Process XLI

Okay, Anton. Whatever you say.

I was rushing to get a paper completed by last Thursday, only it is really due next Thursday. So, I have a paper due next Thursday which is mostly complete, so that’s good.

My work will appear in a certain collaborative holiday project but that hasn’t been announced yet so instead I’ll just mention it here to be all oblique and shit.

We spent the week in rehearsal learning the Hamlet residency, which was awesome because I love Hamlet and it is exciting when I’m in a room of people who agree, or at least listen to me go on about it because they haven’t really formed their opinions yet.

I finished the first draft of the play I am writing for workshop, which is dynamite because the only the first half is due this week, so again. Ahead of the game. I am writing every single morning.

Next weekend, Chennai Art Theatre will be reviving their production of I Hate This (re-titled What Happened) at Indianostrum in Pondicherry, India. Pondicherry (or Puducherry) is a three and a half hour drive from Chennai, so they will be reaching an entirely new audience, and I wish them a strong turnout.

As for me, I’m taking the boy to NYC next weekend. Some time ago he expressed a strong desire to witness the musical Hadestown, as he has never before asked to see a specific production, I thought that if we could we should.

And tonight. Tonight, we return to the Hanna Theatre for the first time since January, 2020. Sara Bruner is directing The Tempest, she who played Ariel in the GLT production fourteen years ago, the one in which I played Adrian, Shakespeare’s least-consequential named character. We’re masked and vaxxed, and it will be a celebration.

"What Happened" in Performance

Karthik TMK

This, from a review in nytheatre.com in August 2004.

"As a play, I don't know ['I Hate This (a play without the baby)'] would work on its own, with an actor other than Hansen performing it, but maybe that is the nature of the autobiographical, non-fiction, one-person-show genre."

Two others have performed the entire script, as a reading in Manchester, England and as an undergraduate thesis in upstate New York.

Last Saturday, March 6, the play received a unique production (under the alternate title What Happened) in Chennai, India, directed by Denver Anthony Nicholas. For the first time the roles were divided between two performers, Karthik TMK and Mrittika Chatterje.

It was, by all accounts, a remarkable production. There were two performances on a single day, and each were sold out. 

Mrittika Chatterjee

Many of the local theater community was in attendance, showing support for the first live play in the area for over a year. The matinee crowd was younger, and less emotional about the subject matter, which could be expected. The evening crowd was older, and much more affected by the work, many openly sobbing at the end.

I was particularly touched to learn how emotional folks became when Mrittika recited the letter from “Becky” near the close of the show. Performed by a woman I can see how much more sympathetic she would appear, more sympathetic than when, for example, a man would perform it, as I traditionally have.

On further reflection, that nytheatre.com review may have gotten it entirely wrong, and I may have as well. This piece may work much more effectively when it is interpreted by someone other than myself.

Which is exactly what someone new will be doing very soon.

"I Hate This (a play without the baby)" is available at Amazon as paperback or ebook.

"What Happened" at Chennai Art Theatre

What Happened (also titled I Hate This) will be produced at Chennai Art Theatre in Chennai, India on March 6, with two performances. 

The actor T.M. Karthik Srinivasan contacted me last January. He had come across the script and asked for permission to perform the role. COVID-19 closed public performances around there as everywhere, but in Chennai they are beginning to congregate and produce live theater.

As Karthik told me stand-up comedy is extremely popular, but he wanted to try something different. I was delighted at the prospect of someone telling this story to a new audience. Would it be translated? No, they will be performing in English.

TM Karthik

It’s only in the United States that people only know how to speak one language.

But my play, I Hate This, in spite of its universal themes of loss, doubt, communication and compassion, is a tale particular to me, a straight, white, American man. Working in communication with Karthik, and director Denver Anthony Nicholas we have negotiated certain changes, necessary to bring the story to their audience.

We changed the title, as you can see (more on that here) and names of all characters will be Indianized. Also, there will be another actor. Mrittika Chatterjee will perform the women’s roles. And we have eliminated two scenes, Sitting Up and The Future.

Why cut these scenes? Well, I could go into that. Someday, probably some day soon, I will. It was a request, and I honor it. For the time being it is enough to say that this production is an experiment for me, to see how far we can go to tell a story that needs to be told. Think of me as dead. What might future artists do with my writing, to keep it relevant, and to pass along the message.

Call me Shakespeare.

I am not dead, of course. And I have approved these changes. Another playwright might not, and that would have to be respected, let me make that clear. For me, this is a powerful opportunity to test the elasticity of our story, to share it with people around the globe.

Chennai Art Theatre presents "What Happened (Based on a True Story)" directed by Denver Anthony Nicholas and starring TM Karthik & Mrittika Chatterjee on Saturday, March 6, 2021 at 4 PM and 7 PM.

What Happened (a play without the baby)

A couple weeks ago, I polled my friends on Facebook for an alternate title for my mondrama, I Hate This (a play without the baby). All of the responses I received were thoughtful and generous, poetic and appropriate. Really, every single one of them.

Titles suggestions included:

• Fallen Leaf
• A Whole In the Heart
• Duet
• Still
• Forever Still
• So Still
• Pack Up the Moon
• Eternal Lullaby
• Zawadi
• Still Love, Still Grief
• Still My Child, Still Their Father
• Still a Father
• Acts of Despair
• Bereft
• Beyond Measure
• Remembering Him
• The Play Without the Baby
• Talk About the Baby
• Baby Shoes, Never Used
• Still, Born
• It Seems So Wrong
• Firstborn Son
• Three
• Calvin
• Still, My Son
• Still, Father
• A Father Stil
• I Am a Father
• Am I Still a Father?
• He and I
• Return to Sender
• This Is How It Doesn’t Go
• Untitled (On Purpose)
• The Lost Homecoming Parade
• The Sparrow

And, of course, Fuck You, Gerber.

There is a company in Chennai, India who have made plans to produce my play once the theaters re-open. And they very politely and sincerely requested they promote the production with a different title.

The title has been controversial, since the beginning. The play has been controversial. I had at least one producer tell me it was unwise to begin at the moment we were informed that the baby was dead, providing the audience no warning whatsoever.

My thinking was, and is, the title is the warning. But then, surely it has prevented many from attending. Hate is a very strong word, it is a word I choose not to use in daily life, if I can help it. I do not hate.

But we said, time and again, I hate this. We both did. Again and again. “I hate this”. I say it only once during the play, in passing, You might even miss it.

And it was this expression, a statement of feeling, that blankets the entire year chronicled in the script. And that is what I was seeking, another, less fraught expression, from the play, which best describes what this play is. Not something poetic. Not thoughtful, not soft nor sweet, not even descriptive of the situation. Not about me, not about her, not about him.

The first thing I said when I heard the news, the very first thing, was a question. “What happened?”

And this play is an urgent document of what happened. Not a question, a fact.

So, for now, we will call this play What Happened.