About a month ago, I had my first rehearsal with Andrea (director for "Someone Between"). You'll be hearing her name a lot as we dive back into rehearsals starting Wednesday. Anyhow, after our rehearsal together, I stayed behind to sit with what was happening in the moment for me and perhaps go further with the exploration. Something extraordinary happened for me after that.
To give you a bit of context about what it is that I'm rehearsing, the play is a biographical one-woman show. Actually, it's more of a semi-autobiographical piece that I wrote years ago. Only people who really know me can pinpoint which details of the story are created and what's true. But it is based and rooted in truth, at least my truth growing up bicultural, like most of Canada. I'm a first generation Canadian. Came here when I was six so I don't remember much. It tells the story of my challenges growing in this new home that I was trying to fit into while dealing with my traditional upbringing. It's been mounted numerous times in Montreal and now I'm ready to bring it to Toronto with fresh direction.
Going back to that first rehearsal I mentioned, Andrea took me through an exercise where I walked us through my life since birth. I know, sounds insane! I suddenly got really self-conscious about the stories I was sharing, how I was sharing it, how long I was taking to share it. She would pause at certain points in my sharing and we would play out that moment, switching between characters. Totally improvised, of course, until she felt it was time to move on. Needless to say, we didn't get halfway through my life before the end of our rehearsal. We just completed my parents journey through the Thai jungle, barely making it to the refugee camp.
So as our rehearsal came to an end, I was left with these images living in and through my body. I couldn't quite shake it off yet so I decided to stay and see where I could take things on my own. I started the way I always start, just moving in which ever way my body wanted to. And as I did that, I came to this posture of strength. I felt as if I was my mother. She stood there terrified, looking ahead at the risky unknown, a vast jungle inhabited by tigers and poisonous snakes, and soldiers holding war guns hiding in the bushes. And yet in this state of complete fear, she knew what she had to do. She looks over at her husband (my Father). He looks back at her. Standing there, side by side, hand in hand, they look ahead at what could be the story of a lifetime, or the beginning of the end of both their lives and the life of their three-year old daughter (me). There was no turning back now. They had committed to it and they were ready for anything.
This image, the thoughts that I imagined must have gone through both their minds, dropped in for me and I let in a huge gasp of air and started to cry. I cried out of pity for these two courageous people. I cried for our survival and arrival to Canada. And most importantly, I cried for the immense love and trust they had for each other to embark on this crazy journey together. I had never had so much love and respect for them until then.
I've performed this show on numerous stages and that image has never come to me. I believe I just wasn't open to it. I CANNOT wait to discover what other gems I'll discover in the process.
This is only the beginning. And I hope you stick with me till the end.
