October 7, 2023

B writes on Facebook:

i’ve been thinking a lot about yesternite’s production of Sublime Theater’s Ben & Angela.

it was superb of course. 

the cast & crew involved are all immensely skilled, so i knew it would be top tier theater.

but i didn’t know how invasive it would be.

that it would crawl into my psyche as it has.

the story has no plot. it is driven solely by characters.

and since David Hopes created those characters, they are highly watchable.

witty, heartbreaking, thought-provoking, and silly.

and real…. so very real.

it was Angela that really got into my brain.

i understood her. at times i have been her.

and while i have never had a Ben in my life, i have started every relationship trying to figure out “why me?”

why would this person spend so much time and energy trying to make me smile?

to make me happy?

why would they be so kind and sweet and generous to me?

what did i do that would make them think i deserve any of this?

of course, the story of my life is much darker than Angela’s.

she’s the one you want to watch, not me.

because there are no Bens in my world.

once the “not-Bens” finally convince me that i am worthy…. they turn on me.

i become disposable to them.

always made to feel like i have done something wrong.

pointedly and repeatedly treated like my presence is unwanted….

and then lied to and gaslit so i think it’s all in my head.

and all i can think is “why me?”

what did i do that would make them think i deserve any of this?

while i know i will never be treated with kindness as more than just a trap to break me….

i do want to see that happiness for other people like me.

Ben & Angela definitely made my son and i laugh and cry a lot during the show last night.

today it’s been making me cry…. but that’s just me.

my son is still laughing, and we are both still in awe of everything we experienced.

i hope you have the chance to experience it too.

❤ 

Downtown again last night for Ben & Angela, the performance at least as suave as opening night’s. Again parked at distance and wandered about, autumn rain sharpening the experience. Italian white at the Times Bar, which has operated for six years without my noticing. M and M, R and E at the theater last night. Before the lights went down, M and I moaned about the decline of UNCA, and the apparent demise of the English department as a viable instrument of instruction. Little selfish Trumps replicating themselves and toddling out to poison the world. Stopped to listen to karaoke on the way back to the car. The bartender was rude to me, later came back to apologize that he had broken glasses in the dishwasher (or something like that) and had been distracted. I should not have let solitude–even isolation–take control of my evenings. I’ll blame the pandemic, though I’ve always leaned a little toward the hermit’s cave. 

Theater not full last night, not even nearly. Sleepless with the realization that I have dedicated my life to pursuits– the kind of poetry I write, the kind of plays I write, the kind of stories I want to tell, the kind of paintings I paint– almost calculated not to have an audience. Walk out on the street where hundreds jostle looking for a good time. Bad karaoke in one bar with surly waiters attracts more than have yet seen Ben and Angela. It has to be all right, as nothing can be done. 

Dreamed that the sun poisoned skin on my left temple had turned to cancer. Don’t actually know that it hasn’t.

Hamas attacks Israel from the Gaza Strip. I thought I had something to say about this, but one shrugs and keeps silent in the face of the purely ruinous.