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