Tink

My musical had it's third workshop performance this weekend. I sat in the far back corner, as I like to do. I can't even comprehend it anymore. I feel like a meteorologist in the theatre. Ticking down laughs and quiet spaces. I can answer a question for the director, recognize a complication in a line, and revise lyrics immediately. I love that feeling. But when I watch generally, it's mush. I've spent years with this story. I treat it like the painting of Buddha in the kitchen. Nine times out of ten if someone mentions "the Buddha painting" I ask, "What are you talking about?"

An interesting thing about my work is I am an educator at heart, but people don't love to be educated for some reason in theatre. I do. I love being educated in theatre. But, okay, I guess sometimes I recognize I prickle when I feel a piece is teaching me something I know. And then I have to be very patient, when, for example, a pretty good play at The Goodman right now has a huge section of text about why some people prefer "they" as their gender pronouns. I'm like oh come on did I just turn on Degrassi? (Also I love Degrassi, so my complaints are even more obnoxious) But then I remember The Goodman's average viewer doesn't know about "they" stuff. Heck the gay bi-racial, interfaith artist couple I worked for when I first landed here hated the concept of "they." "Bad grammar" they both cited over and over.

So like, how do you educate without letting anyone know you're doing it? And how to you not mansplain inside comedy? And also 80% of the time I feel like this little "art for social change" is stupid because children are in cages and I donated money and contacted Congress and I know I am kidding myself that's barely reason to feel like I worked for change. And I worry it will not be resolved and I worry I will become complacent because it's just so much easier. I'm sorry, I tell the golden egg inside myself. I'm sorry I am lazier than I want to be. But then I run an improv workshop for social workers and they feel so proud of themselves and laugh so hard and tell me how it's going to help so much, and then I'm like, okay okay I believe again. I clap my hands for Tinkerbell.

8

Last night I saw the play 8. If you don't know, 8 was "written" by Dustin Lance Black (writer of Milk) using mostly court transcripts of the appeal of Prop 8 in California. You know, the play wasn't going to move a mountain in my heart. Boulder and I talked on the way over saying, "I hope it's actually a good play. I hope there's tension, and it's not just a blatant GAY RIGHTS, GAY RIGHTS, GAY RIGHTS FOR ALL." Because if I wanted to hear that, I would just get out a Talkboy and listen to my own diatribes. I go to the theatre to be moved--even if that just means having empathy for the other side.

Well, it was pretty one-sided...but, then again, IT WAS A TRANSCRIPT OF THE COURT PROCEEDINGS. So, actually, that was pretty crazy eye-opening. Did you know the defense could not keep witnesses to save its life? There ended up being, like, one dinky witness who had any potential say in the matter. And he was proven as an insufficient witness by the end of the trial. No one with any credibility could testify against gay marriage. Lead defender Cooper's final stance in front of the judge and the State of California was that there are no reasons or facts that say gay marriage will harm our society, but the fact that we don't know what will happen is reason enough to keep prohibiting it.

And that's how Prop 8 failed.

So, while the play wasn't, like, amazeballs, it was a reminder for me--this is an issue that has no business still being an issue. We have to keep pushing.

Afterward, a couple guys in the play I knew and some other colleagues went out for froyo. A bunch of them are in a Theatre for Social Change class right now, and they just finished a lesson on ethnography and presented monologues. "You didn't present yours," someone said to one of the guys. For some reason, we all pressured him to deliver it right there, and for some reason he did, very casually.

To write it here sounds melodramatic, but this man was once a boy who liked the arts, and his father was embarrassed, and this boy who liked the arts ended up loving other men, and he was kicked out of the house, and this man grew up to be sitting in a froyo shop tearing up, others tearing up around him, talking about this. Because PREJUDICE HURTS. And that is SAD. And, sometimes it's tempting to think, "Okay, the gay issue has gone on enough. There has been progress. It's not that bad anymore." Wrong, muchachos. Keep fighting.

The Chinese Crisis

We were supposed to present a Chinese Crisis--
the moment of tension, the moment right before the choice that could lead to
the biggest catastrophe or the biggest opportunity.
Our topic was bullying--these two young men and me.
"I have something, but it happened the only way it could,
so I don't know how anyone could change anything about it."
We were to replicate this true story and let our audience step in at the CC.
"Well, let's hear it," I say.

This boy was 8, and two classmates grabbed him and started punching him.
He shoved them off and ran away.
He was called into the principal's office for shoving.
They all got citations.

"So there were no other options--unless I just wanted to be beat up," this college kid says.
"There are always other options," the other boy with dark skin and sparkly earrings says.
"But, no, there's nothing else I could have possibly done."
"Yes, but--" I say.
"See? But that's the problem with this story. I did the only thing I could."
He would not stop repeating this sentiment.

It kills us to admit that just because we were victims doesn't mean we were right.

One Ride Away

My sister arrived Friday night, but it was Saturday by the time I saw her at the condo party east of school. Celebration: First sketch show of 2012, y'all. We hugged in the parking lot and got cheesecake pancakes at 2 AM.

It was a wonderful vacation. Four whole days of sister fun. Packed to the gills. Packed.


Pookie at Farmer's Market. Caramel Salted Peanut Butter Banana Scone! Vegan!

We hiked, we noted jackrabbits, we ate pasties, we ate pizza, we ate Ethiopian. We saw Richard Dawkins speak and deconstructed it with Blue Eyes and co and an Irish pub. We went to two Superbowl parties and baked monster oreo-filled chocolate chip cookies for the Giants. I screamed during The Woman in Black and bit the straw of my loyalty movie cup. We had bowls of Reese's Puffs. We sat in my hot tub in the dark. I watched her bike ahead of me today on the sidewalk. It felt like the beginning of summer. We wore baseball caps.

She's at the airport now. Waiting to board. We're still in the same city, but we're not together. This kills me. I miss my sister already, but I know that she's only a plane ride away. Just a few hours and a couple hundred dollars. It's doable.

Yesterday in Theatre for Social Change class we did an exercise where our instructor named a type of oppressive statue, and if you qualified, you were to step off the line we all stood on, walk five feet, turn around, and look at all the people who were privileged in that department. One qualifier was, "Cross the line if you grew up poor." Two women walked across the room.

Life is tough if you're poor. It's scary to wonder about the basics--warmth, water. Someone told me last week giving up meat was hard for her because she was raised poor, and meat was a treat. To give it up willingly seemed ridiculous. But, out of everything, being poor would be hard because your sister might not just be a plane ride away.

I'd starve for days if it meant ensuring Pookie will be a plane ride away forever.


Pookie shoves a marshmallow heart in my mouth while we get ready for bed.