At Capacity--Scene 14: Repression regression

(Lights up on Julia’s hospital room. She is standing on her hospital bed, holding a plastic knife as a weapon. Her food tray is flipped over on the floor beside the bed. Steve is standing in the center of the room holding a box with the three caroler dolls sticking out of the top, and Claire is standing in the doorway looking for help.)

JULIA
FUCK YOU!

CLAIRE
JULIA! Sit down! Lay down!

JULIA
GET THOSE THINGS AWAY FROM ME! 

STEVE
But you told me to bring them!

JULIA (waving the knife)
GET THEM OUT OF HERE! CLAIRE!

CLAIRE
Steve, put the dolls in the hall.

STEVE
But she told me to bring them!

CLAIRE
I don’t care if Jesus told you bring them! Get them out of this room, NOW!

(Steve carries the dolls out through the door, sets them in the hallway, and then comes back in.)

STEVE
Better?

CLAIRE
Thank you. (turning to Julia) See, Honey? They’re gone. Now lay back down and we’ll get this all cleaned up. (Claire starts to try and pick up the food and tray from the floor.)

JULIA
Where did they go?

CLAIRE
Steve took them out into the hallway. They’re not going to bother—

JULIA
What if they come back in?

CLAIRE
They’re not going to come back in, Sweetie.

JULIA
That’s what you said the last time.

STEVE
What’s she talking about?

JULIA (growing agitated)
They were here the last time. I told them to leave and they wouldn’t go away. Then I went upstairs and tried to go to sleep and they followed me up there.

STEVE
What?

CLAIRE (to Steve, quietly)
She thinks we’re at home.

STEVE
Julia, we’re not at Mom and Dad’s we’re—

CLAIRE
Steve, of course we’re at Mom and Dad’s.

STEVE
What are you talking about?

JULIA
Where are we?  Where are we, Claire?  I’m scared!

CLAIRE
We’re up in your room, Sweetie, and everything is just fine.

JULIA
Where’s Mom?

CLAIRE
She’s down in the kitchen.

STEVE
Uh, she’s not.  She’s de—

CLAIRE
STEVE! Would you just go and see if Mom needs some help in the kitchen?  (motioning with her head). I think she needs help with the dinner.

STEVE
What the hell are you talking about?

JULIA
What are we having for Christmas dinner?

CLAIRE
I think Mom’s making turkey and stuffing, like she always does.

JULIA
Will there be cranberry sauce?

CLAIRE
I think so, Sweetie. Mom knows it’s your favorite.

(Claire goes to Julia, who is now kneeling on the bed.)

CLAIRE
Honey, can I have the knife?

JULIA
Why?

CLAIRE
Well, because we had a little accident here with lunch, and I think we should just set the knife down.

JULIA
But what if those people come back?

CLAIRE
They’re not coming back, Honey. Steve let them go and told them not to come back ever again. Now how about you give me the knife, OK?

(Julia reluctantly gives Claire the knife.)

CLAIRE
And let’s get you back under the covers. We don’t want you to catch cold so close to Christmas. If it snows, you want to be able to go sledding, don’t you?

JULIA
Yeah! But what if Santa doesn’t bring us a sled.

CLAIRE
I bet Santa has one all ready for you.

JULIA
What color?

CLAIRE
What color did you ask for?

JULIA
Green!

CLAIRE
Well, Santa’s pretty smart. If you wrote him that you wanted a green sled, I bet that's what he got.

JULIA
Oh, I really hope so! I’ve been good, so I hope he gets me the green sled!

CLAIRE
Me too!  It'll be fun to see how fast you can go.

(Claire manages to get Julia tucked back into the bed, while Steve looks on completely perplexed.)

CLARIE
Now, Sweetie, Steve and I are right here.  You go ahead and rest.

JULIA
Claire!  Don’t leave me alone!

CLAIRE
I won’t, Honey.  We’re right here.  You just shut your eyes and get some rest.

(Julia lays back in the bed, closes her eyes, and begins to suck her thumb. Claire and Steve move away from her bed once she’s settled, and they speak in hushed tones for the rest of the scene.)

STEVE
What's going on? Why is she acting like that?

CLAIRE
Why did you bring those damned dolls?

STEVE
She asked me to bring them!

CLAIRE
Did you have to listen to her?

STEVE
I thought it was going to help!

CLAIRE
Well, it didn’t.

STEVE
I see that.  What’s wrong with her?

(Claire takes a deep breath.)

CLAIRE
They think she’s regressed back to her childhood. To the moment right before he--

STEVE
What?

CLAIRE
Something set her off. The trip? Mom and Dad dying? Being back in the house? They can’t tell. But whatever it was, it triggered her to regress back to when we were kids, and she hasn’t been able to break out of it yet.

STEVE
Jesus…

CLAIRE
She woke up while you were gone, and the next thing I know, she’s wetting the bed, yelling, all sorts of stuff. The doctor came in and tried to talk with her, and she just wouldn’t calm down. They finally gave her something to take the edge off, and she started to relax a little bit.  The doctor asked her some questions, and that’s how she figured out what was going on.

STEVE
So she’s stuck at what age?

CLAIRE
The first time when Uncle Steve touched her. We’re not sure when that was, but she must have been really young. That’s the bed wetting.

STEVE
I remember she started to do that. Dad used to get so mad at her, and she couldn't stop.

CLAIRE
Now we know why.

(Steve takes this in.)

STEVE
I can’t believe this is happening.

CLAIRE
Well, it is.

STEVE
I can’t believe Mom and Dad aren’t here to help us. To help her.

CLAIRE
It wouldn't have happened if they were. Julia never would have let this out while they were alive.

STEVE
Why not?

CLAIRE
She tried, Steve. They didn’t do anything to help her.

STEVE
That can’t be true.

CLAIRE
It is. I tried to tell them too, but they wouldn’t believe me.

STEVE
I don’t believe you either.

CLAIRE
Believe what you want to believe. It’s up to you.  I know the truth.  Julia knows the truth.

STEVE
You love it when the truth shows Mom and Dad in a bad light.

CLAIRE
Not quite. I like the truth when it helps me to see things for what they are. If that means seeing Mom and Dad for what they were, then so be it. They’re gone anyway. There’s nothing they can do about it.

STEVE
It’s not fair.

CLAIRE
What are you talking about?

STEVE
None of them are here to defend themselves. Uncle Steve? Mom? Dad?  None of them. How are they supposed to set the record straight?

CLAIRE
If they were here, they couldn’t set it straight, Steve. That’s where you’re so naïve. They didn’t care to set it straight. It was easier to ignore what he did to Julia than to try and confront it or explain it. And that’s why she’s so mad.  And then this happens.

(Steve just looks at Claire and then at Julia. He has no response. He runs his hand through hair, and then looks at Claire.)

STEVE
So what do we do now?

(Claire shrugs her shoulders, as if to say not sure.)

(Julia is asleep in her hospital bed, with her thumb in her mouth. Steve and Claire look at her as the lights fade out. End of scene.)

Artists I admire: Susan Marshall

For a number of years, I worked as freelance curriculum consultant for Dance Theater Workshop, now known as New York Live Arts. Over the course of about five seasons, I wrote curriculum for their school time performance series, which brought middle school and high school students to Friday morning showings of dance. My curriculum was used by the teachers to help prepare students to see the performances. Even though I don't have formal training as a dancer, the colleague who hired me to do this work, David Sheingold, used to say that contemporary dance had taken on a hybrid form, and its overlap with theatre made me a strong candidate to write about it.

During that time, I wrote about all sorts of projects created by a variety of choreographs. No work struck me as much or as deeply as Susan Marshall & Company's work, Cloudless (2006). I remember seeing the work for the first time and being completely overwhelmed not only by its power and simplicity, but also by its innate theatricality. I saw the power of shining light and directing focus on seemingly pedestrian movements and natural interactions between people. And how a simple abstraction of those movements and interactions could suddenly create a highly theatrical experience. I brought colleagues and students to see the piece when it was remounted, and I'm certain that it's informed many of my pieces that I've created since seeing it. I spent the last week working on a grant narrative for a new project, and images from this work kept flashing into my mind some ten years later. Cloudless is one of the most influential pieces on my art making, and I owe much to Susan Marshall for creating such a beautiful piece of work.

For showing me something amazing about the capacity of everyday movement, for illustrating what I imagine to be the result of a very collaborative creation process, and for continuing to create new work, Susan Marshall is the artist I admire for this week. 

Coming up for writing air

So on Monday, I missed an entry on this blog for the first time since October 1. I've been trying to publish something on here every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, as a way to maintain a regular writing practice, and I'd been successful up until Monday. A couple of times I was a day late, but I still got in three posts a week. The Monday post is usually an installment of the play I'm working on, and this Monday I just couldn't face it. I'm experiencing some real writing fatigue, and I'm trying to find my way out of it.

I've been working for a few months now on a book chapter, and the month of February focused on the revision process.  I moved through many drafts, agonized over it all, and finally submitted it to the editor on February 29. Then I went directly into writing a grant narrative that I submitted on March 7. I had been able to keep writing on this blog throughout the process until Monday. I usually write the Monday post on Sunday, and I didn't have it in me. It's kind of like when I tried to pedal faster in my spin class this morning, and I just didn't have anything else. I don't usually think of writing and exercising as similar in this way, like getting too tired to write, but I think that's what I'm experiencing.  It's like after running a marathon, I don't run for a week or so, as a way to recuperate from the 26-mile slog.  Maybe I need to think about giving myself the same sort of break when it comes to writing or any kind of creative output. I don't want to stop writing completely (obviously, that's why I'm writing now), but maybe that missed Monday should feel less like a defeat and more like a recognition that sometimes a missed day is a gained opportunity for something else?  Like sleep. Or thought. Or whatever.

I'm #grateful that these two writing projects are off my plate for now. That said, about 60 papers come onto my plate to grade before March 21. I'm on the other side of the equation now, and I'm not sure how that's going to feel. But I think I'll at least embrace the change in energy. Hopefully, reading the writing of others will stimulate my own urge to write. We'll see.

Artists I admire: PaJaMa

I'm working on a new project about the artist Paul Cadmus, and through my research I've learned about a unique collaboration between him and two other artists, Jared and Margaret French.

Cadmus and Jared French were lovers in the early part of their relationship, but when Jared married Margaret, the three became a trio of artists, often traveling together and influencing each other's creative output. I'm not certain about the particulars of their relationship, other than their work together with photography. Margaret owned a Leica camera, and on their frequent visits to Fire Island and Cape Cod, the camera came along and the three of them used it interchangeably, taking pictures of the beachscapes, their friends, and each other. The compositions captured in the images are quite beautiful and thoughtful, and their influence can certainly be seen in some of Cadmus' paintings as well.

Many years later, long after the trips had stopped and the trio spent less time together, a decision was made to exhibit the photos. For many of the images, it was difficult to discern which individual had actually taken the photo. Paul, Jared, and Margaret decided to exhibit the images under the collective name PaJaMa, composed of the first two letters of each of their first names. A collection of the images was exhibited this past fall in New York, and it was a privilege to see the images up close and to feel the synergy of the three artists through their related styles of composition, uses of light, and points of focus.

For finding a way to tap into the energy of their complex relationship to create something lasting and symbolic, for capturing beautiful moments on beaches, and for their clever naming of their creative collaboration, PaJaMa are the artists I admire for this week.

Reframing "uneducated"

I'm staying away from television as much as possible and reading what I can about this primary election process, as I feel it's become more like something we'd see in Ancient Rome in the Coliseum. I don't get into that kind of violence: Bull fighting, dog fights, Republican debates. However, I am trying to read a lot, and that at least allows me to make some informed decisions and have somewhat thoughtful conversations. Even that's becoming more and more difficult.

I'm also trying to find some reason to be #grateful for what's unfolding, rather than simply dwelling in the terror-mongering and doomsday language that permeates so many Facebook posts, headlines, and tweets that I read. In many ways, this primary season is doing us a huge favor. The positions of several candidates that seem to resonate so deeply with so many people point to some unsettling things about our country. But I'm a little surprised by the number of people who find this all so shocking. People are behaving as if they can't believe that so many people have these feelings about immigrants, minorities, religion, marriage equality, and economic disparity, and I keep thinking, "Where have these people been? Are they paying attention?"  Advances? Yes, we've made many.  Problems and deficiencies still exist in a big way? Absolutely. We are not in some utopia where everything is better just because we think it is.

So in a naive response to these issues, many have simply attributed more conservative viewpoints to the so-called "uneducated," to the "backwards thinking," to the "evangelicals," and whatever other category they can lump people they disagree with into. Over the summer, as the candidates tried to secure their initial positions, I was thinking the same things, but I soon realized that I was making a huge mistake. People who have these positions and beliefs are not necessarily uneducated or evangelicals or backwards-thinking. I disagree with what they think, as much as a person can disagree with another, but that doesn't mean that I have the right to call them uneducated.  And even if a person does have less formal education, what does that really mean? I struggle with this question because education has such a profound impact on one's social mobility and class status, but I work in higher education surrounded by people with a lot of formal education. We're not always the best at making rational decisions, coming up with solutions that can actually work, or dealing with difficult situations. Yes, on paper we're very smart. However, paper smart and life smart aren't always in alignment.

So what's my point? We need to stop using the term "uneducated" to categorize people that we disagree with. It's not the right descriptor. And we also need to think about what it means to be "educated," and stop thinking that formal education automatically means "better."  It's this elitism that people are so angry about. When Donald Trump proclaimed that he loved the uneducated, his supporters cheered. So many people were mortified, but they missed the point. People cheered because Donald Trump somehow reclaimed and took back that term. A term that has turned into an elitist slur to put down people that we disagree with or feel so alienated by that we don't know what else to do. When we use the term "uneducated" as a slur, we're not being very forward thinking. One thing we could do is stop looking down our noses and start realizing that the path forward is not about forcing people to think what we think, to "educate" them about our much better ways.  Rather, we should be spending a lot of time listening and trying to understand why people feel so disempowered and helpless and formulating solutions that take everyone into account.