(Originally published on The Charlebois Post)
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| Photo by Charlie Ainslie |
I Think My Heart Needs Glasses is my second solo play—my sophomore effort at
writing, directing, producing, and performing. If you've heard anything about
sophomore efforts, you know that oftentimes they... well... slump. Especially
when the freshman effort rocked. Which mine did.
The Ukrainian Dentist's Daughter
is an awesome solo show. It's charming and sweet, so sweet that you might even
get a toothache and need a dentist (Get it? Get it?) That show, which I call
TUDD in my head and amongst good friends, is based on my mother's life. I was
inspired to write about her after making the decision that I was going to create
a solo show for myself to star in and tour around the world. It seemed logical:
one person to feed, house, pay—scheduling rehearsal was a breeze and golly,
wasn't I just the ideal actress for the role! I had bounced around a lot of
ideas in a little notebook about what I wanted my play to be about (An American
gal's adventures in Australia
And
that decision was good. It was (and is!) a great show (you can see it at the Orlando Fringe this year if you're in that
neck of the woods.) It surprised me how similar my mother's story and my story
are—a woman trying to make her place in a world in which she doesn't easily
fit. That story also seemed to resonate with many audience members. Not only
did I receive heartfelt, loving messages from individuals, but I also won an
award in each Festival in which I performed last year: Spirit of the Fringe in Montreal Winnipeg Seattle
The
prize for the Spirit of the Fringe award in Montreal
But
deep down, I didn't need the notebook. I knew what I had to write about.
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| Photo by Charlie Ainslie |
Nine
months before my tour last year, the ground disappeared. The Earth continued to
rotate normally while I was thrust into a stomach-turning spiral of sorrow
where my good friend died and I questioned everything about how the world works—and
whether it actually did work or just haphazardly went along, indiscriminately
screwing good people along the way. Those events prompted me to edit and expand
TUDD and tour it last year. Those events were the only thing in my mind about which
I could write next.
My
family and friends were supportive, but not thrilled. They were concerned it
was too soon: did I really want to visit this pain again so quickly? One friend
pointed out that writing about that time was asking everyone who was there to
relive it: was that something I wanted to do to all of them? I asked myself:
was I being completely selfish in even considering that this was appropriate
material for a show? Would jumping back into the memories rip open the (slowly)
healing wound? I didn't have answers to these questions. All I knew was that I
needed a new show on its feet and ready to perform in the next 10 months, that
my previous show had taken 2 years, and there was something nagging inside my
soul that said that this was the next story to tell whether I liked it or not.
So
I started writing. I thought about how I could keep myself safely distant from
the material while still doing it justice. I wrote some more. In November 2012,
eight months before the next Montreal Fringe, I had a rough draft. It told the
story. I wrote it in the past tense so that I wouldn't be too close, so that I
would be out of harm's way when I performed. I figured that was a logical compromise
to all the concerns raised.
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| Photo by Charlie Ainslie |
But
the script refused to go into my mouth and my brain. I had the worst time
trying to memorize it, which was new since TUDD seemed to come out of me as if I'd,
well, written it. Why was I having such a hard time learning this new piece since
I'd written it as well?
Because
I hadn't written it. My fear had.
Late
March 2013, I showed the piece to a respected colleague of mine. It went badly.
Really badly. I knew right away, like all performers know, when the audience isn't
into it. It was just me up there. Performing my words. Sharing my story. And it
was not being well received. I had the feeling that if I performed the script
as it existed that day, I would not do justice to my subject matter, to my
friend.
That
was unacceptable to me.
So
I rewrote it. Two and a half weeks before the world premiere in Seattle
I
surprised myself. The woman who confronted her fear (and 15 pages of rewrites)
that day in March was not the woman of the summer before, too terrified to turn
around and face the past. The summer before it was all I could do to tell my
mother's story: close to me, but never really mine. Today I am strong enough
(because of a path I elaborate upon in my show) to command my personal
story—and to share it with an audience with nothing but the sincerest desire to
connect with them over their own encounters with love, grief, and the search
for peace.
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| Photo by Charlie Ainslie |
So
now, dear readers, I present my sophomore effort: I Think My Heart Needs Glasses. I look forward to sharing this tale
with you.
I Think My Heart Needs Glasses has its Canadian premiere at the Montreal Fringe June 13-23, 2013 . It also plays at the Winnipeg Fringe June 18-28, 2013 .
Yana's solo
performance company, Radiant Moxie,
distills theater into essentials and inspires hope with courageous, spirited
storytelling that embraces the radiance of each individual's journey.
radiant[dot]moxie[at]gmail[dot]com
@YanaKesala
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