May 1, 2026
First sight: rabbit scampering across the street to Carolyn’s.
Opening night of Purification quite satisfactory– sufficient audience to keep me from despair in that regard, the actors a light year beyond where they were when last I saw them. Cecil and Jim got into a loop where they repeated lines until easing back on track, but that’s live theater. Anna had made tremendous strides. Axel was a bundle of glinting talent. I couldn’t imagine why I hadn’t seen him before. The play. . . in my years as a playwright on opening night I had the least emotion surrounding this one, not anxious, not cringing at errors, not secretly applauding my own genius, not probing the room for reactions. It was well. Insofar as it wasn’t well, I didn’t care. It is not my best work, but people will think it is. I sat with a man who was my student in a playwriting course in 2003, who remembered fondly writing a play about men talking at a urinal. The walk from my car to and back from the theater was an epic, at first blue and crowded with incident, then moonlit and solitary.
P and I finished our study of the Four Zoas this afternoon. He and L saw my play tonight, and sent this message: “Oh David, we couldn’t get over how fine your play is and just posted in two places on Facebook the link for tickets. The space was almost full. I hope it will continue to be. Thank you for your gift.”
