Performance peace
You know what it’s like to produce your own one-woman show? It’s like throwing yourself a surprise party, which I understand is technically impossible and, even if it wasn’t, would be kind of pathetic. Then again, I guess what I’m saying is that doing a one-woman show is kind of pathetic. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
First, some background: For those of you who’ve been spared the path of my self-promotional juggernauts, over the past three years I’ve been doing a one-woman show, My Mother’s Clothes Are Not My Mother. Last month, on Sept. 14, I gave my twentieth performance overall — my twelfth at St. Lawrence Arts, here in Portland.
Now, if I weren’t in charge of my own “surprise party,” someone else would step in at this point and explain that the show has had such staying power because Peavey has struck a common chord that continues to resonate with audiences, that she has been able to put into words and actions the feelings we all share when confronted with loss and grief and the difficulty of letting go. Her wisdom and humor combine to make that which is inconsolable in our hearts lighter. Stock in Kleenex soars after every performance.
But because I am a one-man band and there is no one to speak for me, I will only say that I’m still a little gobsmacked that the show endures, especially since it was intended to be a one-shot deal, one night only, back in the fall of 2011.
What happened is this: I started working on a memoir in the spring of that year, following the death of my mother in 2009. I had been chronicling her decline for quite some time, and had several piles of pages on the subject. That May, my friend Joyce lent me her mother’s condominium in Bethel, where I spent two weeks working on the book. But as someone who writes almost solely in the first person, and who has a theater and speech background, I found what I was writing were monologues that practically demanded to be read aloud. (Yes, you can get a little wingy staying holed up in an old-lady condo by yourself for an extended amount of time. When you start giving individual doilies names and hearing pages bark at you, it’s time to head to town for a beer at Suds.)
The more I thought about it, the more this seemed like a great way to test the material. At writing workshops, instructors usually give readings in the evening. I have found no better editor than the prospect of standing before a group and presenting. I thought, I have plenty of proven material. All I have to do is whip up a few more pieces and I’ll have an evening’s program. When I got back to Portland, I called my old pal Deirdre Nice at the St. Lawrence and booked a night for September. What could be simpler?
I honestly don’t recall how I managed to pull off this audacious act, except that a sprained ankle in August put me more or less under house arrest for the month with nothing better to do than create a performance piece out of a handful of essays. I directed, choreographed, costumed, and designed my set. I came up with the idea of using old family slides between scenes, as well as music clips. (Thanks to rock ’n’ roll diva Darien Brahms for making them actually happen.) I conceived and created a poster design (the success of which is thanks to the photographic brilliance of Shoshannah White). I hacked out a lighting scheme, which was corrected and made magic by St. Lawrence techmeister Iain Odlin. Somehow, a show was born.
That’s when the real work began, made more complicated by the fact I had no idea what I was doing. Actually, my utter ignorance and naivety was probably my saving grace. If I’d known what I was getting myself into, I would have had the good sense to call Deirdre and say something like, “Hey, D — I hear there’s this kook around town using my name to book shows and restaurant reservations. She didn’t call you, did she?”
But I didn’t. As I saw it, we had the guest of honor, we had a date and venue, and we had a plan. Now we just needed an audience.
Promoting a show is easier if you’re a member of a troupe or have someone shilling for you. Doing your own self-promotion, asking friends, family and strangers to pay money to watch you trot around on stage for 90 minutes talking about yourself, is a little like saying, “I’m having this party for myself, and I certainly don’t expect you to show up, but really, how do you think I’m going to feel standing there, with my hair floofed and my lines learned, staring at all those empty seats? I’m sure you have something better to do. No, of course I don’t expect you to cancel your trip to Italy — though it’s not like the country is going anywhere. But please, don’t put yourself out.”
So you send out “invitations” — press releases announcing the “news,” cheerful e-mail blasts, jaunty Facebook posts (replete with attention-getting vintage photos). You wrangle mentions in the print media (thanks to Bob Keyes, Bill Nemitz and Aimsel Ponti, in particular) and appearances on local TV and radio shows (thank you 207, Daybreak and Maine Calling crews). You poster (or, in my case, someone posters on your behalf — thank you, Julia Kirby, for that and for upgrading my poster design). You ask friends to spread the word, thanking them for all their past support and making them promise to let you know if your requests are starting to get on their nerves. (You say this, but you secretly think you would die if someone actually asked to be removed from your mailing list. And the blasts go out, all the same.)
Then you wait. You wait — and this is where the real agony begins — to see if people will actually show up. But the only way you can find out is to bug people at the venue about ticket sales, or wait until the night of the show, go backstage and listen for the crickets before your entrance.
I have been spoiled. That one-night show sold out and turned into seven. From there, I toured it around the state through 2012, frequently to full houses. The only true dud I had was at a high-school benefit for Project Graduation. The audience was light and, for reasons that didn’t occur to me until I was well into the performance, didn’t appreciate all the alcohol references. When it finally dawned on me why so many of my jokes weren’t getting laughs, I changed “drinks” to “sandwiches” (e.g., “Mom and I would split a sandwich [instead of a Miller High Life] at the kitchen table after a morning’s yard work.” The laughs didn’t increase much, but the audience was very kind. I just wish I had another person on my crew to share the moment when I was handed a fistful of crumpled bills and a basket of pickles and preserves as payment.
Despite all the support I’ve had along the way — and there have been so many who have done so much for me, I can’t begin to name or thank them all — in the end, it’s really been just up to me. And even after many successful shows, there’s no lonelier feeling in the world than waiting to find out if anyone will come to the one that’s about to begin. You dredge up every playground hurt and junior-high rejection. Of course no one is going to come to your show, Loser. Who do you think you are, anyway? Why don’t you just shut your yap and go get a job in a bank, where you belong? Oh, and by the way, nice shirt. Where’d you get it? Mammoth Mart?
You know, sometimes when I’m trapped and pacing in my dressing room, waiting for my call to start, I almost have to laugh out loud. Where did all this come from? How did I end up here? Doing this show and having people share their stories with me afterward has been the best present ever. Sometimes I actually think My Mother’s Clothes was delivered to me, nearly fully formed, by a certain someone watching over me, who knows how hard it is to go it alone.
And when the moment finally arrives, and I step from the wings onto the stage, I can almost feel the hall vibrate with the word, Surprise!
Elizabeth Peavey struts and frets her hour here monthly. Check elizabethpeavey.com for future engagements and appearances.
