Backstage Writers - Think Hope Do

Julian plants himself in front of me. “Who do you love ?” he asks. The others snicker. I feel mortified.

He leans forward. I smell red wine and that enticing cologne he puts on just before rehearsals. “Who do you love ?” he barks.

Dead silence in the room. I’m blank.

Julian steps back and glances at the others. “If you can’t love, you can’t act,” he says. Read the rest of this entry »

Madame Mauser wound up at Colette’s table when they rearranged the dining rooms.  She asked us our names then she scrawled them into a notebook. Sweet idea, I thought, an active attempt to get to know her dining partners. The fact that she repeated the question two or three times didn’t strike me. I thought she was practicing. On the fourth and fifth times, the other residents started grousing.

“Don’t answer her!” one woman yelled.

“Incredible! She can’t leave anyone alone!” Read the rest of this entry »

“Can you help me ?”  the old woman asks. She’s waiting at the elevator, leaning on her special walker. It is not obvious what kind of help she needs. “I want to go to my room. I have four children.”

As she seems greatly distressed, I agree to walk her to her room. Praise be to all higher powers, she knows where it is. Mystery reigns on arrival, however. The safety bar on her bed is up. How can this be?

“I want to lie down,” she says. I’m thinking a safety bar cannot be that complicated to undo. I try pulling the whole unit out. It doesn’t budge.  I look for a lever, knob, latch, catch.  I tug on the whole thing again. No luck.  I try sliding the main bar, nothing gives.

“I have four children!” the woman wails.

I can’t imagine how this fact could be so upsetting to her.  But what can I say? I take the disbelief angle. “Four, you say?”

“Yes, four!”

“How did you get out of bed?”  I ask.

She looks perplexed then wails again. “I moved here to have no worries!”

“Well, I am a bit stuck on this bar. I’m terribly sorry.”

“Four children!”

“I see.”

“There’s never anyone to help me.” She starts crying and I feel like a mechanical zero, not even capable of putting an old woman to bed.

“Four children,” she says. “And not one of them comes to see me.”

Many languages have a singular and plural form of “you.” English is no exception, although many foreign speakers of English are unfamiliar with our beloved “thou”.  Many non-natives believe “you” is the singular, or familiar, form. We Anglophones get accused of being a bit fresh with the rest of the world when we are, in fact, the greatest of stiffs, using formal address with everyone except God.

I vote we bring back “thou” to give ourselves a cozy way of addressing another person, a special person for whom we want to distinguish closeness, trust, and complicity. We could maintain our global stuffiness and reserve this familiar form for highly select, specific circumstances. Just think of the power we could load into this one little word. I suggest you try it.

Thou. Let it roll off your tongue and hang in the air. It’ll take some getting used to. I can only imagine how I’d feel, someone saying it to me in one of those brief moments of tension. I’d turn to leave. I’d feel his hand on my shoulder. He’d say, “Whither goest thou?” I’d shiver with that rush of exhilaration only a loaded word can produce.

Thou. Sigh. He thoued me. Read the rest of this entry »

Julian forces us to go to cocktail parties. OK, to be precise, he gets us invited, and we never balk at an evening of “character research.”

To assume a role, he says, you have to understand your character’s high moments.  Most actors roll their eyes and remind Julian that he is not a youth center drama coach. We stick up for him and assure him it’s not just for the cocktail parties. “You need to ask a few probing questions,” Julian says, “learn where a person stands, discover his driving force. Is he passionate about his job, his hobby, his unique take on life? ” Thanks to him, we’re good at getting strangers to unleash their enthusiasm. Some of us could moonlight as head hunters.

People discuss the oddest things at cocktail parties. The other night the subject was amputation. The anesthesiologist was all excited because they’d managed to save the knee. “Don’t you see?” she said, “Below the knee makes all the difference to a more or less normal life.” Read the rest of this entry »

Why do we iron?

There is a certain hypnotic pleasure to the act. One or two gentle strokes, the ugly crease is gone, and you have straight, smooth cloth. We need this smoothness for some reason. Why? What do we get out of this repetitive, seemingly useless act? If every time I ironed, one starving child got fed, I’d iron every day. Imagine the sense of purpose we’d feel if we could iron out hunger, disease, inequality. We’d iron for peace. We’d iron to protect the ozone layer. Read the rest of this entry »

Colette wonders why I keep coming back.

“You make me laugh,” I say.

“Don’t let me be selfish. Tell me about you,” she says.

Somehow we get started. I speak loudly and distinctly and choose my words carefully. My accent leads to misunderstandings. She soon takes over the story-telling.

Colette says she’s looking for work. I wonder why. She’s 93 and well-worn by the kilometers she’s put on her feet. She’s spent years walking the art galleries of Paris, visiting artists in their studios. She’s written volumes about these talented individuals she’s admired and cherished so selflessly.

“Are you bored?” I ask. I’d be bored living in a home full of people too deaf and confused for conversation, a sterile-looking place with a revolving door staff and only one or two employees who take time to listen. Read the rest of this entry »

No, please, not that bench. Damn!

The man I dread always waits until the last minute. If the controllers turn up, he stays on the platform and plays for the pigeons. He’s easy to spot, dressed in brown with a broad-brimmed hat, pride trumping shyness with a smirk. I’d hate to hear him speak.

Come on, my ticket-sniffing friends! Where are you today? Maybe I can switch cars. Nope. The engines just went “clunk,” and here he is. Ladies and Gentlemen, the Screecher!

He starts off with Somewhere My Love. I usually like that song - if it’s played in tune with a dose of passion. It is difficult to explain what happens when the Screecher puts bow to strings. Read the rest of this entry »

As Mel carries on with his nose… (cf. Jacques’ Nose)

Mel’s prepping my skin. She’s right. It does help me concentrate. Her fingers tingle every stub of my beard. Amazing what that does. I love this chair. A firm seat does help. If only I could be like Vincent and jump on any girl. Vincent loves explosive love. I love Celine. Correction. I’ve got twenty nanoseconds to fall in love with Celine- dear little vitamin D deficient, long everything Celine. She drops her briefcase on stage, and I’m supposed to tackle her. Yeah! But why? Read the rest of this entry »

You have to touch Gilles to talk to him. You put your hand on his arm, your mouth right up to his ear, and you stay there. Gilles needs you close. He knows your voice, your perfume, how your hand feels. He knows if you’re the big, rough, warm hand or the cool hand with long, thin fingers, the weightless hand that feels lost when he covers it with his own. Gilles knows where you fit in, and he’s happy to single you out in this world of voices, perfumes, and hands. Read the rest of this entry »