Sands UK Tour, Day Thirteen: Lurgan to Exeter

Ten years ago this month, the Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Charity (SANDS UK) sent my solo performance I Hate This (a play without the baby) on a seven date tour of Great Britain.

Wednesday, 20 June 2007 

Nap time at the Pegasus Guest House in Whipton, outside Exeter, and plenty of time on our hands. I had been apprehensive about this day, the only one that involved travel and a performance on the same day in the entire journey. What if something went wrong? What if we were missing something, something were wrong with the tech, I left something behind ... there would be no time to care of of unseen mishaps.

Well. My wife and I went to the Lurgan Public Library to check email, and received an urgent notice from our contact in London that the Exeter show has been cancelled, due to lack of interest. They had only had confirmed reservations for five.

Disappointed? Sure. Maybe more than I expected. We're here, in Exeter (well, Whipton) with nothing to do.

There was a reason we scheduled travel and performance on the same date; we wanted an extra day in Northern Ireland. It was well spent. Our hosts picked us up around 10:30 AM and we took the scenic route along the coast (the Torr Head route) to Giant's Causeway.

Giant's Causeway is this bizarre, unique rock formation along this one, relatively small area of the northern coast. Where the stones have been worn down, it looks like carefully arranged hexagonal boulders have been neatly fit together. Where they are taller they are like great columns. Each stone section is maybe eighteen inches wide.

At different short levels they make for little thrones to sit in. In one area in particular, where there is this section of great, tall pillars all clustered together by the seaside, they contribute to the legend of Finn MacCool, the giant. There was a great bridge, or causeway, across the sea to Scotland. Finn MacCool set across to defeat a giant on the other side - but when he got there, he found the Scottish giant to be much larger than he, so he ran back across, in fear, to tell his wife.

MacCool's wife told him to calm down, dressed him up in a bonnet and gave him a binky and put him in the baby crib. When the Scottish giant came over to fight MacCool, the giantess said, "He's out right now, but don't wake the baby!"

The Scottish giant took one look at the great, hideous baby in the crib, and thought - if that's the baby, how big is the father! In a panic, he ran back across the causeway, tearing up the stones as he went so the monstrous giant, Finn MacCool, could not get at him.

After almost two weeks of urban living, dining and recreating, this day was a blessed departure. And the weather was perfect - we were warned to bring rain jackets and be prepared for great wind and waves, but the sea was calm, the skies were sunny and clear, and it was quite warm. But not too warm, there was a lot of walking.

On the drive into town my wife and I compared notes on the last two cities we'd been to. Birmingham is a lot like Cleveland. It's not a city with the ancient history a lot of the rest of England does, it's an industry town, only the industry dried up decades ago. A lot of people, including some in N.I. spoke disparagingly about Birmingham, but what I saw is a modern city that is trying very hard to become a center of arts and activity, with a number of new shopping centers and entertainment venues.

According to our host, it's only been five years since things have settled down to what you might call normal in Northern Ireland, especially in and around where we were staying, so close to Belfast. The time we spent there wasn't nearly enough to really take in what effect those decades of war have had on the people's psyche, but it can't have been good for business. Driving on the roads (as opposed to say, taking trains, which we have been doing so much of) watching all the farms, the livestock, the people, the wife was reminded of her home in Appalachia.

Our lives being how they are, it is hard to imagine the circumstances where we would be able to return to N.I. Perhaps we will need to make some up.

Original blog post: June 20, 2007

Sands UK Tour, Day Twelve: Lurgan

Ten years ago this month, the Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Charity (SANDS UK) sent my solo performance I Hate This (a play without the baby) on a seven date tour of Great Britain.

Tuesday, 19 June 2007

Lurgan Town Hall

We had a very fine performance at Lurgan Town Hall yesterday. It was the first old-fashioned "stage" I have performed on here; instead of looking up at the audience, or straight out, I actually had to look down at them.

There were some seventy people in attendance. I have grown used to audiences not laughing, at all, at anything, during the performances this week. Maybe it is because of the language barrier. Maybe it is because of my delivery, who knows.

Last night, however, they were laughers. Not huge, belly-laughers, no one does that, it's not that kind of show. But they did laugh appreciatively. I might make some kind of sweeping observation about the Irish knowing something about dark humor, but, well, I guess I just did.

There was this one woman in the front row, she had these great glasses, seated right in front of the phone. She was cracking up at all the muzak. When "Lonely Boy" came on she was my anchor, she thought that was hysterical and I just smiled at her for several seconds before saying, "I love this song."

PLAY

One of the most interesting questions we received was, "What did you hope to get out of doing this?" One thing that was great was that it was a question we could pass onto our contact, who joined us on stage. He had the chance to share the idea SANDS had for bringing me here, to raise awareness of the issue, and of their organization.

The wife also got to speak about the kind of fact-finding work we have been able to do, hearing other people's stories and making observations about the state of health care in different parts of the country -- ours and theirs.

And for my part, I took it back to the beginning - what did I hope to get out of doing this, meaning writing it. Which was nothing but my own need to tell this story, as a theater artist.

At first, I had no idea that this play would take me to such places. I didn't envision it being used as an educational tool, for nurse and doctors, certainly not to be a touch-point for the parents of other dead children. I wanted to see if I could make my personal story into a good play.

Original blog post: June 19, 2007

Sands UK Tour, Day Eleven: Lurgan

Ten years ago this month, the Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Charity (SANDS UK) sent my solo performance I Hate This (a play without the baby) on a seven date tour of Great Britain.

Monday, 18 June 2007

A beautiful view.

Yesterday was a big, big travel day with no internet at the end of it. We left Birmingham via air to Belfast. I am pleased and amazed at how well the seven of us have been coping, shipping from city to city like this.

Our contacts, a lovely couple, met us at the airport and helped us get situated with the Big Red Van we've rented. Yes, a rental. Yes, I am driving on the left, seated on the right, shifting on the left. The 40 minute drive from Belfast to Lurgan, where I will be performing tonight was quite a thrill. Apparently I only almost got us into an accident twice.

We have been put up in cottages for our extended stay. We are taking the risk and traveling and putting on a performance on the same day on Wednesday so I can have a full day to myself tomorrow, touring Northern Ireland.

At present I ham at the local library to check email and write this. Just after lunch we will drive to Belfast for a radio interview (that's an hour's drive each way) and get home in time for dinner, and the show.

I am only slightly disappointed I don't get to see as much as my fellow travelers, but what I do see I will remember. The cottages were a very thoughtful touch. It's fun, you know, staying in a hotel for a short while, but it's also quite constricting. Dining in restaurants for every meal has begun to wear on the children.

Last night my wife and I got some basics from the market, and we all sat about, cooking, drinking, cleaning (I broke a glass) eating and just relaxing. They even have a DVD built into the set, and a small selection of movies available. We started watching Love, Actually, which is utter shit.

Original blog post: June 18, 2007

A personal reflection for June 17, 2017.

On this date, ten years ago it was Father’s Day. We were traveling from Birmingham to Lurgan, Northern Ireland by air and the journey from hotel to cottage took most of the day. I did not compose a blog entry on that date, only posted this photo of cute pins the children and their mother got for me.

So this seems as good a time as any to reflect briefly on this exercise. Why re-post blog entries? Would anyone truly have an interest in reading them? What is the point, exactly?

I think the idea occurred to me maybe the day before I started. I realized huh, it’s been ten years since the tour, that’s interesting. And since I don’t feel I have anything new to blog about this month, it would provide “content.”

Quickly, however, I began to regret this decision as I was not really happy with the person I was encountering. I found him anxious, and kind of a jerk. Taking text from the I Hate This Blog (which I stop contributing to six years ago) and posting it here became an exercise in editing, which has its merits. I did not want to be dishonest about my feelings, but I have been able to create written entries which are easier to read.

However, as the tour continued, and as this re-posting project has continued, I have been able to appreciate my mood at that time, and how I began to relax into the journey and the work. I was very anxious in Carlisle, and downright despondent in London. These are reflections of my own mental state, and not of any other individual’s actions or behavior.

As the days progressed and I began to take in how my play was being received, I have been much less disappointed in my own thoughts. I am more open to our hosts, and spend more time talking about them, a team of wonderful volunteers and professionals who were dedicating their lives to the same mission I had, as counselors and companions in grief.

That has been my greatest joy in revisiting these journals in this way. I have had an opportunity to meet them again in my memory, and have been surprised as what strong memories wait there. It all went by so fast, and returning to America I had to get right back to work, and had no time to dwell in that experience.

My recollections on the post-show discussions are remarkable, because I am not sure I have truly read these journals for ten years. Yet, the comments made and stories told by audience members are fresh, vibrant and real. This play was a major focus of my creative life for five years, and using it as a tool not only to assist others in their grief but also understanding my own was a great part of the experience. That’s what the aughts were all about for me.

Happy Father’s Day.

Sands UK Tour, Day Nine: Birmingham

Ten years ago this month, the Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Charity (SANDS UK) sent my solo performance I Hate This (a play without the baby) on a seven date tour of Great Britain.

Saturday, 16 June 2007

Post-show discussion.

The weather had turned the day we left London, and continued raining pretty regularly the entire time we were in Lincoln. We took the short train to Nottingham where we discovered our train to Birmingham had been cancelled. All the trains to Birmingham had been cancelled. The tracks had been flooded, or maybe it was just the electric signals. We sat around the station in Nottingham, making calls to our contacts in London and Birmingham, and waiting for the rail situation to change.

We began speculating on a night's stay in Nottingham when they suddenly announced a train would be going through, but by the time we arrived in Birmingham, all other trains had been cancelled. So in that respect, we were lucky. Except the wife had planned on spending the afternoon doing laundry, and now there would be no time, if we could even find a launderette in the city center.

The two main organizers of our Birmingham event joined us at the hotel for some late night libations and I asked if someone couldn't wash my underpants.

The performance today was the end of the local SANDS conference, sharing the new Guidelines. There was a larger percentage of medical health professionals than bereaved parents, or so it seemed, and the Q&A included the first comment I have had on this tour from an offended nurse. She didn't appreciate my presenting only the negative aspects of our time in the hospital. It was a respectful exchange. I think everyone knows my opinion on this subject, the character I am playing the show is who I was at the time, and that's how I felt.

I understand it can be harsh. The play is called I Hate This.

What was unique about this talkback was that not only was my wife joining me, but so was my mother-in-law. As a nurse, as a woman who trains obstetric nurses, and as a bereaved grandparent, she offered a rich point of view to the proceedings.

National SEA LIFE Centre

As a result the discussion with the audience had nothing to do with the history of the play, less to do with our lives since 2001, and so much to do with caregivers, what assistance is available (or not) to parents who have lost children in both the US and the UK, and issues regarding grandparents and other relatives.

It was an intimate gathering, maybe thirty audience members. A lot of them knew each other, and aspects of the discussion were, not so much a debate, but a mutual agreement on certain points regarding patient care and communication. I probably said the least during this talkback than I ever had, and I think that was a very good thing.

In the five-year history of this play, I have never performed it many times in a row. The New York and Minnesota Fringe Festivals were five performances each. And though I have performed this show for hospitals and conferences before, it has never been incorporated something like one help organization's two-week schedule of events.

What this has done for me, and also for my wife, is to really challenge our participation in perinatal bereavement and counseling. The extended dialogue we have participated in through all of these talkbacks has thrown what we have accomplished, and what we still hope to do into some kind of relief. Today was particularly helpful in that regard.

The kids had a good day, we took them to National Sea Life Centre, an aquarium which is so totally geared to kids. There can't be a fish tank without there's a ship's anchor in it, or a statue of a mermaid.

Original blog post: June 16, 2007

Sands UK Tour, Day Eight: Lincoln to Birmingham

Ten years ago this month, the Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Charity (SANDS UK) sent my solo performance I Hate This (a play without the baby) on a seven date tour of Great Britain.

Friday, 15 June 2007

{SPOILER ALERT.}

While we were riding the London Eye, my sister-in-law and I had an uncomfortable conversation about the movie Children of Men. I think that, among other things, it is about how humans go insane when they can't have children. She says it's a dumb chase movie with a pregnant woman in it, and the guy dies at the end.

{END OF SPOILER.}

I was flabbergasted. I know Children of Men is not everyone's favorite movie,* For those who are unaware, the premise is that people have stopped being able to have children. The last person to survive childbirth was born eighteen years previous. The very first action of the movie is the announcement that this person has been killed.

When Clive Owen's character, Theo, walks into his office, everyone in their little cubicle is watching the news on their computers and quietly (or not quietly) weeping. All of them. And every cubicle, especially the ones of the women, but not exclusively, are festooned with baby figures, ribbons, little mementoes of lost children. They are everywhere.

If director Alfonso Cuarón doesn't have some personal experience with child loss, all I can say is he did his homework. And once that world was set, I could clearly see what a world where no one could have children might look like. I see it in some small, manageable version every time I do this show. It's our experience, without end, times everyone else in the world.

So you will excuse me if I have little patience with someone who doesn't "get" that movie. In fact, I surprise myself at my reaction to people who don't "get" that movie, it makes me feel like they can't "get" us.

But then again, you know, it is just a flick with a lot of stuff blowing up.

Terry O'Toole Theatre

The show went extremely well, from a technical standpoint. It's a great, new black box theater. It's small, maybe two hundred seats, and it's kind of octagonal. The seats angle to the sides. I was thrust out into the audience, looking to my left and right during a lot of it, which was new and different and took some time to get used to.

Tech took a very short period of time, and we even had lights fade in at the beginning and out at the end. It was like a real play!

The performance was just a little difficult. There was virtually no sound from the audience. None. They laughed when I said shit, that was about all. And yet, I knew they didn't hate the show, just that they must be taking it all very personally. This silence no longer affects me in a negative way, only I adjust most "punchlines" to be less of a grasp for laughs, I just say them and move on.

However, this lack of vocal response normally translates into a brief, awkward Q&A. This was not the case in Lincoln. Our post-show discussion lasted maybe a half-hour to forty-five minutes. The questions kept coming, and they were very good questions. A lot of times the questions are about the show, and the show's history, but last night there were so many about the details of child loss - about our own experiences, to be sure, but then also about the experiences of the people in the audience.

A number of new, fascinating questions arose when they learned we have had two subsequent pregnancies. What was it like when you were in labor and giving birth to your first living child? Where do you tell them Calvin is? Have you thought of incorporating the fact that you have subsequent, living children into the play? **

This last was from a very meaningful woman. I had to handle this question with care, because I remember all too well the strong reaction I got from other parents of lost children when it was suggested in a preview article that I had changed the play when my first living child was born. If I understood her correctly, the ending was so painful for her she wanted some kind of release during the play to let her know everything was all right for us. I explained, as well as I could, that I just don't feel like giving anyone that release during the drama, and she accepted that.

Awesome new raincoat.

I have been accused of being dispassionate (or near-dispassionate) in my performance, but when one mother shared that her living children believe their dead sibling is with the Man in the Moon, I almost teared up. It was something their grandmother had told them, and she didn't disabuse them of it. I wouldn't have, either.

We found out more details meeting people face-to-face afterwards. Our contact's mom had made scones, and there were strawberries and coffee and tea, and we stayed in the lobby a long time, talking to so many people.

We took a particular delight in meeting our contact's daughter, who is fifteen, and desperate to be a star. She hung out with us backstage before the performance and we made jokes about American and British accents and asked her about her plans. She's done a lot of theater in the Lincoln area, and will be a featured extra in The Golden Compass with Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. She does a very amusing American accent ... and so do I!

Original blog post: June 15, 2007

* Ten years on, "Children of Men" has received a great deal of critical vindication.
** I did incorporate our living children into a performance of "I Hate This" in 2016,

Sands UK Tour, Day Seven: Lincoln

Ten years ago this month, the Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Charity (SANDS UK) sent my solo performance I Hate This (a play without the baby) on a seven date tour of Great Britain.

Thursday, 14 June 2007

Feedback from the Sands conference on Tuesday!

Out of 98 forms:
Please evaluate, scoring from 4 - 1
( 4 - e x c e l l e n t ; 3 - g o o d ; 2 - f a i r ; 1 - p o o r )

“I hate this” A play without the baby a solo performance – David Hansen
4 - 88.88% 3 - 9.10% 2 - 2.02% 1 - 0%
Comments: Fantastic / Amazing / Awesome/ Inspirational / All nurses should see this/ Unique and exceptional / too intense / too personal

I agree, it is too intense and personal. I'm an intense and personal guy.

In Lincoln, we are staying at the White Hart, which is this ... okay, I have an insufficient vocabulary for things opulent and beautiful. It is enough to say our stage manager refuses to leave tomorrow, and her room is half as nice (and a quarter as large) as ours is.

Lincoln Cathedral

The picture at your right is the view from our window. That's what we get to wake up to and go to be at night looking at.

Last night at dinner at the Wig and Mitre. I noticed a number of photos of Tom Hanks from local papers, laminated and hanging on the wall in the staircase. As I was managing small feet up and down the stairs each time, I didn't read it up close, and just figured Tom Hanks had spent a vacation here.

Well, no. As Westminster Abbey refused to let Ron Howard film the relevant scenes from The Da Vinci Code that take place there in their actual location, the people of Lincoln Cathedral were only too happy to provide theirs as a substitute. And so the entire city played host to a major Hollywood picture for a few days in August, 2005.

This morning the wife and I met with our contact, who took us to the studios of BBC Lincolnshire for a noontime interview. I don't think they were planning to have my wife on the air, but we pressed for it, which I think is a good thing. Like having her participate in the post-show discussions, she provides perspective that I forget ... or have difficulty articulating. I don't know what's happened to me that I have totally lost the ability to answer a simple question in a short period of time.

Our interviewer asked very intelligent and thoughtful questions. I think we got the show over pretty well. There was this amusing exchange where our contact was explaining, quite rightly, that the show is about a serious subject, and that it's not necessarily "night out" material. My wife did her best to also point up that it is still a play, and an entirely appropriate form of entertainment for people who are looking for a good drama.

Our contact got to share with us about her daughter, whom she lost seventeen years ago. She's worked so hard on this mission, has been involved with Sands for many years. One interesting, and potentially helpful anecdote; she had occasion to relocate the meetings she was organizing. They couldn't be at her home, and having them in a church would be problematic. So she hosted it at a restaurant, a kind of a pub. And the attendance of fathers went up dramatically.

She says she believes the possibility of having a drink (to wit; "I'm not going to a support group, I'm having a pint,") was probably what brought them out.

And I think she's right.

Original blog post: June 14, 2007