I've just started rehearsals for an amazing beautiful play, Richard Raskind's
The Bridge Club. I am excited and scared and thrilled, just like I would be for any new project. The challenge is huge and invigorating. The team is wonderful and top notch, the other actors are stellar and it's at Deaf/West Theater, a fantastic venue. It's both an artistic and career jump, something that is a rare gift here in LA. With all of that however, I find that I have an extra flutter in my stomach, an additional layer of fear and trepidation. The subject of this play is suicide and the setting is San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge. This is personal in a way I never imagined my art and life combining. I spent a cold night not that many years ago standing on the top of that very bridge, contemplating the waters below. I eventually made a phone call to my therapist and something in his voice helped me walk away, but it took a long time for the attraction of that long fall to freedom to fade. I spent many years actively suicidal, destroying myself in various attempts to numb the pain, to escape, and in a twisted way, I'm learning to see, survive. Now I have this wonderful opportunity to share what that particular hopelessness feels like, in a way that many other actresses might not have access to. It is an honor for sure, yet there is this little remnant of fear...what if in working on this play, what if accessing those feelings of hopelessness and worthlessness and lovelessness brings them back to the forefront of my psyche? I've done so much work on myself and on my place in this world. This is a test, in a way, to see if it holds. After a few rehearsals, I'm confident that it will.
I've questioned the value of writing about this. I don't want to scare the director or producer! "We didn't hire an actress, we hired a nut case! Crap!!" Not true of, course. I am not my character. We share some characteristics to be sure, but we live in different places, in different times, in fantasy and in reality. Our circumstances differ: her prospects are bleak and her life is empty, with little hope and no resources. I have friends and family. I have numerous people to call on for support, friendship and care. Most importantly, I care about other people on a daily basis. I have started to accept the fact that my existence matters to them. I have students and responsibilities and dreams that I can finally say that I still believe in and continue to strive towards. There is value in talking about that journey, traveling to a place of reaching for more. When you are suicidal, you believe, with your whole being, that there is no one who can understand how much you are twisting inside, how much it hurts to wake up each morning and face the multiple indignities of the day. In opening up dialogue, in talking about options and in making connections, you realize that there is a possible tomorrow that is not the same as the one you are slogging through today. And in accepting a role in a beautiful play, you get to play out the other side of it, and face the consequences of having done so. I love this play and am so grateful that the work I have done, with so many wonderful and stubborn people, has finally led me to a place where I can play with those feelings, rather than be consumed by them.
One of the characters in the play is a bridge patrol officer. Folk singer Meg Hutchinson wrote a beautiful song called "GateKeeper" that honors one such person. It's so touching. This man starts each conversation with a few simple questions. "How are you feeling? What are your plans for tomorrow? Why don't we make some?" Here is a live version of her performing it. I hope you enjoy it. And come see the play. We open April 20 at Deaf/West Theater in North Hollywood and run for 4 weeks.
