I just completed the Fringe Encore run of I Hate Kenny G in Hopkins. It’s the last run of the show I have on the books at the moment, and while part of me is a little sad to see it go, another part of me is quite relieved. I’ve done 15 performances of the show in the last three months, which is nine more performances I’ve done of either Hubcap Frisbee or A Heap of Broken Images. And for some reason, the show is beginning to change on me.
And that scares me a bit.
At the tech rehearsal last Wednesday, as I did my run through I began to notice anger welling up inside me. Granted, it was in appropriate places (notably in the “Prayer to Whom it May Concern” section), but anger nonetheless. I’m not comfortable with that emotion in any way, shape, or form. Never have been. And because I do my best to avoid anger, I don’t really know how to control it when it does bubble to the surface. So I found myself there on stage, working myself up into a fury in the Prayer, with one more full story, a song, and the “coda” section of the show still left to go. It took me and my audience a bit more to come down back to the humor after that, and I didn’t really like it.
Amy’s theory is that since Hopkins (where the Encore series took place) is right next to Minnetonka, the town I grew up in and the “scene of the crime” of the show. Might be. I have another theory, though. One of the performances I did last month was for the group Awesome-Women. I basically did a “reading” of the show (which is a bit funny, since, like, that’s what the whole show is anyways) in a banquet room in a country club, in front of about 25 women who had put their chairs in a semicircle around me, not more than six feet or so away. After the show, as some wiped away tears, they passed around a wireless mike and had the opportunity to ask me questions. My mom was there, too (at the organizer’s request) and they kept asking questions like “Judy, what was this like for you, to hear Allegra’s side of this?” I think both my mom and I froze in horror. We don’t talk about this stuff. My family never has. It’s just the way it goes. And I had to sit there while my mom stumbled through words, then trying to add my own two cents in to everything. All the way home, my mom kept asking me questions and trying to convince me that none of it was my fault.
On a rational level, I know this, of course. But there was and still is a big irrational part of my brain which still carries the residual guilt. But I didn’t write the show to “get through” anything, as the women in the audience were trying to convince me I was doing. I did all that already. I wrote a few of the stories eight years ago–and writing them then really did finally let me put everything behind. I keep telling people that I never meant to put these stories on stage–the music made me, because the songs that I played (well, specifically the Glazunov concerto) are intricately tied to those events.
So that’s my theory on why the anger started to rise. Or maybe it’s because I’ve been quite gimpy the last couple weeks, and when my body starts to go on me so does my control of my mind and thoughts. And being gimpy makes me angry, too.
A Heap of Broken Images always left me emotionally spent after performing it–from the very first performance. It didn’t scare me beacause the impact on me of performing that show was consistent. I’m scared that this one is changing.
Whatever the case may be, it was angry. And maybe because of that, the audience reaction to the show seemed that much more pointed. Ever since the first performance of the show, people have been coming up to me afterwards and telling me their stories of guilt, tragedy, relationship with their family, whatever the show started to make them think about. I’ve written about that before, and it’s not necessarily something I’m entirely comfortable with. But this weekend, the show seemed to really get to a few. A friend of mine wrote about it on her blog (I haven’t asked her permission so I’m not going to link it here):
Man, I don’t know what I was expecting but it certainly didn’t include total and complete manipulation of my tear ducts. Damn, I lost it.
Granted, if there was anyone I should have warned about the content of this show, it was this person, since when she was the same age as I was in the stories, she lost her mom to cancer. And then there’s that word manipulation. One of the things that I’ve always loved about my style, and what people have commented on, is that they don’t feel manipulated by my stories. So, dude, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to garner any certain reaction out of anyone.
I also got a very long email from someone else I know, with the narration of her personal story. This is someone I’ve known for a number of years, and enjoy their company, but don’t know all that well at the end of the day. There also seemed to be a hint of anger at me (and maybe I’m just reading it completley wrong, since she also profusely thanked me for the reaction the show provoked).
The bit from her email that got me thinking the most, however, was near the beginning of the email:
She has a funny line at the beginning of her show – a particular paper wrote a pre-Fringe review of her show and said “there’s stripping in her show.” There’s not the physical removal of clothes (except a jacket and
her Grandpa’s hat) – I don’t think this reporter meant what I experienced – the stripping away of an entrance
into personal grief, long held, but tightly checked away about my mother’s illness and subsequent death.
I never meant that line as anything other than humor, and a quick pause to get out of the “musician” clothes and down to my traditional show attire–the black tshirt and jeans. But I guess I do strip in the show. Down to the core of some of the jabberwockies that live in me, those black spots I like to ignore most of the time but that I recognize played a huge part on who I am.
Kenny’s going away for awhile, as I turn my attention to the music of Buckets gigs, writing gigs with Women Stand-Up and the Rockstar Storytellers (first gig December 9th–woot!).
But the Fringe app is available on November 15th–this Thursday. And I know that in the next couple of days my mind will turn again to Fringe, to the audiences I touched, more beyond a level I ever thought this show would (here was me thinking that my audiences were going to turn on me this year and hate this one–guess I was wrong), to how blessed and honored I felt being able to share a meld of music and words with people.
And it’s time to figure out how I’ll top this one.
The Traveling Monkey 