) did it blast my expectations away. Last theatre I saw that I loved this much was on Broadway (Faith Healer).

-Challenging someone's taste that is the biggest offense. If you're ignorant, you are the idiot. If you don't like someone's taste, you are insisting they are.
-It's unclear whether or not simply saying what you really really mean to say, what you really really are thinking in the smallest darkest most primal, disgusting, rude, hateful corner of your mind is what the world needs (hey, we're all thinking it) or if it is impossible to truly access and convey, so might as well leave it unsaid/buried.
-Things never stay buried. But, those graves may outlast you at least.
-There are many outcasts. Some because of ignorance, others because of awkward, some because of practicality. It is better to include them in the trash you're shoveling than shovel around. At one point a character yelled "F YOU" to the deaf girl who had been ignored all night. This was a kind of act of love.
-Music is so moving.
-Movement is so beautiful.
-The benefit of being on bottom is having the moral superiority of being there.
-The benefit of being on the top is having the superiority of being there.
-No matter where you are on the ladder, someone is above. Someone is below. Most of of the time we're probably side by side. (I realize I am white middle class, so that may be the most naive view, but sue me.)
-Saying a horrible thing that happened can be both a scare tactic and/or a considerate necessity.
-I honestly don't know if it's just best to keep living in polite lies because the terrible things that arise from honest rashness are so juicy, so chewable, so ALIVE. And we are all supposedly ALIVE, so what a splash of cold water?
-Everything was to the T literary from the choice of Neapolitan ice cream (racial divides) to the repetition of a few key phrases ("you can't live in a principle"). I avoid this in my own playwriting because it seems so OBVIOUS. Like, what am I, Tennessee Williams lame-o Pop-Tart-eating feminist predecessor? But, when it's on stage, it's not obvious. It's like, cool. Ya dig?

"Can we come out and say what we're actually trying to say instead of doing this elaborate little dance around it?"

Big Girls Don't Cry

When I felt the tears welling up, I was surprised and then really proud of myself because it dawned on me that I haven't cried since moving here. I have never shed a tear in Arizona. I mean, that's pretty cool, right? Like, I left everything, have been alone, have had bad days, have had mondo amounts of work, have gotten sick...and, yet, I've still never cried.

Previous things that have made me cry:

-Not being able to find the pizza restaurant I wanted to eat at (2009).
-The movie Harriet the Spy (2005).
-Koon calling the Spiderman movies "gay" while we were in Tokyo (2008).

So...my non-tears are actually pretty remarkable.

But, yesterday, I was right on the edge. As I was beelining to my improv show, I was halted by HUGE twenty-foot posters of bloody fetuses with captions like, "Real feminists don't support abortion." I was disgusted and immediately so so angry. I marched right up to one of the men handing out flyers and said, "Excuse me. I find this extremely offensive." He assured me it was necessary, and we argued, my temperature boiling, before it came to this--

Me: The world is over-populated.
Him: You need to check your facts.

Then, another student came up to us and interjected, "Excuse me. Are you a vegetarian?" The man paused. "No," he said. And that's when I felt* my throat begin to close, my eyes begin to redden, and I looked down at my watch and realized showtime was in ten minutes, and I really didn't have time to fall apart in the middle of the student union commons. So, I left. And fifteen minutes later I was playing "Say What." And twelve hours later I was eating ice cream out of the carton during Girl's Night with Bug and Kale. And 24 hours later I'm writing this to you after a morning of running and writing and writing in my gratitude journal.

75 days in Arizona and still dry.

*I can't quite tell you what moved me to near-tears. Ignorance? Death and people's concepts of it? The meat industry--still plugging away under everyone's moral radar? Or, I could be starting my period soon. Dunno!

Speak Up

Tonight at rehearsal a castmate I really like made a really ignorant remark. Not just "offensive" by Alice definitions, but legit offensive. He was talking about being approached by an angry black man and literally said, "Judging by the color of his skin, I knew he had a gun or knife."

My jaw dropped. I didn't know intelligent people still actually said that kind of thing. I jiggled between shutting up and speaking up. Of course, my voice won. I said, somewhat passive-aggresively, "Well, you can't assume that--" And I was even more shocked to hear him actively defend what he had just said. I walked outside. I felt some raindrops. I cursed man.

We are taught to speak up. To defend those who are not present. To explore the other and to love him. But sometimes it feels like our noble words get punted so far away. And, really, the metallic junk of stupidity will remain forever.

Break was over. I got into character and focused. How was I going to exchange dialogue--even in a pretend space--with this guy? I sent love vibrations to him. I made no eye contact. And, then, in a down moment an hour later, he came directly to me, apologized, and explained that he was wrong. He knows better, too. He was just mad and scared, and it was out of line. I explained I was just surprised that someone so smart and nice could say something so wrong. He asked, "You think I'm smart?" with a little grin. I nodded and I hugged him. He's no racist.

What if I hadn't spoken up? It's possible he wouldn't have considered his hurtful words, and perhaps he would have said and thought more of those poison thoughts for years. Maybe I made a difference to him and our society, but mainly, speaking up helped ME. I could leave the theatre with warm thoughts towards everyone. I can go to sleep without any nagging grudges. If I hadn't spoken up, I never would have given my castmate the opportunity to show me that I had only seen him at a low-point. I would have just nursed a small hatred until the run ended. This is much better.

Strangers are easy to like.
Thunder and lightening might strike.