February 26, 1992
Only 36 hours had passed between the first touch of pen to paper to the moment where I entered on stage at Theatre Rapport to deliver a self-made twelve minute monologue. Tuesday morning, I sat outside the laundromat and wrote a stream of consciousness for a tough Brooklyn dude who's pretty knowledgeable, but not quite as much as he thinks, and even the facts he does have don't always hold the truth-value they should.
So, this man spews forth bits of information and misinformation as he creates his view of whatever topic seems to jump into his head at the moment. He covers food additives, recycling, conservation, law enforcement, and even the miracle of childbirth. And the trick is to separate the meaningful from the meaningless. This man does know something, and just because he can't put 2 and 2 together doesn't mean the audience can't figure out it's 4. And perhaps some of his questions are unanswerable and make up some sort of modern mysteries.
So, I had created this sprawling 12-minute monologue which was still undergoing revisions up to a couple of hours before "showtime," and I was pleased with the relative ease with which I memorized it, but I never reached a level of ease with it. It was unsettled and unpredictable in my mind, and that affected the performance. A couple of rehearsals in the space might have helped my frame of mind a lot, but that just wasn't possible.
The performance went very well, every one seemed to be heartily enjoying it and made positive comments afterwards. I blanked once for about 10 or 15 seconds, so I filled it with a bite of Twinkie and a gulp of beer, then the leap back into it was very disjointed. Blech. I didn't personally enjoy it as much as I should because I couldn't afford to relish the experience as I performed it because I had to stay so focused on the lines. But, it went very very well. Crane's comment, "Well, I thought it was marvelous. One of the best things I've ever seen done."
Maybe there's hope for me yet.