Our Unwanted Journey (2001)

“Soon after we got out of the hospital, my brother Harrol asked if we wouldn’t like to stay with him and his family in London. They had a couple of free weeks in June. June. We hadn’t thought of life past the due date. The summer was supposed to spent with a new baby. We accepted their invitation immediately.” - I Hate This (a play without the baby)

Father's Day, 2001

When we took our massive, three week Southern road trip in the year 2000, it was intended to be our last vacation for a while. We made plans. And God said, “Fuck you.”

Looking over our materials from that trip, I was surprised by many things, not least of which is how much made its way into I Hate This. I shouldn’t have been too surprised.

Sun., June 17: Father’s Day. No ties or socks, please. I’d just like my dead son back.

Finished “The Sparrow” late last night. Toni finished its sequel, “The Children of God” almost an hour before, and was very sad. That one ends with someone holding a baby.

Lots of things end with someone holding a baby. In fact, I may have said everything ends with someone holding a baby. Nothing ends with someone holding a dead baby. Maybe we should change that.

I hadn’t yet read Buried Child, but still. I was onto something.

I Hate This has been noted for my stoicism, or my dispassionate accounting. My journal from this trip tells another story, where I make note of no fewer than four times I had to excuse myself to go cry somewhere alone in one of the many rooms in the house my brother and his family were managing.

We also saw a remarkable number of plays, remarkable in that my wife didn’t feel like doing much of anything at all at that time, or not much more than to sit in parks and watch the birds. I was still (theoretically) managing a theater company, seeking inspiration and desperate for distraction. Also, our eldest brother had also joined us and what do you do on vacation but go and see things.

Carina Reich and Bogdan Szyber
"Night Manager"

Night Manager created by Carina Reich and Bogdan Szyber (LIFT: the London International Festival of Theatre)

Wed. June 13: A boat ride down the Thames at dusk. We wore headsets and listened to poetry about life underwater (the fear, the subconscious) while attendants served us a mint, warm milk and spices, gave us a blanket, while we watched London drift by in the dark. It was a pleasant experience. (DH)

“Despite the discreet revelation of this stretch of the Thames at dusk … you find yourself gazing more at the dark grey water itself than at the cityscape on its banks. [Björner] Torsson's text encourages you to slip into reverie; after a while, the words are there not so much to be listened to as to maintain the semi-hypnotic state into which you have drifted.” 

- Ian Shuttleworth, Financial Times

Howard Katz by Patrick Marber (National Theatre)

I have already written about this. The timing was poor.

Thu., June 14: I like it better upon reflection than I did watching it … a modern cross between King Lear and the story of Job where one awful man loses everything … his epiphany comes as a result of remembering what it felt like when his son was born. It upset Toni a lot. Made for a shitty trip home. We did have hot chocolate and Bailey’s in the kitchen, the five of us, and a nice time talking there.

Stephen Mangan, Lynn Redgrave
"Noises Off" by Michael Frayn

Noises Off by Michael Frayn (Piccadilly Theatre)

My junior year in high school, we conducted a workshop of first act of Noises Off and during my senior year the Cleveland Play House produced the first professional production I had seen. This was my second, a National Theatre transfer that now starred Lynn Redgrave and Stephen Mangan, who would later star in the fucking hilarious TV show Green Wing.

Fri., June 15: Lynn Redgrave. Man. She is a loon. First act was all right. The second they shouted too much. Gave me a headache.

Father’s Day proper we eschewed theater altogether, my brother and his wife thoughtfully proposing a drive to the New Forest Otter, Owl & Wildlife Park.

Sun., June 17: The park was very big; boards, wallabies, deer, ferrets, polecats – and lots of otters. Europeans, Asian, British, Canadian, big, small, swimming, galloping, dry, wet … very fun, very moving. We stayed a lovely, long time.

And then we had dinner at Outback Steakhouse.

Bill Nighy and Chiwetel Ejiofor
"Blue/Orange" by Joe Penhall

Blue/Orange by Joe Penhall (Duchess Theatre)

Every time I see professional theater in Britain, inevitably one or usually more of the actors in any given production eventually become stars in America. They were probably already famous in Britain, on stage and the Beeb but I’d never heard of them.

I have caught more than one play about the National Health Service (NHS). Two years ago that would have been People, Places and Things by Duncan Macmillan, a quarter century ago it was Blue/Orange, a three-hander in which two doctors debate whether or not a man who claims to be the son of Idi Amin (and believes oranges are blue) deserves his state-sponsored hospital bed.

All three actors were very good. They also happened to be Chiwetel Ejiofor, Andrew Lincoln and Bill Nighy.

Remember when everyone was writing plays that had two word titles with a slash in the middle?

Tue., June 19: I read the new Neil LaBute, “The Shape of Things,” now playing at the Almeida. Honestly. What is wrong with that man? I think he is a good writer, he just doesn’t write good. Here he’s trying to write something like "Closer" only it’s closer to Oleanna in its lack of balance and treatment of women and his male protagonist doesn’t deserve anything that happens to him.

Jasper Britton and Eve Best
"Macbeth" by William Shakespeare

Macbeth (Shakespeare’s Globe)
Tim Carroll, Master of Play

This was my first experience hearing a play at Shakespeare’s Globe, though as of 2026 I have only seen two productions there. 

We participated in a tour the last time we were in town, shortly before the grand opening in 1997. Since that time, and under the artistic direction of Mark Rylance, the company had distinguished itself by its dedication to historical accuracy in design and, as near as can be ascertained, performance.

This production of The Scottish Play, however, was controversial for its nontraditional conceit, the entire cast (including witches) dressed in tuxedoes, with the exception of Lady M. (Eve Best) in a silky, silver gown. The cool jazz score was composed by Claire van Kampen, and I am so grateful to have had the foresight to purchase that CD.

“It is welcome and right that the Globe should start to experiment and move on from what was in danger of becoming museum Shakespeare, but Carroll's production doesn't even tell the story clearly. There is too much paraphernalia, as if every bright idea has been indiscriminately incorporated rather than carefully considered. So we get blood and death represented not just by gold tinsel, but also by coloured feathers and pebbles thrown in buckets.”
- Lyn Gardner, The Guardian

Well. I enjoyed it a lot.

Peter Capaldi and Henry Goodman
"Feelgood" by Alistair Beaton

Feelgood by Alistair Beaton (Garrick Theatre)

Not all political dramas have a freshness date, The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui still holds up, but this one was a bit whiffy when it premiered. I was excited to see Nigel Planer (The Young Ones) live on stage, but the delight of the evening was Peter Capaldi (who?) as a frazzled No. 10 speech writer. It would not surprise me if this turned out to be his unintentional audition for The Thick of It a few years later.

Wed. June 20: Well. I am sick of bad playwriting. Saw "Feelgood” tonight. Wish I hadn’t. Left me depressed. Stupid, preachy, unfunny comedy. It’s a TV movie on-stage. I hate that.

School Play by Suzy Almond (Soho Theatre)

Our final production – in London. A play which puts the lie to the time-worn story of the teacher with a heart of gold who helps disenchanted students discover their true selves. What if the teacher isn’t actually very good, in a very real and troubling way?

“The situation is ripe with sentimental opportunities, all of which Almond strenuously resists. What she actually shows is two solitary misfits with a ruthless eye for each other's weaknesses.”
- Michael Billington, The Guardian

Returning home, we had made plans to spend a few days in NYC before taking a train home. This turned out to be an error, we were emotionally spent from our journey and ready to just not do anything.

And yet. We spent a lovely morning getting tickets to see Mary Zimmerman’s production of Measure for Measure at the Delacorte, starring Billy Crudup, Sanaa Lathan and Joe Morton. As it happened, we would be back in August to see the other free summer offering in the park, but to attend The Seagull we would need to spend the night.

See also:
Howard Katz (play)
The Seagull (2001)

Sources:
"Review: Macbeth" by Lyn Gardner, The Guardian, 6/7/2001 
"Review: School Play" by Michael Billington, The Guardian. 6/24/2001

Twenty-Five Years On

Click on to enlarge.

Last night, we were celebrating the twenty-fifth birthday anniversary of our first born. We all worked together to create a now traditional meal of our favorite things; spaghetti and meatballs, steamed artichokes, also cocktails and the wife created an incredible almond cake. Our elder living child, in residence for the year, was also present and we FaceTimed with the younger in Cincinnati.

We have a box of items from that time. Like a lot of folks, we hung onto things that made us feel connected to the boy we had lost. We don’t always go through them on March 20, but a quarter century is a benchmark of some kind. We looked through the letters, little baby blankets that had been knit just for him, programs and newsletters, the kitchen calendar from 2001. On May 29, his due date, with two different pens, Toni had first written “baby?” and later, “Memorial”.

My wife asked about a letter we had received back in the day, from a man who told us about having lost his son with the same name as ours twenty-five years earlier than that. I knew right where it was, not with these items. It was filed away in the attic with documents from those years when I was performing I Hate This (a play without the baby); drafts, programs, articles, and also correspondence.

I Hate This was first produced at Cleveland Public Theater in February, 2003, just a month after our first living child was born. It was only one weekend of performances, but the Plain Dealer ran a preview piece that ran up attendance. It also provided awareness of the production beyond attendance.

Playwright's Notes
"I Hate This (a play without the baby)"
Cleveland Public Theatre, 2003

The letter Toni had remembered was from a man who lived elsewhere, whose ex-wife had told him about this play, the details of which must have struck both of them as remarkable. Their stillborn child also arrived at 30 weeks, also named Calvin. The unwelcome advertisements, about which he said, “Tragically funny now, but it was certainly good at the time to have a target for all the rage I felt.” No cap.

He went on to share a personal story, which began, “I went to have lunch at Cal’s grave … when he turned 15 …” So, not twenty-five, only fifteen, at that time. But even that figure seemed absurd, so far into the future. Our Calvin would be fifteen in, what … 2016? That’s not a real year, that’s the setting for some pulpy dystopian tragedy.

It hit me so hard, reading that letter. This was not some passing phase, this unwanted corner of my life was never going to end. And yet, here we are. Life is good. And we keep on.

Ten Good Moments in 2025

At the close of 2016, I found it necessary to reflect upon all the good moments in what was otherwise a year of dreadful turns of event. This year it seemed even more important to recall and share the personal moments that remind me how things are good even when they seem awful. 

1. Josh Johnson

Josh Johnson is that good. He writes an hour’s worth of solid material something like every week and just puts it out there, on stage and then on YouTube. He makes it look like it’s all just coming off the top of his head, like that one person you know who just can’t help being hilarious, but you know it’s not spontaneous at all because it can’t be. The timing, the execution, and the fact that he is riffing on something that happened literally yesterday, he’s just incredible.

We saw him live at the Mimi Ohio where the subject was AI – it was bleak and also hilarious. Josh Johnson kept me sane throughout 2025.

2. Greater Cleveland Food Bank

Mother was dedicated to the food pantry where she volunteered. When she began losing her cognitive abilities, and her ability to even write, that was one of her great anxieties. She was responsible for a great deal of organization, placing orders, and so on. When the company manager at my place of employment presented the opportunity to work a shift at the GCFB, I was anxious but also excited. It was only an hour or so, assisting folks in pulling items from the shelves.

America is a shameful place, one of the few nations where poverty is seen as some kind of personal failing, rather than the result of systemic inequity, a situation which seems to have only gotten worse over the course of my lifetime, and much more dire over the past year. I need to get back to that place again soon.

3. Big Band and Combos

Our youngest continued his studies in jazz at the Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati, and one of the perks for me is visiting Caffè Vivace to enjoy flatbreads and cocktails and listen to aspiring (and seriously talented) young musicians.

4. Zelda’s Commencement

I was complicit in creating two beautiful humans. I cannot take credit for their achievement, only that I did my best to keep them fed and safe from harm. That they are both artists is probably also something I helped inspire, in equal measure with my spouse and basically everyone we know.

Watching our elder child cross the stage at the Convocation Center at Ohio University was a moment of great pride for us, especially when they snubbed the university president, refusing to shake her offered hand. Anyone in a position of authority that cannot stand up for the most vulnerable among us does not deserve our continued respect.

5. Dinner at Mina

There are a surprising number of Michelin star restaurants in Bilbao, Spain. I had never been to such a designated pace, none of us had. I could elaborate upon the menu, the wine pairings, the fact we all believed that it was Athletic Bilbao’s keeper Unai Simón who arrived late to the nine p.m. seating (he’d had an afternoon match).

But when people ask what I remember best from that evening was that the four of us sat together, phones down, from nine until one am, talking, laughing, eating, drinking, telling stories, relaxing into moments of silence, and observation, my wife and our two adult children.

6. Diwali

Our son’s boyfriend needed a home for his tortoiseshell cat Diwali, now that he would be attending university. My concern was for our rangy old cat Tiger, who nearly died from anxiety after we adopted a young kitty (who we named Masha) at the beginning of the year. Tiger recovered, but I worried another cat would end it for him. My wife theorized that another cat would occupy Masha and that together they would leave Tiger alone, and she was right!

Not only that, but Diwali has become my new favorite sleeping companion.

7. “I Hate This” in India

Our story continues to be told and reinterpreted. Many grateful thanks to director Denver Nicholas and his entire team for producing I Hate This a second time in Chennai.

8. Superman Walking Tour

Most of our actor-teachers this year are from out of state. Never been to Cleveland. And like most of us from the region, we cannot help sharing every Cleveland connection. The subject turned to the recent Superman film and suddenly I was offering to arrange a walking tour of filming locations.

There are a half dozen major shooting locations within a half-mile radius (e.g., The Leader Building, Public Square, The Old Arcade) and others I could point to in the distance, like the ballpark. I had even made a folder with images from the film, plus a few from other films that were shot downtown like Avengers and My Summer Story. The tour concluded by the new statue dedicated to the real punk rocker.

I should do this as a side gig.

9. No Kings Protests

Hey, you know what? Fuck that guy.

10. Cleveland Turkey Trot

Had not raced in some time. Had not raced in inclement weather for longer than that. Just walking to the venue from my parking spot was horrid, the wind coming off Lake Erie was almost unbearable.

I asked myself, why was I doing this? It’s not pleasant, it’s not social. I should be at home watching the parade, safe and warm.

I started far back in the pack, which was unfortunate. It took a while before I could actually run. My fault. But soon I was running freer and could focus on just enjoying myself. And it was pretty all right.

But I was even regretting choosing the five mile instead of the 5K ... until we split off around the second mile. At Carnegie and Ontario they took a right, and we continued onto the bridge. Oh, yeah. This is why. I would have missed that. Lorain-Carnegie, down West 25th and onto the Detroit-Superior. Worth it.

By the time I reached the finish line I was feeling good, and satisfied. My time was great, all things considered. And it was a well-organized race full of happy runners. But for a race like this, I really missed having a partner. Maybe next time.

Best wishes and a happy 2026 to you and yours.

My Life in the Theater (Part II)

Preparing for "Death Knocks"
Bay High School, 1984

The first time I ever stepped onto a stage was my freshman year in high school (You Can't Take It With You by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart). My character appeared at the very end of the first scene. I remember the moment. We’d rehearsed, I had my lines cold, very prepared, familiar with the entire ensemble – making a mistake was not a concern, I hadn’t even thought of saying or doing anything wrong, that’s how well-rehearsed we were.

And yet, just before I moved from backstage, unseen, hidden behind a fake door, to onstage, into the action, under the light, entirely visible to the audience, I was struck with one thought, shockingly vivid to me, even to this day:

“Who said you had the right to do this?”

Who said that? What voice was it? Was that my mother’s voice, she who I had embarrassed so many times with my pranks and shenanigans? Why do you have to attract attention to yourself in this way?

Maurice Adams, Brian Pedaci
"The Vampyres"
Dobama's Night Kitchen, 1997

Two years later, when I directed a short scene for an evening of one acts (Death Knocks by Woody Allen) I heard the same voice, right before I entered through an open window that was part of the set, only the voice in my head was a little louder. Because this time I was not merely a participant, I choice this piece. I was responsible for it happening.

When I drew a somewhat controversial comic strip for the university newspaper (if you believe being inscrutable as controversial) my college roommate asked the same question, suggesting as my mother would have; you could just draw these things and put them on the wall of our dorm, why do you have to put them out into the world?

Once more, when I was twenty-eight, this time sitting in the audience, as the lights came down and the music came up on opening night of my first full-length play (The Vampyres). I’d been working on the script for over two years, all my friends were involved in the production; directing, acting, designing the set, the mural, the costume, the lights, the sound – Oh! The sound!

We had a full house, everyone was very excited, and in the darkness, before the protagonist spoke his first word, I heard a voice say, “Who said you had the right to do this?”

"I Hate This (a play without the baby)"
Staged Reading
Dobama Theatre, 2002

Well, obviously, I did. I told myself that.

My wife thinks it is strange that I would even think this; after all, who has the "right" to do anything? And what entity provides that right? God? Society? My mother?

I do not always feel this way. Call it Imposter Syndrome if you like. But usually I rise above it. What is the difference, though? Confidence, I imagine. In myself, in the work. When I performed my first monodrama (I Hate This) I didn’t think, “Who said I had the right to do this?” No, I thought, I have a story to tell, and these folks came here to hear me tell it.

And it’s that last part, that people came here to see this, and that they are counting on me, and on you, baby, to do our best. 

To be continued.

Poochu's Productions presents "I Hate This (A True Story)"

Karthik TMK

One month ago, Poochu’s Productions produced my play, I Hate This (A True Story), at the Alliance Française de Madras in Chennai, India. Directed by Denver Anthony Nicholas and performed by Karthik TMK (and also by Abinaya R, more on her in a moment) this was not the first time these two men have presented this play about my experiences with stillbirth.

Four years ago, Denver, Karthik and I had a few email conversations about their producing the play in Spring 2021. They asked for a number of perfectly reasonable changes. The production would be performed in English (once referred to as India’s "subsidiary official language") and take place in America, but there were certain passages which would not be understood, culturally. Also, some of the names were unusual – a woman named Toni, for example – and could those be changed.

Most significantly, in my opinion, they asked if the several characters who I would traditionally have performed myself be performed instead by another performer, a woman. When we adapted the play into an audio drama in 2005 – was that really twenty years ago? I digress – I felt it would be easier to understand if every character had their own voice. But I always thought of it as strictly a solo performance.

Abinaya R

But that’s me. Theater is nothing if not an expansive art form. I was intrigued. And why not? They know best how to present this play to their audience, and I don’t. For this most recent production they cast Abinaya R, with whom they had most recently worked with in a production of Doubt by John Patrick Shanley.

Part of the design concept for this production of I Hate This was to emphasize the idea that while Karthik is telling the story now, today, Abinaya represents the past. He wears colors, she is monochromatic, dressed in black, her face and hands made white and gray. He looks at her, she never sees him. I was struck by this upon her first reveal, as the mother on the phone. She appears in a pool of light, far upstage. She looks so small compared to him in that scene, almost as though she is in a thought bubble.

When Denver and Karthik first produced this work, I was asked if they could change the title. This title, I HATE THIS, is the original sin of this particular work, as far back as 2002 it was suggested to me that the phrase might present a barrier to attendance. I took the risk. They were right, but I do not regret my decision. The show needs a content advisory and I believe the title serves that purpose.

Karthik TMK

As they strove to return to live performance following the first wave of COVID-19 infections, Denver felt that the original title would alienate audiences, and we agreed upon the much more digestible title What Happened. In the play that is asked as a question, as presented here it is simply a statement. This is what happened. For this new production, they decided it was now acceptable to use the original title, with the subtitle "a true story."

I have my own reasons for having written this piece, and why I keep returning to it. I am grateful to Playhouse Square and University Hospitals for producing the film (starring James Alexander Rankin) which continues to be used as an educational tool and an instrument of comfort for the bereaved. However, those few times (so far) that companies or individuals have inquired about producing the piece independently, I am always deeply curious as to their interest, or intentions.

Abinaya R

For Karthik, it is the opportunity to play something dramatic. Most solo performances for men are comic (I have heard this before, even from high school students seeking something different to perform for competitions) and he was looking for something which would allow him to be vulnerable on stage, and tell a story that would move people.

Denver told me about the first performances of What Happened/I Hate This, four years ago, when a young woman who saw the show was inconsolable and sobbing following the performance. A few years later, Denver’s company was holding one of their monthly Enter Stage events, a kind of open mic for artists to perform their own monologues. A young woman told a powerful and personal story of having suffered a miscarriage. When she was asked about this after her presentation, she said that it was her who had been so emotionally overwhelmed by my play, because of her own loss – and that the experience had inspired her to tell her story on stage, something she may not have done otherwise.

Director Denver Anthony Nicholas (center)
with Karthik and Abinaya

I have written several plays which have been published, rights for production handled by others without my participation. There’s a production of Sherlock Holmes Meets the Bully of Baker Street next weekend in Louisiana. It's going to be dinner theater and if the photos are any indication, I would love to get there for the food alone. I Hate This is not currently published, so there have been far fewer independent productions.

But when they come, when artists have found the script and reach to inquire about production, it means that our story, mine and my wife’s story of how we incorporated loss into our lives, that it is being told to an entirely new audience. And the fact that that story might have an impact on someone who lives and loves and grieves on the other side of the earth, that is truly remarkable.

Sources: 

Notification No. 2/8/60-O.L, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, April 27, 1960

"What’s in a monologue? Enter stage & find out" by Rupam Jain, Indian Express Indulge, August 18, 2023

On Criticism

Too hot to wear the sweater.

Twenty years ago today, I woke up to find I Hate This (a play without the baby) had been reviewed in the New York Times.

We were presenting the piece in a walkdown apartment on West 11th at Greenwich that had been converted into a forty seat black box (the stage even featured a fireplace) as part of the New York International Fringe Festival. I’d had maybe a dozen audience members for that first performance, including several critics, and two days later I received a very nice write-up, front page of the Thursday arts section, below the fold.

Did this high-profile review alter my fortunes at the fringe? It did not. Audiences remained tiny, it was August, no one wants to see a show about stillbirth, etc. etc. However, many took note, and I was contacted by hospitals and bereavement centers around the nation, inquiring as to whether I might bring the show to them. Jason Zinoman’s review documented that this show existed, and gave it legs. I performed the piece, on and off, for the next several years.

Alan Barth said, “Journalism is the first rough draft of history,” but a theater review is the only draft of the history of a particular production. Decades from now, when I am dead and gone and all my social media posts have been deleted or wiped, that review will remain in the archives of the “Gray Lady”, the paper of record.

Last month, Cleveland theater critic Christine Howey attended several shows at the BorderLight Festival, and provided daily, online accounts of the proceedings for clevescene.com. That she attended and then turned around next-day capsule reviews for nearly a dozen shows was a feat, and provided a record of what was to be expected from the festival, as it was happening.

As a result, several artists received reviews, reviews which they may not even have been expecting! Reviews they can brag about for, who knows, maybe twenty years?

Minnesota Fringe Festival: Twenty Years On

Next week, I will have my first script bow at the BorderLight Fringe Festival in Cleveland, Ohio. I spent the first decade of the 21st Century paying attention to the fringe movement that was taking fire across the country, never imagining we would eventually have our own right here at home.

And yet, next week my play Step Nine will go up four times in the Snug at Parnell’s Pub in Playhouse Square. Better yet, it’s free. Check it out.

Red Eye Theatre, August 2003

Twenty years ago this week, however, I was in the Twin Cities for the tenth annual Minnesota Fringe Festival. This was the first time I had personally produced a show at any festival, and my learning curve was steep. 

The show was I Hate This (a play without the baby) and the things I learned there would serve me extremely well over the next decade. At that time, I started my first blog (I Hate This Blog) to record the experience.

Some lessons were hard: primarily, to plan for success and also to set your expectations very low. The home team, wherever you are producing, will have the advantage of family, friends, colleagues and a pre-existing audience. I learned to be happy with the attention I could attract, the audience I could engage.

Our (opening night) house was very, very small. It was a difficult show for me - I have never performed it without at least a few audience members who know who I am. No one laughed much, The tiny house contributed to this, I am sure, but I just couldn't tell if it was flying.

Afterwards I just sat in the dressing room a few minutes, trying to pull it together. I mean, tonight's show was one of the hardest things I have ever done, ever. The lighting guy (for the venue) came in and told me how great the show was.

I told him how I felt about the audience not laughing ever and he said, "Oh, that's just a Minnesota thing, you don't laugh at someone else's problems.” — August 2, 2003

I also learned to see as many shows as I could. There are a number of reasons for this, not least of which to glom onto the zeitgeist, to know what’s going on, not just in the festival, but in the larger world. Getting out into the festival also gives you the opportunity to meet not only the artists but the support staff, for the venue, and the festival itself.

(My brother) had some friends over for dinner, and I found myself in the position of trying to describe the differences between the style of performance in my show and (Rik Reppe's) "Staggering Toward America." I play characters, but then so does Rik ... but he's not really acting, only, well, what are we doing when we impersonate someone else and tell something from their point of view, I mean, isn't that what acting is?

On the way home from seeing Amy Salloway in "Does This Monologue Make Me Look Fat?" I was struck by all of these deep thoughts about solo performance, and not just solo perf. but spoken word perf, and not just that, but the entire stripped-of-artifice thing — as can be illustrated by the work of the Neo-Futurists.

(We) saw three of them (Neo-Futurists) do a final dress of "Drinking & Writing" at the Bryant-Lake Bowl. They do the show in a bar, the three of them drink the entire time (well, the two guys do) and talk about drinking and its effect on writing and great American writers ... or (vice) versa.

I have been struck by a number of no-frills shows at this Fringe, shows that have a great deal of honesty and heart ... Shows that really communicate something, told by people who I am actually happy to listen to. I only hope I can count myself among those people. — August 6, 2003

Nick Koesters, Denny Hansen & Me
Volunteers for "Voice-In-Head"
Minneapolis Theater Garage, 2003

Self-promotion, while an end unto itself, is also helpful in teaching you how to think about your own work. This is from the first day:

I ran into some people outside (the venue). They asked what my show was, and I said, "I Hate This" and as they looked at my card one asked, "Oh? And what do you hate?" and I said, "oh ... uh, I, ah, my wife and I had a stillborn child, and, uh, this is about that." 

"Oh," he said, kindly.

I said, "Yeah, I really gotta work on the pitch." — August 1, 2003

Then, two days later:

I approached a number of people… One said, "I've heard good things about this," and another, "what is it about?" 

And I said, "Two years ago my wife and I had a child who was stillborn and this is about the year I spent coping with it. Now, whatever you think a show like that might be like, forget it." 

Then someone asked, "Is it a good show?" and I said, "It's a great show — your friend here already heard good things about it." — August 3, 2003

Looking forward, to the BorderLight Fringe, I hope to maintain some of the perspective that I gained from festivals I have attended in other cities. The Minnesota Fringe was, even twenty years ago, quite progressive in their implementation of social media. Facebook wouldn’t even exist for another year, Twitter even later, and yet in 2003 the MN Fringe had a message board ("Vox Fringe") for anyone to leave reviews and starred ratings.

The question then, as now, is what percentage of participants on their message boards were potential audiences, or other fringe artists.

Last night the Vox Fringe board greeted us with this cry in the wilderness: "Who Do I Have To Blow To Get A Mainstream Review?" 

Ah, yes. The question of the ages. This person went on to lament the fact that all the papers have covered the same dozen shows (this is not true) and goes along with the accusation of local critics ignoring the out-of-town acts (they haven't.) 

But there is something to be said for the media concentrating on established performers and writers and up-and-coming companies which have already made waves at previous Fringes. — August 7, 2003

Finally, during the frenzy of festival activity, it is good to reflect upon what it is you are offering, and how it fits into the larger picture of the event. The following year, when I brought my show to New York, I heard someone say, “I like my fringe funny.” Not surprisingly, they were not interested in seeing a show about stillbirth.

One of the two closing night parties was last night ... I only got to chat with a few people ... one conversation was with a Fringer artist … she was torn up about a review she received in the weekly paper, and I think I said all the right things for her to put it in perspective. I mean, the show isn't for the (local weekly paper’s) readership … 

"Your show isn't hip," I said. "My show isn't hip. You know people like your show, they've told you, and that's what matters, when you come down to it." — August 10, 2003

James Rankin & Nicholas Chokan
"Step Nine"
Give Me Your Keys, 2023

Very soon, artists will descend upon downtown Cleveland for the BorderLight Fringe. The festival is still in its infancy, and I am excited and apprehensive. Will people come? What will they say? Which shows will have what we called “buzz”, and which will not? 

You might think it would be very difficult, over the course of only three days, to generate buzz, so many of us are working ahead of time to get the word out there.

And who knows? Perhaps net weekend some young artist will be taking their first step on a lifelong journey.

I wonder how long I will be producing (“I Hate This.”) — August 8, 2003

Give Me Your Keys presents "Step Nine" by David Hansen, August 3 -5, 2023 at the Snug in Parnell's Pub in Playhouse Square as part of the BorderLight Fringe Festival. Admission is free. 

I Hate This (production photography)

"I Hate This" production photography by Cody York

James Alexander Rankin

James & Director Chennelle Bryant-Harris

Chennelle & Cinematographer Ananias J. Dixon

Playwright David Hansen & James

Playhouse Square presents the premiere of the video adaptation of "I Hate This (A Play Without the Baby)" by David Hansen, directed by Chennelle Bryant-Harris and performed by James Alexander Rankin, in the Westfield Studio Theatre on Saturday, October 15, 2022. 

I Hate This (playlist)

When the time came to create the original music for the original 2003 stage production of I Hate This, I gave composer Dennis Yurich a CD with everything I had going on in my head. These are songs that just made sense at the time, some that have associations that pre-date Calvin's birth, and some that don't.

Perhaps I should explain. "CD" stands for "compact disc" an easily-damaged cache for digitally recorded music. 

You're welcome.

The themes Dennis created have been incorporated into the film adaptation that will screen on Saturday, October 15 at Playhouse Square. Here is a playlist of the songs included on that CD I shared with him.

Hospital Themes

For all themes taking place in the hospital, I wanted electronic music. Something suggesting a fast heartbeat.

1. Everything In Its Right Place by Radiohead - "Kid A"
2. Idioteque by Radiohead - "Kid A"
3. Blame by Everything But the Girl - "Temperamental"
4. Packt Like Sardines In A Crushd Tin Box by Radiohead - Amnesiac"

Released in 2000, I listened to Kid A a lot when driving back and forth from Tri-C during Bad Epitaph's production of Cloud 9. That was when Toni was first pregnant.

"Blame" is included for obvious reasons. Temperamental was released in 1999.

During FringeNYC 2001 there was a coffee house in Harris's neighborhood that I visited every morning. It seemed like all they played were Radiohead albums, each day a different Radiohead album. The Amnesiac track was also on a mix that a co-worker played for me in New Knoxville that fall.

Kid A is also the pre-show music I prefer when I perform I Hate This on stage. It brings me back to that time.

Brazilian Guitar Themes

5. August Day Song Bebel Gilberto - "Tanto Tempo"
6. August Day Song (King Britt remix) Bebel Gilberto - "Tanto Tempo Remixes"
7. Fragile Sting - "Nothing Like the Sun"

8. Fragil Sting - "Nada Como El Sol ..."

Photo by Cody York

I was washing dishes on a night in December, 2001 at the aforementioned housing in West Central Ohio, listening to that guy's mix CD, and was caught off-guard by King Britt remix of Bebel Gilberto's "August Day Song." 

I knew the tune, but couldn't place it. Toni had actually gotten me the original Tanto Tempo disc when it was released in 2000, but I hadn't listened to it that much at the time.

The Sting tracks were played at the memorial we held in late May. I like the Portuguese version because sometimes it's good not to hear certain things in English.

Those 70s Themes

9. Three Is a Magic Number by Bob Dorough - "Schoolhouse Rock"
10. Lonely Boy by Andrew Gold - "What's Wrong With This Picture"
11. Cat's In The Cradle by Harry Chapin - "Verities and Balderdash"

Thoughtless hold-music from a certain baby food company. A gag employed often on The Simpsons. We used them in the stage version, but not in the film. Theses ditties in particular were chosen because of their resonance with someone who may have been a small boy between the years of 1974 and 1976.

Music for Crying Out Loud

12. Gymnopedie No 1/Var.1 by Jacques Loussier Trio - "Satie: Gymnopédies Gnossiennes"
13. Gymnopedie No 1/Var.3 by Jacques Loussier Trio - "Satie: Gymnopédies Gnossiennes"
14. Gnossienne No 6 by Jacques Loussier Trio - "Satie: Gymnopédies Gnossiennes"
15. Tales from the Far Side by Bill Frisell - "Bill Frisell Quartet"
16. Gutaris Breeze (6000km To Amsterdam) by John Beltram - "Late Night Beats: the Post-Club Sound of Britain"

Discovered in a shower around 4 am in late 1998 (yes, I heard it on NPR) the Loussier themes were among those that carried me through that bizarre depression I had in early 1999. Odd, that, because 1999 was one of the most fruitful and adventurous years of my life. The other pieces are also discoveries I made that year.

The Frisell track figured heavily on the Last Words episode of This American Life, which remains my favorite episode ever.

The Jacques Loussier album was used as pre-show music for the original staged reading at Dobama in August, 2002. Though no more depressing than listening to Kid A before a show (how many people hear the pre-show music, think "uh-oh" and leave?) the Satie themes are too gentle. I wanted a sense of unease to hit people as they came in, not the sense they were about to see a staged performance of something soft and sentimental.

-- Happy Families XTC - "She's Having a Baby"

Have you got Miss Carriage? 

She's the girl who wants a baby that she cannot find. 

Strange, the ones who want to win the race 

Are usually the ones who fall behind.

A British card game for kids. Sometimes you don't even care what the lyrics of certain songs mean until they start making sense. Currently unavailable on Spotify, you can listen to it here.

17. Kang Mandor by Degung Orchestra - "Putumayo Presents: Music From the Tea Lands"

Finally, there is Kang Mandor. I make reference to it in the scene "the Dream" and the very first time I heard it, in April, 2001, I just wept. It so entirely captured my imaginary summer of 2001, the summer I was going to have with my first-born child, the one I had not allowed myself to daydream about, and yet, it was captured in that recording. I have shared this with very few people until today.

Playhouse Square presents the premiere of the video adaptation of "I Hate This (A Play Without the Baby)" by David Hansen, directed by Chennelle Bryant-Harris and performed by James Alexander Rankin, in the Westfield Studio Theatre on Saturday, October 15, 2022. 

I Hate This (First Reading, 2002)

Twenty years ago today, August 26, 2002, we held the first public reading of I Hate This (a play without the baby).

To recap, my wife and I suffered a stillbirth in early 2001. And I wrote about it. And wrote about it. My journal was a form of solace and understanding. We mourned, we talked, we traveled. We wanted things to stand still for a while but they kept moving forward.

My wife had a show in the New York Fringe that August and I saw a lot of shows, many of them solo performances. As I drove a van of sleeping teenagers and young adults back to Cleveland I had a lot of time to think and I realized then that I was going to write a show about this experience.

It had only been five months. I told myself to wait, not to think about it again at least until the new year. The wife had invited me to join her writers’ group which met at that coffee shop in University Circle. In 2002 I began to share pages for what would become my first solo performance.

Early that summer I met for lunch with Joyce Casey, Artistic Director of Dobama Theatre. As I had worked there for three years she was my former employer and mentor, and also a good friend. I had shared the script with her and she asked how she could help with the piece and I said I wanted to hold a reading, an invitation-only event and could I use the space. She agreed.

This was something I had never done before. I hadn’t actually written many plays. I’d never had a public-private showcase of a work I had just written. Maybe a few folks invited over to my house to read and comment. I planned to invite a wide variety of people, friends and close artistic colleagues, but also directors of other theater companies and most importantly to extend an invitation to those we had met on our journey, others who had lost children and were familiar with this grief.

I made postcards to send through the mail or to hand out. I must have sent emails, too.

Tom Cullinan was director, he would go on to direct the original staging of the play. We worked in various rooms in my house to create a shape for this performance. It was script-in-hand but there was also blocking. In the end what we created was the basis for the stage play I would eventually perform, on and off, for the next five years.

There were no slides, I read the title for each scene. There was no music or sound effects, those would come later. There were a couple music stands so I could place the script for longer passages. It was a staged reading. I wore the sweater.

The version dated June, 2002 is remarkably similar to the final version. I have edited and edited as the years have gone by, but its shape was established from the beginning. There are uninteresting details which were cut, and inaccuracies.

“I sang to it on Friday and I swear it was listening to me.”

That line may be poetic, or possibly emotion-evoking. It is not accurate. I changed that passage before the first reading. There were many, many f-bombs, and other obscenities which were unnecessary.

There is a scene where my brother and I are in the Cloisters in Upper Manhattan, observing the Annunciation Triptych. I compare myself to Joseph, the blithely ignorant father: “He has no idea what’s about to happen to him.” In the original draft I go on to describe other famous men who have lost children:

“God lost His son. Did you know the guy that writes Doonesbury, his wife had a stillbirth. And John Lennon and Yoko Ono had a number of miscarriages. And Luis Guzman. He’s that guy, you know, in 'Traffic' … yeah, you know, that guy, him, too. Read it somewhere. Really fucked him up for a while. Isn’t he great?”

That passage was struck from the August, 2002 version, the one I used for the reading. I had wanted to share what a widely-felt experience child loss is, and examples of famous men who have was one way to do that, I guess. But the scene is long and bends from topic to topic and we needed to draw a narrower focus.

Trying to describe our visit to Great Britain to see my other brother that summer, I originally read this:

“I don’t know what we wanted our trip to London to be, but it wasn’t what we wanted. I love that city, it bleeds history, and you’re surrounded by people from all over the world, rushing through its narrow streets, the places just pulses with music and art and exciting smells and noise. But it was still scary to even step outside and you know, there are newborn babies everywhere, even in England.”

Press to play.

But that wasn’t right. That’s some sexy but entirely vague explanation of how I feel when I am in any large city, and when things are entirely normal. It didn’t describe that place at that time, the way we were experiencing it. It was revised for the premiere.

The turnout was very good, all things considered. Sixty people? Maybe seventy? Following the reading I changed and sat in the back while Tom led a post-show discussion about the script.

I mean, here’s the thing. Everyone in the room knew me, most likely knew both me and my wife. They knew we’d lost a pregnancy. I knew no one was going to be very critical of the work. But I didn’t know what I’d written. Was it a play? Was this a story anyone wanted to hear? Would they say, I am glad you got that off your chest?

Well, no. No one said that, at least not yet. And there were generous questions about form and clarity. Someone suggested I cast other actors to play the characters I impersonate which was interesting and while that was not something I wanted to do you it has been done that way.

One theater colleague, a playwright (I did not yet call myself a playwright) marveled at the fact that I would even attempt something like this. She said there was this conventional wisdom that it takes ten years before someone can successfully write about tragedy, and yet I just went ahead and did it.

And Randy Rollison, Artistic Director of Cleveland Public Theatre asked if I had any plans for it. I said I had not. He asked if I would like to participate in a new works program he was planning, called Big Box. I said I would.

My wife and I were already four months pregnant with our next, and living child. They would be a month old when this new play would would premiere at CPT in February 2003. And that is how two decades can pass without your really noticing.

On Solo Performance

Clyde Jevne in "One-Man Hamlet"
(Theatre Inconnu, 2011)

The best production of Hamlet I have ever seen was a solo performance created by Dr. Clayton Jevne, Founding Artistic Director of Theatre Inconnu (Victoria, British Columbia). Titled One-Man Hamlet, it was one of the several productions I attended at the Minnesota Fringe in 2003.

“... Nick, Denny and I went to see One-Man Hamlet at Bryant-Lake. That kicked ass, the man is a freak, and not only that, but a Canadian freak and we sat in the dark eating cheeseburgers and drinking pints of Summit and watching this guy charge around the stage with music stands with balloons on them representing all the different characters, it was a whoot.” - I Hate This Blog, 8/9/2003

The cheeseburger was only part of what made it special. The Bryant-Lake Bowl in Minneapolis is a bar and grill, bowling alley and cabaret theater all under one roof. We’d placed orders before the show and fifteen minutes in, a server brought my dish and it was passed down to me by friendly audience members.

"I Hate This (a play without the baby)"
(Red Eye Theatre, 2003)

I wasn’t the only one served. This is totally a thing that they do at Bryant-Lake.

“... Denny and I are going to see Heretic [a solo performance by Niki McCretton] this evening at 6. Toni got to see [Staggering Toward America, a solo performance by Rik Reppe] this afternoon ... and I did my last performance.” - I Hate This Blog, 08/10/2003

That would be my last performance for I Hate This. My trip to Minnesota nineteen years ago was the first time I brought my solo performance on stillbirth to an audience of almost complete strangers.

“Forty people in the house, a strong Sunday afternoon showing … Clayton the One-Man Hamlet man was in the house, and his lovely wife. Our midwife's daughter made the show! And there were rumors ... maybe Matthew Everett made it (and his mom) [more on that here]. I am grateful for the attention.” - I Hate This Blog, 08/10/2003

The solo performance is a particular kind of drama, but it can be so many different things. Ten years or so ago there were several traveling shows in which one guy would tell all of The Lord of the Rings or the entire Harry Potter saga in a single evening, which is a kind of parody. It’s for the fans, but it’s also meant to be hilarious.

Jevne’s One-Man Hamlet is much more than that. It is very funny, to be sure. But he’s playing something like an addled street performer with the least expensive props possible and what is remarkable is how he just keeps going, playing all the characters, telling the entire story. 

My favorite part is how he takes all of those moments that a character describes something that happened in the recent past (Ophelia telling her father what Hamlet did in her closet, Hamlet telling Horatio about the pirates) by opening a foot locker pulling out puppets and miniatures.

Sometimes a solo performance is in the service of a familiar tale, like Jevne’s, or when we saw local artist Terry Canendonk perform I Dreamed of Rats, his adaptation of the Inspector General. Or it is autobiographical, like Reppe’s Staggering Toward America, in which he told the true story of his journey across the nation after 9/11. He becomes the people he met along the way, but it’s no different than a good friend telling a great yarn over a fire. There’s a personal connection necessary in these kinds of performances, and Reppe’s personality was big and he embraced the crowd with it.

Nina Domingue
"The Amazing and Absolutely True Adventures
of Ms. Joan Evelyn Southgate"
(Cleveland Public Theare, 2002)

While we’re on the subject of solo shows I saw almost in Minnesota almost two decades ago, Heretic was yet another kind of one person performance, a play with one character, and little or no text. Utilizing video, a big open stage and a large aquarium, McCretton is a woman who has been exiled to the surface of the moon for the crime of having religious belief, and may not return until she has filled the fish tank with her tears.

It’s a flex, standing on stage, by yourself, for an hour or so. You are the only person holding the attention of an entire audience.

My good friend Nina Domingue has written and performed several solo shows, most recently The Amazing and Absolutely True Adventures of Ms. Joan Evelyn Southgate, which opened to a full house at Cleveland Public Theatre last weekend. Watching Nina play is a masterclass in catching and keeping an audience, not only skilled in portraying all manner of characters, but also staying in tune with and reacting to the assembled.

I have written and performed two solo shows. This spring I have been writing an essay, meant to be read aloud, about my mother’s death, called Falling. I have no idea what I might do with it, though I am glad to have written it.

Cleveland Public Theatre presents "The Amazing and Absolutely True Adventures of Ms. Joan Evelyn Southgate" performed by Nina Domingue and directed by Nathan Henry through May 14, 2022.