turn and face the stranger

I was featured in an essay that Mike Daisey wrote for The Stranger this past week. If you read this blog or know me pretty well, it's easy to identify the friend of the story as me. Setting aside the main thrust of the essay for a minute and focusing on ME because this is MY BLOG ... It was interesting to read my situation as a story. Mike sent it to me before it went to print, and I giggled when I read it. Because I seem so tragically romantic, which is not how I feel inside. But what he writes does not ring false, and I endorsed it fully. Because it is sad, isn't it? I live my life - it is impossible to view my own life as a narrative. I've come to peace with whatever this decision might mean for me and my future, or else I wouldn't've been able to make the decision in the first place. But as a narrative, it's kinda fucking depressing, for real. If it wasn't me - if I didn't know the person Mike was talking about - I would've felt a tangible loss upon reading about it. Not necessarily for her - the friend - but for the broken system we (theater folk) are trying to make a living in.

An unexpected and gigantic benefit of having a little piece of my life turned into story is that it became this thing outside of me that I can look at, like an object. It is now separate from me as well as inside me, and I get the best of both worlds. Being able to poke and prod it from the outside has released me from it's power, and I feel such freedom. It's real!

THEATER IS DEAD! LONG LIVE THEATER! I now feel truly right about my decision to give up acting. I can also see clearly that while that might mean forever, it also might not. I've rejected the "all or nothing" "yes or no" "professional or amateur" mythic paradigm of artistry. Now I - me, myself - get to define when and how I will or won't pursue it, and with whom. My shackles are broken and I defy your definitions!