The car ride home was full of talk of the play.  It gripped our imaginations and kept hold of them for the entire 2 hour drive (the weather was terrible, and we were crawling).  Everyone was impressed with the physicality of the style, the characters, the look of the play, the intention of you all, as artists, to create and present a play that relied on more than language to tell the story.

The thing that woke me up this morning was the play's use of language. At first, there was a part of me that felt it was too wordy, too many adjectives, too many times a character came out and told me exactly how they were feeling or why they thought/said something, but then it dawned on me that this may be the point.  In our world, we are so dependent on language to communicate and to make connections to each other but we also hide behind it.  We think if we come out and tell someone straight how we feel, that we have connected with them.  We believe that telling our fears to each other, or our desires, is the path to community and will lead to an end of our loneliness.  But does it really?  What are we hiding behind our pretty words?  And why are we telling these personal "bits of truth" anyway?  Is it to make a connection or is it to wield a power, gain some status? Language used this way will only beget more loneliness.

You had 4 lonely, lonely people on that stage, and the character who was the least lonely was the one who said the least about how she was feeling, the one who questioned the language and actions of others and refused to speak about her own intentions.  The Parkdale Angel put everything into perspective.   And the parts of the play that told me the most about the characters were the parts where there was no language at all:  The little moments of play between Thea and Bear (That battlefield scene rocked!), the aggressive watching-from-the-window scenes, the elongated instants of characters stopped for a moment in thought, Dusan amusing himself with his
cigarette-pack-car.  I wish I was able to have said this to you last night, but I needed process time.

You may have all created a play that requires process time.  I hope you understand that.  I wasn't capable of standing up to cheer at the end, or even articulate how much I liked about it because what you've created is different from what I'm used to seeing.  I liked it, but I didn't know why.  It bothered me, and I didn't know why.  The intention is to bother, though, isn't it?  To make me wonder "what right do I have to impose my desires, need for clarity and cut-and-dry connections on this play", just as the Parkdale Angel wonders what right does Thea have to control Bear this way, and she wonders what right she has to judge Thea, even as she's judging her, and Thea wonders why the world needs to be so judgmental, so violently awful that there's no place for her.

You have created complicated characters that do not fit into the mold I'm used to seeing.  Their intentions change, and not always for the better.  They rely on stories to ease their alienation, and end up only feeling more alienated by the stories they've created because at the end, like Dusan said, "Everything is real."  The opposite is also true...  In their lives, and in ours. We construct our realities, we make our own meaning to answer our own questions. Some do this by clinging to horoscopes, some through having babies and raising them, some through careers, the pursuit of wealth, and some through story. Maybe all through story.  We write our stories, edit them, revise drafts according to the people we befriend, and write some more.  Just because there's no pen or paper, no physical evidence, doesn't mean we don't all do it.  We do.

So. I wanted the story of your play to connect all the characters more strongly.  I wanted an answer to the riddle.  I commend you all for NOT providing me with the things I so blithely wished for.  It would have been too easy, phoney, and too pat.

Congratulations on an incredible piece of theatre.

With much love and admiration,

Alison