Report on The Maiden Voyage

I performed the maiden voyage of my new version of Buen Camino during previews at the Hollywood Fringe Festival earlier this month. I was risking plenty in telling this truer story on stage: Did I have the acting chops to floor it and plow straight into the experience? Was I willing to disclose the truth about my bitterness, my shame, my sadness? Could I push past funny and open the door to the frightening grief that funny often masks? Could I get out of my head and into my body?

Adding to the challenge was that I had a disastrous dress rehearsal. That old maxim that a bad dress rehearsal means a great show is simply no comfort. I skipped an entire scene where I introduce the three women who take me on my journey. As in, I skipped it. This wasn’t a flub that I could recover from with a few improvised lines. This was all four wheels zinging off the car. A rehearsal that bad rattles me. And the remedy—get into your body—is very difficult when my mind circles in an endless loop, replaying the possibility of this happening in front of a full house and dying of shame. The only way out of this mess was to go all the way in. I had to bet the house on my Self.

I say a mantra for fifteen minutes before every curtain. It begins, “I am a human, telling a human story, to my human friends.” I want my story to bypass every person’s head and enter straight into their heart. And I don’t want my fear, my ego, my cleverness, the distraction of four patrons clambering into their seats twenty-five minutes after the show started (yes, that happened) to get in the way. Once on stage, here’s what I control: Embodying my characters fully. Susan disappearing. Trust.

This is what I call Art As Protest and Beauty As Remedy—beauty that returns us to our breathtaking, gorgeous, precious, shared humanity. If ever there was a time when people needed to have their hearts stirred, to unwittingly be confronted with the burdens under which their hearts labor and the relief and joy possible and within reach for us all, it is now. Beauty is irresistible. Art is one of the currents on which it sails. It enters through the heart and not through the head. And the depth and decency and pleasure of that beauty is breathtaking. We don’t have to be right. We do have to stay true. Art and Beauty points the way, infallibly.

So, all that to say, in my preview performance at the Hollywood Fringe Festival, I got my chance to stay deep and let each audience member’s heart do the rest of the work. My show touches each person differently. My great pleasure is when people snag me after the performance and tell me a story, or show me a photograph, or hug me. All I care about is that they are touched. They take it from there. Art is, at its best, collaboration.