Tales of Marriage and Baggage

Last week I was lucky enough to tell a story at The Moth ”Marriage” show in Santa Monica.  I’m not someone who moved to Los Angeles to be an actor, although I love my actor and comedian friends and go to as many of their shows as I can.  I don’t really want to be on stage at all, but I don’t want to be afraid of it either — which is why I recently took a great stage class called The Comedian’s Way, taught by the talented team that produces Los Angeles’ Un-Cabaret.  When friends asked if I was an aspiring stand-up comic or actress/actor (depending on how PC they were; maybe we should just agree to call them actrons), I kept having to say no.

What I finally figured out was that it was like being a runner and deciding to take a yoga or strength class to improve my game.  Provided I finish, I will have to read aloud from the book at bookstores and other events.  I just wanted to try something new, ostensibly to help prevent me from “choking” onstage.  In the writers/spoken word stage shows that I’ve participated in so far, Expressing Motherhood and Spark Off Rose, I had step outside my comfort zone to craft a compelling version of true events that happened in my life.  I also had to work at mastering my nerves and LEARN TO PROJECT!  Or at least not mumble and speed up.  People in the audience have reacted with kindness and interest to the parts of the story that I told onstage, and like a treat thrown at a dog to reward training, the praise encouraged me to continue the work.

As a writer working on a book, I am throwing the long pass.  I’m not really shy, but the way that I “choke” onstage is to wax boring — to suck the drama out of the story and flatten it out into the most linear, “normal-sounding” story I can.  It’s one by-product of many years of working on being the opposite of my parents, both hysteric types in their own way (one schizophrenic, the other just a crier).  And, as I discussed with my ex-actor husband, once one has succeeded in drumming the dramatic impulse out, it’s very hard to summon again when you need it.

I love listening to shows like The Moth, This American Life, KCRW’s Unfictional, and any of the new independent producer projects that air on public radio these days.  I also love going to Los Angeles nonfiction/spoken work shows like Tasty Words, Don’t Tell My Mother, and the many others that have sprung up all over Los Angeles in recent years.  While there are plenty of actors and writers telling interesting stories, there are other types of people too.  I am convinced that the impulse to tell a story in front of a room full of strangers is a force for good.  At worst it’s a modern-day prayer meeting of narcissistic truth addicts and seekers.  At best it’s something like learning cursive or how to build a fire from scratch or mastering foreplay, a long-form art that slows us down and humanizes us as we connect with another human being and occasionally feel less alone as a result.

I chose a story to tell for The Moth about the longest two weeks of my life, in the spring 15 years ago, a few months before I was married, when my father dropped in on my boyfriend and me and brought many trash bags full of his belongings into my apartment.  When I was selected out of the pile of names at the show, I was prepared but still very shaky about telling it to a room of what looked to be 200 strangers.

The story began as a tale of a mentally ill anti-Semitic Chinese man, who happened to be my father, coming to live with my Jewish boyfriend and me.  It ended up focusing on the caution of people my age when settling down to marry, waiting to find out all about the would-be spouse, only to find that there’s more “baggage” to discover.

Once I finished, I was relieved that my scores were respectable and that I’d done it.  (In the week leading up to it, my husband kept referring to it as “The Goblet of Fire” – a nerdy but apt Harry Potter reference.  Another friend and mentor referred to it as “popping the cherry,” another apt comparison.)

What I’ve come to realize is that the athletic cross-training raison d’être for learning to tell a story onstage is pretty right-on.  In honing my story for the possibility of being selected at the Moth, I learned to edit in a new way.  I pared down the plot that needed to be told within the time limits, while still trying to throw in enough detail to establish character and introduce stakes.  I didn’t tell a “perfect” story by any means.  But I did it, and I’m a lot less intimidated than I was before I subjected myself to it.