5:20 p.m. - 07/29/02
further nyc excitement. [installment two]
my nerves are totally and completely shot (almost.) I inadvertantly discovered this week that balling up long strips of Saran wrap and pulling them apart again is only slightly less effective than an anxiety med. which is good considering I can't find my alprazolam anywhere. if I get home and discover it on the windowsill waiting to be packed, I really will have to throw myself out a window. of all the things to *not pack* - meds are not a good choice.
I've been trying desperately hard to identify the words scribbled in the neon green ink, but I haven't gotten all of the first entries yet, so I can't post them (or this) until later. which sucks. because I spent most of the day working on it, and it still isn't done. I did find a few other things to do. I made myself a mix CD on Sarah's computer, which made me feel special because I usually fuel my mix-efforts toward someone else, but this time it's all for me. it's totally spiff - Cat Power, Sleater-Kinney, Rainer Maria, Ani, Rasputina ... I'm listening to it now- pretty much the first time I've listened to something other than "This Town Is Wrong" all day. Finally got around to shoplifting (well, ok, no) the Nields CD and have been enjoying it since. Dar Williams meets Belle and Sebastian meets Ks Choice. Yeay.
we will take a short intermission while Mary traces down her Propranolol and hopes that taking it without Alprazolam is effective in purely positive ways.
I discovered the Saran wrap trick while preparing the set this weekend; Saran wrap is our main set component (the others being a bucket, a metal washtub, a stool, and a mirror frame.) The show went amazingly, incredibly, fantasmagorically well. Opening night we had a large crowd (for the first show in a small theater) and they received it so well, we were in shock. One of Chiara's friends, Dan I think, came up afterward to shake my hand and tell me how wonderful he thought it was. Chiara told me later that he said, "Is the playwright really 17? She's amazing! She has to keep writing!" which is really cool considering he's a complete stranger, and his sentiment seemed to stretch mostly across the board.
Friday night we had a smaller, less interested crowd, who still liked the show, and who were unable to negate the fact that Friday's performance blew all their others out of the metaphoric water. Saturday was basically the opposite, as the house was very receptive but the performance a little less fabulous. And Sunday's matinee managed to be incredible despite the two-year-old who kept adding new lines. By Saturday, I realized I was used to the rather odd ritual of seeing my play performed each night, and returning to the generally shut-in nature of the typical writer was going to be tough. Whenever I finish a play, I'm basically convinced I'll never write another one, a possibility unnecessarily propelled by my uncertainty about writing. But whenever I see a performance, whenever I have real people creating onstage what I've only seen in my head, everything shifts, and I don't know how I'll write anything *but* plays for the rest of my life. There really isn't any other form of writing that allows someone else to come in and take over the creative process, making you take a new look at phrases earlier formed.
Mom and Dad came to the show the first two nights, and Dad really loved it. I was kind of surprised by how much he understood after one viewing, and how much it effected him. Mom bawled through the entire Thursday performance, which Thank God, I did not notice, but which really bothered me. She didn't cry because of the play because she didn't *see* the play. She just pretended I was saying all the lines and cried. And afterward, she just assumed she knew what every part of the play paralleled in my life, and that really pissed me off, considering she doesn't. I just got angry because I didn't feel like she'd taken anything in, just projected things out, and I quit listening to her. Actually, I guess I quit listening to her earlier in the visit. I noticed while they were here that time away from my dad really solidifies our relationship, and time away from my mom really makes ours worse. I'd forgotten that, though it was true at RED as well. I get really pissed at her assumptions, the way she is forever proving her intelligence, the way she coddles me, keeps me from being independent- and so forth. I spent Monday and Tuesday on my own in New York city- I've done all kinds of shit for myself all week- but she was still ready to put me back in this sick-girl box. I've said this before but it really doesn't work for me to be treated like a child when I wasn't treated like one *as* a child. My mom blinked through my adolescence, through my sickness, and now she's trying to pick up where she left off, and it's fucking annoying. I don't need that now, and I don't want it.
Like my aunt, she doesn't like to know that I've had anything less than wonderful occur during my lifetime. She feels like it's a failure to control the world, and she can't stand not being in control. I know that her craziness wouldn't come out this way if she didn't love me, but that doesn't mean I enjoy putting up with it.
The first night, I went with my parents to grab dinner, while my sister went to a bar with the cast and friends. (We met them there later, but I hadn't eaten dinner, so I did that first.) I had to listen to my mom analyze and interrogate me on the play, and every time I looked at her like, "Are you crazy? Were you paying attention *at all?*" she went off on a tangent, as if she could possibly know the play better than I do, when she'd "seen it" once, her head bent against her knees, sobbing. The good news was that I managed to hightail it out of there, and my dad was really supportive and so forth. The only other thing that really had me down that night was the knowledge that while everyone else had loads of friends dropping in to catch performances, I was at best part of a dual obligation. The only people I knew who came (other than people I met earlier in the week) were my parents and their friend Inge. I whined a little Thursday and Friday about how badly I wanted someone to come just for me, and low and behold, Saturday (which was the bad performance, but I'm trying not to dwell on this) Ruth came! She strolled over and gave me a hug afterward, and I was like, "Oh my God! I can't believe you came!" and she smiled and said, "Of course I came!" which completely erased all of my "YPI hasn't responded to any of my info on the play; screw them!" vibe. I found out from her that I actually have two more years to submit (it's 18 and under as opposed to under 18) which makes me happy. I have no idea where I'll be emotionally in two years (though hopefully, I'll physically be in Massachusetts) but right now I'm excited about the fact that I could be a three-year-in-a-row winner. Of course, I have to get the two-year streak going first.
She told me she really enjoyed the piece, and was intrigued by how well Sarah's movement fits with my poetry. She said that it was really exciting to see me continuing on with my playwriting (I felt like a student getting a really important gold star, which I guess is semi-accurate) and to be given an idea of how my writing had developed since the piece I sent to them. She told me that she thought she had a pretty good concept of what playwrights my age were doing (and I laughed and told her I figured reading about a thousand scripts by young people per year probably kept that accurate) and she just hadn't seen anything like my work. She said that there were people out there, I'd met some of them, writing really amazing scripts, but my voice was so unique- no matter what I had to say, the way I said it was interesting. I was just about overdosed on excitement afterward: it's just so rare to find someone who respects you as an artist, speaks with you as a friend, and guides you as a mentor. I have to keep better touch with her. She ran to the performance from a teacher-workshop, ("oh that's so great!" "yeah- they're so enthusiastic, and they're going to touch *so many people*" "yeah...and there are so many bad teachers!" "*yes* - and this way, we can even give the bad ones some...tools") stereo stashed under her chair. I was like, ooooooooh. I mean, that's really decent of her. Truly.
While I was talking to her, a girl I was in Superstar with, who went to college with Sarah, came up to give me a hug. She had a completely different air about her than she owned before the show, which I think means she felt like speaking to me differently after seeing the piece I'd created. Later, Michelle came up to grab a hug and tell me she loved it before rushing off. I was like, "There's just so much love tonight!" which made Ruth laugh. She talked about how nice that was, and we mused about how nice it would be to bottle that feeling and use it when you began a script, and felt like you were going to simultaneously rip up the paper and rip out your hair. She smiled, "When the only person who likes your writing is your mom," she said, and I smirked a little and she laughed and said, "Well, not your mom." Which is sad because my mom *does* appreciate my writing; she's just pretty wounded these days, and even though I felt bad about the mis-impression Ruth had, it was really healing to have someone just connect with me and not feel compelled to stand up for The Great And Powerful Mom.
I told her what happened opening night, and she guessed exactly why it happened. She asked how Oz was treating me; I told her I was marking time until college, that I was happy to be in the city, but I was alive even while in the boonies. She talked a little about how upset I was to go back, and I felt a little like I wanted to sit her down and tell her how far I've come in the past seven months, and how far behind I feel. Instead, I just reiterated that I had just come out of a really good situation, into another really good situation, and then I was supposed to go back to Oz, which really didn't sit well with me. And she really seemed to understand. She talked a lot about how I could survive it during December, and I didn't really appreciate that, but now, seeing that I had, I really noticed how well she understood that it *did* suck to be at my home. She wasn't minimizing that when she told me I could make it through another year.
After that performance, we went to see Bogie The Faggot, which two of Sarah's friends created/ performed. It was really interesting, despite some script problems, because it meant hearing Kyle's absolutely incredible music, and getting to attend Hotfest, which is the gay celebration at Dixon Place each July. I was just really glad to be in a room with 20-something-girls lying against each other and 40-something men holding hands and crossing their legs at the exact same angle. It felt really free there, and the space is just incredible. I hope we can get it at some point.
And after the Sunday performance, I had another person tell me how amazed they were at the script. I know it's a little more poetic than even my usual stuff, but I'm still surprised at how much it affects people. Ruth said something about how my work struck other people as experimental, but for me it was just the way I experienced the world. I'd be completely lost if the world was stripped of metaphor, image, and language. It'd be so flat and bare. Those things are what create and interpret energy for me, so the idea of seeing them without articulating them the way I do completely baffles me. I guess it's good that people dig the style because I just can't write straight plays. I write what is real to me, the emotional experience with all its intensity, but I can't have two couples eating at a coffee table talking about the weather, current events, their kids. Anyway, I'm excited about the love this piece received, the fact that we're very likely bringing it to Oz in October (Sarah and Rachel's old college wants us to do two performances and three workshops, and they're likely to pay us each more money than I've ever had at one time to do this), the slightly less-concrete possibility of taking it to San Francisco after that, and the plays to come. I already have my next script done, though I think we're going to do another piece before that one, but the one I have written is the best I've ever done. I love it. And I never love anything I write.
So basically the week is going well. I've left out a lot of things, like what I've been feeling, the fact that I trapped myself in an imaginary romantic triangle (yes, me), and what it was like to discover the absolutely amazing Holley Farmer at the Merce Cunningham show we saw Wednesday...but having the bare bones down, I'll probably remember the introspective tangents later. I'm ready to be away from Sarah and my parents for awhile and to be back to my routine. But it *is* going well, and I have good music to boot.
*shakes her bootless foot in time with the music*
You need to download "Atropine" by Rainer Maria *now.*
chord
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