You May Be the Most Important Person in the Room

I. Wall and I sat in the back row of the megaplex watching TransAmerica for free because she worked at the theatre. We were high school seniors. I didn't know any trans people, so the story was very novel. I added it to my list of favorite movies on FaceBook later that night.

KHo was the friend I was never supposed to "get." We were opposites in all of the on-paper ways--jock vs. drama club president, party animal vs. introvert, hates to read vs. wants to write. We truly didn't have basically any of the same tastes, and I'm sure--especially as a freshman in college--internally I did a fair share of judging her love of pop punk and Bend It Like Beckham. I saw a copy of Trans at Target for sale one day we were hanging out. Felicity Huffman's face hologrammed from man to woman. I told KHo that's the movie I loved last spring, but she probably wouldn't like it--contemporary social issues and family drama etc. etc. Almost to spite me she bought it. We watched it, and I was right in my prediction. She took it in without much joy, and at the end I was like, "See? You didn't like it. I knew it." She was like, "Yeah, maybe I would have if the character had been anything else besides 'trans.' The movie was just about the fact that she was trans." And she was really remarkably right. It was boring. There was nothing to it. It was a glimpse into a world that's intriguing for most--but a cardboard cut-out of that intrigue. I looked at KHo who wore baseball caps and Nikes like a uniform. Grew up a tomboy and truly never got into a makeup. Perhaps she had better thoughts about the way society makes a fuss over people who do or don't wear this or that etc. etc. It didn't matter I was the one who was generally more liberal, artistic.

II.  Shells and I were supposed to hang out one weekend, but I felt like I should go to a classmates one-man show. She said she'd take me to this thing--even though she hates plays and pretty much just went because I promised it wouldn't be longer than an hour. It was about being a young black person. He played several characters. There was a talkback. Shells just sits in talkbacks miming a gun to her head and blatantly checks Instagram. People asked about process and craft but also the issues. Finally, my friend left the stage, and Shells' car keys were in hand. As we walked to the car I asked, "So, another play to add to your list of 'didn't like.'" She was like, "Yeah, well, maybe if the kid had gotten to college any other way besides basketball. I've already heard that story a million times. And why did the half-black girl keep talking about her hair? If you're half-black that's the last thing you would ever do. Black women think you're bragging and white women get uncomfortable." It occurred to me how boredom might not be the only thing Shells was feeling as a black man represented her onstage--especially as the only black woman in the audience. Yet she said nothing! She was at that talkback! I asked her why! Why not say that, any of that! "Because I don't do theatre. I don't know," she said. But, no, you might be the most important person in the room.

This Is Our Youth, Steppenwolf 2014

Yesterday night I treated myself to a date at Steppenwolf theatre. I had snagged a student rush ticket at box office open. I had a big tomato for dinner. I walked the dimming Chicago streets in my white lace flats. This Is Our Youth was good.

Here are some things I experienced and thought about:
-I chose to walk up the four flights to the Upstairs Alley space instead of taking the elevator. I saw posters from previous blockbusters. Historic. Legacy is important.
-Michael Cera basically played the same person he always does. So, not like a fat impressive feat, but he was really really good. And that's nice. If film/TV people have to be shoed onto Broadway, at least they're good.
-The play was enjoyable and interesting. It was also a very typical American drama. It affected me, but not in a way that is particularly new to me.
-The play was written in 1996, set in 1982, and completely applicable in 2014. I applaud the playwright for making something timeless. Besides the convention of the landline telephone, these kids could be having the same conversations today.
-In the talkback a woman commented she didn't think the 80s vibe came through. Yeah, there was a record player, but the verbiage and dress and feeeeel weren't that of her youth. I would have to agree...but it was written in '96, so no one can accuse the playwright of making it too current.
-In the talkback some people discussed the characters as real people, others described the play as art, a high school girl in the front row squirmed and said "like" every other word. Usually she might seem like a stupid too-young culture-attempting child--but we had just seen high schoolers for two hours stumble their "likes" and still maintain importance, heart. Tonight, the theatre sort of belonged to this teen more than anyone else.
-There were a few other criticisms of the play. In fact, I would say half of the comments bent negative. Wow. This play is friggin going to Broadway and schmucks off the street are still badmouthing it half-heartedly. You're just not gonna please everyone. This was important to experience as a playwright.
-Live theatre IS special. There were two times the entire audience gasped. It felt so good, so magnetic, so...able to grasp in my hands. I will never forget those two moments. One was more surprise, and one came from our collective gut.
-At the very beginning of the talkback a woman raised her hand and said, "We didn't get it. Four women, all educated adults, we didn't get it." The moderator opened it up to the audience and a couple people sort of said what they got out of the play. I got something out of the play. Maybe not something I learned, but the play helped me solidified something I have thought before. But I wouldn't say that's what the play meant in general. I wanted to explain, "Sometimes the playwright doesn't give you a clear message, but then it's your duty to take home the themes and live your life differently because of how you interpreted them." But that would have sounded oh so pretentious. And then I was just really grateful for my literature education. How terrible to think there is a right way to experience a play.
-It was a three-person cast. All v good. In the talkback everyone kept referring to the one female character as "the girl." This is partially the audience's fault for remembering the two male names and not having the courtesy to remember JESSICA. But. Also. The first, like 40 minutes of the play involves the two guys talking about the cute girl, the cute girl Jessica, etc. So, she is just a girl. And then when she's literally the only appearing girl in the world of the play, she's just "the girl." Perhaps you might argue this is part of the atheistic of a play with two main young male protagonists--Jessica IS just "the girl." Ya know? Anyhoo, why not sidestep the whole thing and just write more than one woman or make her more important? I mean, yeah, I get it. I'm not gonna be the woman in the talkback insisting there be a woman in the one-man show about a man and his grandfather (true story of something I experienced once)--just something to consider.

My Personal Interpretation of the Play's Thesis:
-Do not offer things you do not want to give to make other people happy. You are not making them happy. You are not making you happy. Keep the cap.

If You're Mad, Get Mad

It's 8 PM. Do you know where your Alice is? In bed. That's right, y'all. NOT IN THE THEATRE. My thesis play has closed. Big hurdle. Jumped.

I do not miss it. Not to say it wasn't a wonderful experience. It was. But every time the usher asked for my ticket and I responded, "Oh, I'm the playwright," I didn't feel the burst of Katy Perry triumph I Am Artist Hear Me Roar (I've got the eye of the tiiiiger!), I felt an impending doom like "I have to answer for this." I recognize how tired the tortured writer thing is, and I really don't put myself in that category, and yet here we are.

There is a lot I could say about this production and process, but the thing I want to say at the moment is that I believe in the power of reaction. The end of my play was controversial. I wrote an ending that didn't quite sit within the context of typical dramatic analysis and one that definitely didn't sit right with a majority of audience members. Some (many?) still enjoyed the thing (the play, yes, I'm calling my thesis "the thing"), but there's a squidgey discomfort about it. At the end of the play, people were confused, thirsting for different answers, and sometimes angry. And, I like that. Not because I believe in art as an inherent "stir people up and make em bonkers." But because I believe art should not only make us evaluate situations, but it should make us evaluate ourselves. And when we feel strong emotions (not just through the narrative, vicariously, but AT it--ie "I do not agree") we either reaffirm what we love, what we stand for...or we become more open-minded.

Act II, Scene ii.

I'm not saying the ending was perfect. I've got more revising to do. But there's importance in disliking things. I just wish I didn't have to sit in front of a crowd as the stamp for the disliked thing.

Earlier this week I watched the Miley episode of SNL over a bagel. Talk about someone who is disliked. But good for her for being such a THING. Such a disliked thing. Such a way for women to teach young women what not to be. But for who the media has been hounding as a complete trashball slut for the past month, there's still an innocence to this girl. She wore white, sat on a stool, performed an acoustic cover of "We Can't Stop." She really is a remarkable singer. Something in me fluttered when the camera closed in, she crooned, "It's my mouth I can say what I want to." I don't know. She stands for a lot of things I hate, but, also, I am hating AT those things, and that human is not a thing.

Plus, I love "Wrecking Ball."

Opening Night of True

Nervous. Excited.

Shells texts me emoji ghosts. The roommates yelp down the hall, "Tonight!" My sister presents me with a book of bat pictures. My aunt e-mails Xs and Os. Everyone's on my side.

True and Faith. Dress rehearsal.

Long black night, morning frost.
I'm still here, but all is lost.
Feel the storm every night, hope it passes by.
Hallucinate a shady grove where Judas went to die.