Theater has always been a window for me. To something new. Something exciting and usually something inside. Something about the manic chaos and attempts to just make it through high school fit so well with Albert Peterson in Bye Bye Birdie. Emerging from the chrysalis of high school and evolving into college paired well with Kafka’s Metamorphosis. Showing up in a strange land looking to figure out what the hell was going on in Twelfth Night matched my move to Boston and transition into adulthood. There has always been a touchstone or connection between my real life and the show I was in. I could find it. Sometimes it took longer than others. But it was always there. It helps me process. Which is why theater has at times been my drug and my therapy.
In Brigadoon, love is the major theme. How love can make miracles happen. Especially the jmoy and intoxication of new love. Of that puppy love. It’s got a Romeo and Juliet vibe. There are at least three scenes I consider Romeo/Benvolio inspired. Not to mention the Love can conquer all vibe. But the thing is, my heart and my reviews on love have a lot of scar tissue built up. If theater before has been therapy, this has been more like rehab. Or physical therapy. Breaking down the scar tissue and the atrophy. Letting the body and soul relearn or recapture what it had before.
Love and theater has always been linked for me. Every time I’ve truly fallen in love it started on a stage. Ten years ago I walked away from theater and acting when lots of my life was falling apart. It was a self-defense mechanism. I was feeling so much. Too much. So I had to shut part of me down. I knew that acting opened me up and I felt it might be too much of a Pandora’s Box to try again.
I hate a love/hate relationship with love. I mean my favorite song as a 7 year old was U2’s “With or Without You”, so I committed to angst early. I loved watching The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis on Nic at Night which was basically the story of romantic and social failure for 30 min every episode. I know every word of “The Power of Love” by Huey Lewis. I listen to Hozier’s Somebody New probably once a week. The first three real roles I got in a musical, I sang “L-O-V-E” by Nat King Cole as my audition. So yeah Love has been a thing. As it is.
I took the chance to open myself to theater again two years ago because of my daughter. I saw her love for the stage, her joy in performing and the cracks in my hardened heart began to grow. Luckily the first role I played was a villainous man-child who wanted the fancy flying car. Greed and childishness is pretty easy for me to access. And it was fun. I got to play again. I saw the joy on my daughters face. Theater was therapy again. It was good again.
This summer has been different. I don’t get to access the easy emotions this time. I have to unlock and unpack some things that have been hidden for a long time. Locked away. Ignored. Neglected. In a way it’s fitting. It took me time to find the connection between my real life and this show. But I finally did.
It’s the 10 year anniversary of the biggest change and chaos of my life. The 10th anniversary of me taking a part of me and hiding it away. Of deciding that I couldn’t let myself truly feel. Of deciding that it was too dangerous to act. It’s probably past time to unpack that baggage.
I don’t need to fall in love. I just have to believe such a thing is possible. Possible for two people in less than one day in a magical Scottish town to make a life changing choice while attending a wedding and funeral.
Ironically, that seems more likely than me unpacking my baggage.
But I’ve been working on it. It’s opened up some memories and feelings that I haven’t processed in the past 10 years, 7 years, 3 minutes etc. It’s not always been a pleasure cruise. Yet, just as seeing my daughter’s love for theater started the cracks, trying and working and processing has helped them widen. I wouldn’t say you can process or work through 10 years of repression and emotional neglect in six weeks. But I’ve made progress.
I’ve made it to the point where I can admit that I believe there is someone for everyone. There might even be someone out there for me. I’m not quite ready to believe I’ll ever find them. But I can believe it for my friends. (At least I stopped skipping weddings years ago). I can believe it for others. I can believe it for Tommy and Fiona and some magical Scottish town that vanishes every night.
If it can make a 36 year old, jaded divorced man child with a checked relationship history and an extremely stubborn nature begin to unpack some of his baggage and deal with his emotions like an adult – maybe Love can do anything, even miracles just like Mr Lundie says.
Rosetown Playhouse Presents: Brigadoon!
Performances: August 3-5 & 10-13
Time: All performances at 7 p.m., except August 13 at 1 p.m.
Location: Como Dockside
Ticket Prices: $15/adults; $12/Seniors (62+); $10/Students 6+; $7/Children 5 and under
Buy Tickets - https://rosetownplayhouse.org/shows/brigadoon
Wednesday, August 2, 2017
Monday, July 24, 2017
I Took a Walk
Last night, I took a walk. Like many things in life, it wasn't planned. It just sort of happened.
Like cancer.
I had an amazing weekend. I laughed. I loved. I spent time with my kids, my friends and my family. As Sunday drew to a close, I started to head home. I was simply going to walk to Dale and catch a bus home. I said my goodbyes and left with that plan in mind.
As I walked the streets and alleys of downtown St Paul, with the memories of the awesome weekend washing over me. I got lost in my head. Birthday parties and bowling and laser tag. Saturday morning donuts. Smiles and laughter at Culver's after rehearsal. The look on the gentleman's face when I gave him the literal shirt off my back because he hadn't gotten the free Saints jersey. My daughter's smile in the picture she sent me from the wig store.
Reality has a way of crashing in when we least expect it. Somewhere just past University and Rice, my mood shifted. I had an awesome weekend. So many good memories. So much concrete and concentrated joy. But just ahead was the unknown. Tomorrow.
My mother starts chemotherapy today. The cancer has been removed. The prognosis is good.
But they are injecting literal poison into her body today. It's terrifying even as it's logical and necessary and as safe as they can make it.
It was late. It was dark. My phone was dead and I was alone. None of that scared me nearly as much as the unknown of tomorrow. I found myself still walking. Soaking in the sights of Rice St after dark. The street which feels like it was a bustling center of commerce at one time and could be again. Over the bridge above the railroad tracks. Past a library I once visited with the kids. Up and down as the road made it's way to the suburbs.
I couldn't control tomorrow. But I could walk. And in that moment, I needed the tiny victory.
Memories came flooding in. I pass a car dealer and think of the time my mother took me to practice driving in the parking of the very same Middle School that tomorrow I will rehearse in with my children. How she stopped herself two steps on the soccer field when I got undercut when going for a header and landed on my face. The look on her face as she was torn from rushing to me and giving me the space I needed; all of Parenthood in one facial expression.
How at the two scariest moments of my life, when each of my children came into the world dramatically and premature - she flew to me. From Minnesota to Massachusetts. From Colorado to Kentucky. How in the very moment I was about to be come a parent, she asked me what she could do, and I said "I just need my mom"
We don't do a good enough job of telling the people we love that we love them.
So I kept walking. Right around Arlington and the softball fields and batting cages I haven't frequented since high school, the tears came in. It must have been a sight. A grown man, walking at night, tears running down his checks as a smile crept onto his face.
So much. So many memories. So many fears. So many steps.
It was a much longer walk than I meant it to be.
I crossed over Larpenteur and passed the building that used to house Simick's. We'd go to pick up meatballs for a party and they'd always have samples. It never feels like a party without meatballs.
Pass the bus barn that is now in the spot of the old minigolf and batting cages. Over Roselawn and toward the Cub where on Thanksgiving we saw a flock of turkeys hanging out in the parking lot like they were at a wake.
I stopped and got some water and a drink at McCarron's. Mostly to sit and play a game of Ms. Pac-Man but also to rest my feet. It felt a bit silly that it had taken me so long to walk that far. But I had done it. It was a process but it was almost complete.
I know that is where we are with this cancer thing. It's a process. It's almost complete. This poison is the next step.
Prognosis is good. But I'm still scared. Because as I walked last night, as I thought last night - It is as true now as it ever has been:
I just need my mom.
Like cancer.
I had an amazing weekend. I laughed. I loved. I spent time with my kids, my friends and my family. As Sunday drew to a close, I started to head home. I was simply going to walk to Dale and catch a bus home. I said my goodbyes and left with that plan in mind.
As I walked the streets and alleys of downtown St Paul, with the memories of the awesome weekend washing over me. I got lost in my head. Birthday parties and bowling and laser tag. Saturday morning donuts. Smiles and laughter at Culver's after rehearsal. The look on the gentleman's face when I gave him the literal shirt off my back because he hadn't gotten the free Saints jersey. My daughter's smile in the picture she sent me from the wig store.
Reality has a way of crashing in when we least expect it. Somewhere just past University and Rice, my mood shifted. I had an awesome weekend. So many good memories. So much concrete and concentrated joy. But just ahead was the unknown. Tomorrow.
My mother starts chemotherapy today. The cancer has been removed. The prognosis is good.
But they are injecting literal poison into her body today. It's terrifying even as it's logical and necessary and as safe as they can make it.
It was late. It was dark. My phone was dead and I was alone. None of that scared me nearly as much as the unknown of tomorrow. I found myself still walking. Soaking in the sights of Rice St after dark. The street which feels like it was a bustling center of commerce at one time and could be again. Over the bridge above the railroad tracks. Past a library I once visited with the kids. Up and down as the road made it's way to the suburbs.
I couldn't control tomorrow. But I could walk. And in that moment, I needed the tiny victory.
Memories came flooding in. I pass a car dealer and think of the time my mother took me to practice driving in the parking of the very same Middle School that tomorrow I will rehearse in with my children. How she stopped herself two steps on the soccer field when I got undercut when going for a header and landed on my face. The look on her face as she was torn from rushing to me and giving me the space I needed; all of Parenthood in one facial expression.
How at the two scariest moments of my life, when each of my children came into the world dramatically and premature - she flew to me. From Minnesota to Massachusetts. From Colorado to Kentucky. How in the very moment I was about to be come a parent, she asked me what she could do, and I said "I just need my mom"
We don't do a good enough job of telling the people we love that we love them.
So I kept walking. Right around Arlington and the softball fields and batting cages I haven't frequented since high school, the tears came in. It must have been a sight. A grown man, walking at night, tears running down his checks as a smile crept onto his face.
So much. So many memories. So many fears. So many steps.
It was a much longer walk than I meant it to be.
I crossed over Larpenteur and passed the building that used to house Simick's. We'd go to pick up meatballs for a party and they'd always have samples. It never feels like a party without meatballs.
Pass the bus barn that is now in the spot of the old minigolf and batting cages. Over Roselawn and toward the Cub where on Thanksgiving we saw a flock of turkeys hanging out in the parking lot like they were at a wake.
I stopped and got some water and a drink at McCarron's. Mostly to sit and play a game of Ms. Pac-Man but also to rest my feet. It felt a bit silly that it had taken me so long to walk that far. But I had done it. It was a process but it was almost complete.
I know that is where we are with this cancer thing. It's a process. It's almost complete. This poison is the next step.
Prognosis is good. But I'm still scared. Because as I walked last night, as I thought last night - It is as true now as it ever has been:
I just need my mom.
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