In 8th grade I entered and won a dramatic monologue contest with a performance of the Stage Manager's Act 3 beginning monologue. I wore suspenders and put my leg up on a chair Cap'n Morgan style to evoke small town-iness.
Last night I saw a really wonderful production of Our Town put on by Walking The Dog Theater at PS21. It's kind of funny...I saw it last summer around this time, too, but in the West Village. Both times I was in some sort of deep, existential contemplation phase of life - oh wait, I'm ALWAYS in a deep, existential contemplation. So I guess it's not a phase, but what one would call a "lifestyle"? That's kind of what I want to get at with this post, I think. Although I cried on both occasions, this summer's rendition was especially excellent. PS21 is outdoors, and the stage is called "The Tent." It is, yes, a tent. A tent that resembles that weird famous white rounded building thing in Sydney, Australia. Actually, this is what it looks like:
The Tent is in the middle of a field on a hill in Chatham, NY - did you know Uma Thurman lives there? In fact, Chatham, I'm told, is a "bedroom community" for a few NYC big names. Who knew?!
Anyway, I just wanted to take a post to discuss Our Town in general. This play rocked my world from a very young age. I have no idea why this play is read in middle school. (I also have no idea why the Holocaust is learned in middle school and then pretty much left alone, at least in my schools.) Maybe the curriculum designers of America just assume that, like with all other literature read by bratty kids who don't realize they have to shower every day yet, it'll go in one ear and out the other. It's a good, blunt play about life, they think. They obviously did not foresee children like me reading it and being thrown into wild depression, doomed to have an existential crisis every 20 minutes or so for the rest of their lives. In fact, I'd like to blame Thornton Wilder for my passionate appreciation and arduous search for meaning in every little moment of life, as well as the isolating anguish that closely follows. I think I remember being a somewhat happy-go-lucky over-achiever until I set my eyes on the Gibbs and the Webbs. Since reading, I have found myself constantly stepping outside my own behavior and thoughts to focus on how important and hyper meaningful every. single. second. of human interaction is. Is every single second really all that important? Maybe not. But this play altered my emotional instincts to assume they are.
I am so intently focused on how significant every person, place, and thing is. I think that's why I choose very carefully who I continue my interactions with, as I am fully aware just how much power and influence each person has over me (and over others?), for better or worse. It's also probably why I loathe small talk and hate wasting time with obligations and activities that don't seem meaningful enough. I want to get to the big issues, and I wanted to get to them yesterday. Maybe I take things too personally. But, if more people thought about how they were affecting those around them without even knowing it, would they act the way they do? Or would it waste even further that same precious time to think about every possible outcome and consequence of every single action and word, and then attempt to appreciate it? I can tell you from experience, the latter can make you a Debbie Downer, fer sure. This outlook removes you from situations that others seem to be able to enjoy or pass through without much thought. But, I can also tell you from experience that I get a lot out of everything, even the mundane, by simply "keeping a weather eye out" for opportunities of appreciation and contemplation. Ponder this quote from Simon Stimson, the drunken choir director, who is speaking to the deceased Emily Webb after she relives a small bit of her Earthly life:
Now you know! That’s what it was to be alive. To move about in a cloud of ignorance; to go up and down trampling on the feelings of those…of those about you. To spend and waste time as though you had a million years….Now you know—that’s the happy existence you wanted to go back to. Ignorance and blindness.
While doing things like driving alone in the dark listening to music, snuggling with XYZ, or watching my nieces dance and sing to Cascada, waves of intense emotion crash around and shush all other thoughts in my mind. This either results in a complete blankness and calm of mind, or a clamoring of images, words, and ideas that make me want to explode with creativity and affection and pretty words. Sometimes, depending on my mood and current situation, I am moved to tears by the simplest and littlest events of life (not the snuggling, of course - that'd be the most unattractive thing EVER). Am I too serious? Are there many people who live this way but they just don't talk about it? I want you all to talk about it! Human existence is so goddamn painful! We need to talk about it!
I'm going to be dramatic here and admit: I am Emily Webb. From the very beginning of the play until even after she dies. I feel as though, every day, I live Emily Webb from Act 3, when she watches herself live and is devastated by how thoughtless and unconscious all humans are, including herself. It's exhausting!
For some reason, Act 2 struck me more so than usual this go around. The scene where George and Emily sit at the counter at the drug store and have ice cream sodas - as well as what turns out to be "a very important talk" - brought me to a weird place that I've never accessed before. I liked being in that place, but I also realize that it would be easier if I didn't know it existed. So there's the rub. Are the short bursts of elation and creativity and intense connection and awareness worth the isolation and strain and torment that accompany them? Especially when 90% of people saunter through every day without even giving a nod to any of this? Or do they? .
You tell me.
I have no frame of reference here, as Walter Sobchak would say. Goodnight!
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