Friday, August 26, 2011

Just Say Yes.

You climb the spiral staircase as you've been instructed. It ends in a cave-like room: dim, stoney, dripping water through unseen cracks. A woman in a flight attendant uniform appears from - where? - and leads you into the adjoining cave-room. She motions for you to sit.

It begins.

She asks you questions. She speaks like an automaton. She is all business. What is your favorite kind of crisp? What was the name of your second pet, and if you didn't have any pets, or didn't have a second one, what is the name you *would have* given to your second pet? <Go on, tell her. ...she rifles through the pages on her clipboard. "That is correct," she says.>

She places a bright orange backpack on the tiny table before you, and begins to pack it, saying aloud what each item is. A spoon. A pen. An envelope marked "For Emergency Use Only." A rose. A wallet containing a bingo card and a handful of coins.

She hands you the backpack, and motions for you to follow. You stop with her in the doorless doorway between the caves. You face each other. She is 12 inches before you, and begins to wish you goodbye on behalf of your "mother slash father slash sibling slash friend slash loved one." She says she is proud of you for embarking upon this adventure. She offers you her cheek to kiss. You oblige, blushing slightly, and maneuver out of the caves and down the staircase. You do not know what will happen next, but you know you are to walk to the entrance of the complex. You feel happy & confident. You have no idea why.

You pass many people. People chatting, people standing, people working, people waiting. As you draw near the entrance, you pass a woman holding a map open. "Excuse me!" she calls in an accent you cannot place. You stop and face her. "You...can you help me? I sorry, I am looking for my hostel. I know it is near here..." Do you help her?

You have never heard of the hostel - you are a visitor here, after all - but you agree to walk with her. She says she is from Iceland, and is here simply because it is a new place for her. She is always traveling. Her mother does not approve of the big city visits, warning about "the women in the streets with the liquid coming from their mouths!" With her sweet face and charming accent, this statement comes as a bit of a surprise. You awkwardly laugh and say you have not been privy to that yet....

Someone calls your name. And again. "Come on, get in!" he says. A man has pulled a car up near the sidewalk and thrust the passenger door open. He motions briskly for you to get in. There are cars coming up behind him. Do you get in?

With a clumsy, hurried goodbye you apologize to your Icelandic friend and wish her well. She takes a picture of you as you drive off. Strange.

Joe introduces himself and doesn't stop talking until the car has turned into an alleyway and stopped in a sort of courtyard. You were late, apparently. He has been trying to get hold of you. "Here, put this on!" You are now both wearing goofy glasses (yes, the kind with the mustache attached).

"Ohmygod, did you see that??!? Someone just appeared in that window! You saw it, right? Get down! Stay down! So you have the codes, yeah?" <Er...you don't.> "...wait, WHAT?! Kevin didn't give you the codes? Oh, come ON! We need the codes for the safe! I can't have another heist go wrong. Last one...last one really went tits-up, man, and that can't happen again. What am I gonna do?" You mumble apologies and frantically search your bag for something code-worthy. Bingo card? He is not amused. Then he gets a text.

"Whoa, whoa, wait. Why is Kevin telling me that he's with you right now?" ...you have no acceptable answer for this. "Are you not the one who is supposed to do the heist with me?" You stumble through a few words. They are insufficient. "Oh, come ON! What are you? You must be a lunatic! What kind of person gets in the car with someone they don't know? A lunatic, that's who! Shit. Just...get outta the car. Get out. I can't believe this. You're crazy, you know that?"

He peels away and you are left in the courtyard, alone. Well, not completely alone. You have your backpack. And your shame.

And that clown.


**********************************************


And, ohhh, it keeps going! Each person who finds you gives you a tiny, personal experience and then sets you off in the direction of your next encounter. There is the lawyer who is prepping you to be a witness when she gets a picturemail: it is you, in the car with the bank robber from earlier! There is the graveyard gardener who gives you tea and biscuits, and seeds to plant, and his own story; the student questioning her studies in relation to The Whole World; the charity store volunteer who dresses you in mismatched clothing while telling you about her mother's recent death, and how she assisted.... The woman in the church who takes you around to the stained glass windows, speaking quietly about her 2-year old son. He has Downs, and has just taken his first steps.

The clown asks if you're ready. Say yes, and you find yourself running zig-zags through a crowd to keep up with her.

The homeless man asks if you can spare some change. Say yes, and you are following him to a graveyard, singing your favorite karaoke song along the way.

The shady businessman. Your first meeting with that online romance. Everyone tells you a bit about themselves, all the while gathering information about *you* in order to make the piece as personal as possible.

This is "You Once Said Yes," a site-specific play-for-one made by these people. Welcome to my honeymoon.


1 comment:

  1. "You feel happy and confident. You don't know why." Probably the best lesson I took from the piece. The safety of knowing "This is performance" made me open my eyes, ears and heart in ways far beyond what we consider normal. There were certainly moments when I feared that the person I followed wasn't who I thought they were and I might be walking into calamity, but the damage had been done: I was in motion, in the world, saying "Yes." Truly immersive theatre.

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