I Hate This (a play without the baby): The Silver Collection (In Performance)

Maybe you can tell from the title of this blog post that I am tweaking my own tendency toward alternate or sub-titles to my works. Or perhaps I am just doing it once more.

Some time over the summer, when I was on my own for several weeks, I got this idea in my head, probably while running. I have lots of ideas when running, sometimes they become realized.

I have always wanted to do a house performance, or at least as far back as 2010. I read about them, then I sought them out. We produced the Love In Pieces project in 2014, and more recently I have enjoyed – and later, participated in – works produced by Micro Theater CLE.

What does it mean to invite strangers into your home for a live performance? Not that anyone this weekend was a stranger, exactly. And even those who were, well. We are now a bit more familiar, I think.

Anyway. As I was having this time on my own, and as I was looking for an opportunity to perform I Hate This once more, it all came together and I made myself that commitment. The commemorate our first pregnancy, and Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, we were going to do this.

I asked Josh to update his multimedia program, found both stage and house managers to run the show and serve the guests, and asked the Preeclampsia Foundation if I could promote this as a fund raiser, a suggestion I am grateful to have been well received.

The thing about the script is that it is now truly a memory play. When I was first taking this piece around, I was commenting on things that had only recently happened – including 9/11. And a couple things which were true in 2001 no longer are.

While working over the script, I tried to eliminate the delivery I remembered, to focus on how I feel about these things today. I also have the advantage of not having to project my voice. Not at all. A normal speaking voice. Telling an old story.

It took some work to clear out the living room and even then, ten seats was quite a squeeze. Sunday, Josh and I ran the cues and made adjustments to time and sound. Monday we brought in Geneva, the SM, to learn the cues and run the whole show, cue to cue.

I was relaxed, I had fun, even. Though, there was one moment, it is an extended, direct address with a single audience member. As I concluded, he gasped. I asked if that was all right. He said it was fine, just a lot.

Tuesday night was dress rehearsal, before paid audiences received the entire treatment (open bar, handmade snacks, etc.) I had invited company members from The Right Room, and some of the actor-teachers. It went well, there were a few surprises, pleasant and not, like when the cat turned on the Roomba. I did feel myself falling back into old forms of delivery, and I wasn’t happy about that. And it is something to be so close, and to look them all in the eye.

Wednesday night, opening night, was a bit of a party, we had a certain fellow solo performance expert sitting in the front row and she was laughing at all the darkest stuff and that was really something special. Her laughter made others feel free to laugh and it made all the difference.

Know what else made the difference? Our house manager-cum-bartender Char was in the (literal) house starting that night and their charm and skill kept things bubbly before curtain. Also, Toni had made cheese stuffed dates and fruit and cheese skewers (thank you Marchant Manor, support your local business) as well as puff pastry with tomatoes from City Fresh.

Thursday was the experienced crowd, and by that I guess I mean they were older. Also, many of them had seen the show before, like, most of them. They had come to see this show again, one of them for the third time, having seen it first in 2011 and again in 2016. What’s that like? Geneva has shared performance photos with me and they are striking. I used to look that way, now I look this way.

I look like my father. I look so much like my father now.

After the show, I head upstairs to change out of the costume while audience members are invited to stay and continue the conversation. After the dress rehearsal Toni joined me and it became a kind of Q&A, which was only appropriate as there were many younger folks there who don’t actually know me personally that well and didn’t know her at all. But I’ve been trying to avoid the after event becoming an extension of the show, I just want to see the people.

Thursday night, we were all telling our September 11th stories.

One of the unique elements of this production is my proximity to the audience, which allows me to speak in my natural voice. No projection, I can even mutter on occasion. One audience member this night said they were particularly focused on my breathing, which was a wonderful thing to learn.

Friday the crowd was older, the laughs were fewer … this is to be expected. You do not know who in the audience may have experienced some kind of child loss, but the older the audience the higher the probability, of course. I keep this in mind. It’s the Bette and Boo effect (see link) or as the good doctor put it, some people “don’t think stillbirth is funny.”

The show continues to change. When I mention how we handed out “handmade red paper and pens” at the boy’s memorial, I hand out actual paper we had commissioned from Dissected Relics and also Sharpies. Members of the first audience gave me a note; they didn’t know what they were supposed to do with the paper.

I ad libbed to the Wednesday night audience that they too could write “secret messages to our boy” and they did! On Friday, after the show, I was asked about the birdbath we burned the messages in back in 2001 and it’s still there in the garage, and the team thought it might be nice to have a place to set the messages at the end of the show.

For the final two performances, the set included a small birdbath.

Saturday night was a mix of ages and experiences, or at least you might think so. Again, everyone has a different connection to child loss, as parents, and also as siblings. For me, the event was highly charged as my former spouse Diana was in the (literal) house, and though we have made our way back to being friends we haven’t been in each others’ presence for over thirty years.

It was a happy reunion, though I think that she was much more interested in seeing my wife. They have a great deal of catching up to do. That evening went the longest, a half dozen of us sat in a circle and chatted for almost two hours.

I was asked how I would feel if this was the show I would be remembered for, and I came to terms with that a long time ago. It’s why I keep coming back. And it’s a story I love to tell.

You can donate to the Preeclampsia Foundation today, please follow this link to contribute directly to them in support of I Hate This (a play without the baby): The Silver Collection.