6. Another Opening, Another Show!
The Year of Paying Attention
“This is the first play I’ve ever been to where I know the playwright,” Sarah whispered to me as we walked behind our friends into the burger joint before the show. Right on cue, in walked the playwright himself, not really our friend but our friend’s friend, the artist-in-residence at an important New York City theater. (We’ll call him Giuseppe, because that’s funny-sounding, and he sort of hurt my feelings.) Giuseppe is a cultural celebrity, so he will decide if we’re his friends. Tonight we’re sort of groupies, without the degrading sex. The playwright sat with us, chatting about rehearsals, casting, and the dog who’s in his play. Someone asked, had any celebrities been to see the show? Odd question. He didn’t know. I myself would have known if Mel Brooks or Scarlett Johansson had been by to see my show.
We met a year ago through Sarah’s adorable artist girlfriend, visiting New York from California. I’d been saying, “We need new friends,” and Giuseppe, not yet an art star, seemed like a prospect. We sent him a friendly text not long after our first meeting, when we heard he was helping his girlfriend paint her new apartment. (This is one of the unintended consequences of being in love with someone who is considerably younger, with young friends who still do wacky young-person activities like helping paint each other’s apartments.)
“We’re bringing pizza over to say hello!” we texted, and we did, and it was fun, and we said, “Good luck with the painting and unpacking!” and we left. And over the next weeks and months, nothing else happened. We probably tried to initiate another thing. But, nothing. And I thought, hey, fine — we don’t have to be friends. The guy’s a busy writer. I have other friends. We’re not losers, so it’s his loss, Sarah and I assured each other. I hadn’t done much brooding over it when Sarah’s adorable artist friend, back in town, told us she’d lined up tickets for his play. Now Giuseppe was eyeing our fries.
He left for the theater before us, and when we arrived, who was in the lobby? Lefty documentarian Michael Moore, his signature baseball cap and all. The adorable artist texted the playwright backstage: Celebrity in the house!
The play ran three hours. Two intermissions. I dozed a bit, but I got the gist of it. I was a little concerned about the dog, since over burgers the playwright had described the potential for disaster if, for instance, someone in the front row produced a polish sausage. The dog hit his marks, took his cues, did a fine job. In the lobby after the show, cast members chatted with Michael Moore. The adorable artist was most excited to meet and pet the actor dog when we got to the street. She took his picture, and we called it a night. Back home, I logged onto the theater website to watch the playwright talk earnestly about his play.
Am I a little jealous, a bit intimidated by the writer of plays, considerably younger than me, accomplished, name in the paper, face on the computer? Sure, I guess, but what bugs me is he took a pass on being friends with the adorable artist’s friends, the pretty and intelligent Sarah and myself. I shut the computer and went to bed. We woke up and Sarah made scones, which impressed me, since I thought you could only buy scones, and I remembered the playwright talking about the actors he wanted to hire but couldn’t afford. More accurately, they couldn’t afford to take what he could pay, because they needed a better payday.
“Some of these actors are in their sixties, and they want to buy a house finally, they want some stability, and they can’t afford to be in my play if somebody else is going to pay them more money to be in something else,” he’d said. I’ve worked with actors in my career, and I like them. Right after I moved from Boston to New York, I dated an actress. It was exciting and scary. She was a lot to handle. It didn’t last very long.
After breakfast Sarah put the remaining scones in Tupperware, and I went online to see whether my cousin Michael had been found. The college professor “friend” on Facebook had updated the latest on his student, who went missing around the same time my cousin did. I read that her body has been found, under the ice in a Vermont quarry near campus, certainly a horrible accident.
***
New Year’s Eve is approaching, and it’s time to sound the All Clear! One beloved cliché in the 12-step world describes addiction as a three-part disease: mental, physical and spiritual. At this time of year, people in meetings are nearly done joking about the three-part disease: “Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s.” So funny, right? All that stress, the pressure to make everyone happy, the opportunities to drink night after night, the family gatherings, the disappointments and memories of previous years’ ruined events — a toast!
I don’t make New Year’s resolutions, and I resolve to continue that tradition. I do fret about the same carousel of worries, nothing special — how’s my health? How are things with my daughters? My sisters? How’s it going with Sarah? I’m usually slowly reading something “spiritual,” a habit to keep me in emotional balance, which gives me another repetitive question: how’s my spiritual development going? Buddhism suggests that, were I to achieve the enlightened state, I would be done with these questions, no longer subject to grasping, aversion and ignorance. Fat chance.
Michael is still missing. His sisters put up a Christmas Day message on Facebook, thanking everyone for their concern and help, and prayers.
Next week: Happy New Year — This is bullshit!
