Cowan Palace: Hi, I Have Anxiety

This week Ashley attempts to wrestle the bear that is anxiety.

Remember that alphabet letter word name association game? The one your summer camp counselors/RAs made you play? You know, you have to say your name and something you’d bring to a picnic starting with the letter of your name? Like I’d say, “Hi, my name is Ashley and I’m bringing “apples” to the picnic!” Well, secretly I’d think, “Hi, my name is Ashley and I’m bringing anxiety to the picnic and I’m worried we won’t have enough food or blankets and that people will hate it… but I’m also glad you guys are bringing some snacks.”

See, I’ve been battling anxiety in its many shapes and sizes my whole life. Since before I even knew what the word meant. And at times it has been difficult to manage. The familiar, heavy pit in my stomach, the racing heart, and the restless nights have become a daily reality. I’ve learned to hide it most of the time and often my only tell is the unfortunate red hives that make themselves at home on my chest when I’m feeling that good ole anxious feeling. I’ve stayed away from medicating myself because my tolerance for things seems to ride both extremes (you should see what one Tylenol PM can do to me and what heavy prescription muscle relaxers can not do to me!) so I’ve had to try and come up with creative solutions to keep those anxiety waves at bay.

Acting proved to be a most effective tool. Getting the chance to escape and focus on the one thing that I was most passionate about helped my balance. When I hated my job or something in my personal life and it was causing me a lot of useless stress, I depended on whatever show I was involved in at the time to be the light at the end of my dark tunnel. Unfortunately, due to other life stuff, I haven’t really been able to use that technique in almost two years. And, there were certainly times it may have helped! But it also made me develop other coping skills and strategies. So, in case you find yourself struggling with some unease, perhaps this can help:

Walk Like Your Anxiety Depends On It

Along with often being anxious, I can also be secretly super competitive. And getting one of those bracelets to track my steps has been awesome. The walking helps me to relax and think things through. I also tend to be more willing to create possible solutions when I’m moving rather than letting myself collapse in bed weeping in despair (though, sometimes that happens and it’s okay). Plus, I love trying to constantly beat yesterday’s personal goal and having a tiny, wearable device assist in that challenge can be pretty fun.

Sing Like Your Anxiety Depends On It

I sing every day. It simply makes me happier. When I feel super overwhelmed and can make myself sing along to something, I instantly feel better. Plus, I don’t need a stage or an audience but can still manage to feel as theatrical as I need to feel.

Go Back In Time

Okay, this is a weird one. But try to stay with me. Whenever I can remember to do it, I think of a time in the past where I was really struggling with something and letting my anxiety get the best of me. I then try and send past Ashley some words of encouragement. Now, when I’m feeling emotional, I imagine what future Ashley is saying to me and try to step back. It’s always amusing that something that feels like the world one day can often result in a forgettable issue with a little time. Getting some perspective helps.

Watch Netflix Like Your Anxiety Depends On It

That’s pretty self explanatory. It may seem like a bad escape but sometimes you gotta allow yourself to zone out and just binge watch the crap out of some show. The trick is to not feel guilty about it. Then go do something completely different. Like a walk or something.

Make A Schedule And Actually Stick To It

Structuring my day helps me to feel like I have control over it. The more I can pack into my planner, the better. It’s often my idle, free time that allows my mind to wander to anxious places. Even if it’s simply writing a few things to do with a basic timeline, it can improve my week.

Tell One Person. Or Just Everyone

This isn’t an invitation to write some vague, passive aggressive Facebook post but if you feel better after sharing your feelings, I support it. Sometimes formulating your concerns and voicing it to the right audience can help you move forward. Maybe try honestly opening up to one person before seeking social media guidance or write a Theater Pub blog about it.

Collapse Onto A Messy Bed Like Your Anxiety Depends On It

Some days, I just have to own my feelings in a big way. And sometimes my coping mechanisms just aren’t enough. So if that means weeping for an hour to get them out, I go for it. Truly, I think identifying what you’re feeling is half the battle, taking responsibility for it is the other.

And so I leave you with those seven thoughts. That, and a request to be kind and patient with each other. Like, bring that to the name game picnic and then go have an actual picnic. Until next time!

It’s A Suggestion, Not A Review: Sitting in Limbo

Dave Sikula, hanging in space.

An acquaintance of mine (I can’t call her a friend, even if we are Facebook friends) has a CD by this title, featuring the tune of the same name by Jimmy Cliff. The title and the song refer (as might seem pretty obvious) to the gap between the known, the expected, and what’s to come.

Waiting.

I feel particularly “in limbo” right now for a couple of reasons. The more immediate one is the one referred to in our last meeting: David Letterman’s retirement, which not only has now actually occurred, but (as I write this) is airing on the east coast. All day long, I’ve been in communication with my friends who were at the theatre during the taping. (They weren’t in the theatre, but actually stuck in Rupert Jee’s Hello Deli around the corner while security kept them from leaving while the show was being taped. Alec Baldwin’s and Jerry Seinfeld’s trailers were just outside the deli and many, many limos were parked on 53 rd St. while they waited.) From all reports, it’s quite a show, running 20 minutes longer than usual, and is likely to make me as much of an emotional mess as I expected (all day long, I’ve felt as though someone I know died), but I’m in limbo to see the actual results until the show airs here.

More specifically to this page’s usual mission, though, is my other feeling of limbo – and that one is actually a double one. As I’ve mentioned, I’m in the Custom Made Theatre Company production of the musical Grey Gardens. From what I can tell, it’s going to be a superb show. (I almost used the word “amazing,” but that’s a word that’s so overused that it’s really become meaningless.) I pretty much exempt myself from this assessment, in that it refers mainly to the women who play the various incarnations of the Beale women in the story. They are truly phenomenal performances, and not only am I astonished by what these women do every night, I’m honored to be part of a company with them. (And let me hasten to add that the men and girls in the company aren’t too shabby, either.)

Trust me; it’s brilliant.

All that said, because of the vagaries of the space we’re working in, we’re off tonight (Wednesday), two nights before our first preview. Taking a break at a time like this (tech week) is always odd, in that we’ve added tech and costumes, and are gaining momentum when we suddenly have to hit the pause button and put ourselves in the limbo of taking a hiatus from the work we’ve been doing. I’m delighted for a night off and the chance to rest both mentally and vocally, but feel suspended between the past of the what we’ve done and the future of playing to actual audiences.

Which brings me to my last state of limbo: the gap between the impressions of the past and the present of the rehearsal process and the anticipation of and curiosity about not just the way audiences will receive the show, but the ways in which that reception will make the show grow.

I don’t think there’s ever been a show that I’ve done where there wasn’t at least one sure fire laugh or bit that failed to work and died a horrible death or something that, completely unexpectedly, played like a house on fire. (By the way, if you’re ever doing a show with me and think I’m doing something well, please don’t tell me that until the show’s over; otherwise, I’ll become totally self-conscious about it and it’ll never work that way again.)

The last couple of days of rehearsal for me are always bittersweet. There’s a sense of not being able to wait for an audience to see it – and to play off of – and at the same time, there’s a sense of loss; that it’s not “ours” or “mine” anymore; that something that’s been private until opening night is suddenly in the public domain and open to discussion, critique, and criticism (because I know, as good as this show is, there are going to be people who just plain won’t like it, or – worse – be meh about it).

But it’s all limbo; that state of knowing that not only have we done all we can, but we still have more to do, even if we don’t know what that is.

In For a Penny: The Right to be Wrong

Charles Lewis III, weighing the balance.

“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
– William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act V, sc. 1, 30-31

You’ll have to excuse me, dear reader, but a series of first-world problems have me tempted to tear my hair out:

* My crappy smartphone of about two years now has a regular battery life of about 15 minutes because I haven’t bothered to go on Amazon for replacement battery.

* My inability to acquire gainful employment has left me lacking in both money and healthcare, so after the coming national deadline on Feb. 15, I’ll have to use a noticeable chunk of the former to cover my lack of the latter.

* Apparently I’ve done something – I have no idea what – to piss off enough friends that a noticeable number of them have dropped me on social media.

* My favorite person in the entire world is someone I haven’t seen in person in over two weeks (and I’m not 100% sure when I’ll see her again).

* I was offered a chance to direct something cool, but I haven’t officially committed yet. In fact, I look at my schedule and wonder if I’ll have time to do it at all.

* I tend to spend hours at a time standing in place, but having nothing to eat and then wondering why I’m so goddamn cranky.

* I had my first two auditions of 2015 and I’m thoroughly convinced that I was shit both times.

* I planned to be much farther ahead in my writing and have barely done a fraction of the pages I’d assigned myself. I’m still pretty much ahead with the stuff I write for my part-time job, but not as far ahead as I usually am.

* I had a really cool idea for this week’s column, but felt like such a goddamn loser that I decided to put it off for a later time. Whether it will still be as timely two weeks from now remains to be seen.

* I’ve been trying for two weeks to have dinner with good friends, but it keeps getting pushed back and I’m worried that I may have caused some undo tension between them and another friend.

* I have officially entered my mid-30s with more gray hair appearing every day, but I have nothing to show for living so long, in regards to the bar I set for myself when I was nine-years-old.

Like I said: first-world shit. I don’t know anyone who’s been kidnapped by Boko Haram, nor to my knowledge do have any close relatives or friends who have gotten sick out of contact with idiot anti-vaxxers. No, my concern is that I’m currently slapping myself on the forehead because I’m sure that each and every thing I’m doing is wrong.

That’s the kind of person I am: I blame myself for everything wrong in the world because it’s the only person I can blame without any backlash. It’s my fault the West Coast is suffering a drought whilst the East Coast is buried in snow and wind. You didn’t know that, did you? Don’t ask me how it happened, because if I knew how I’d go full-blown Ororo Munroe on a few choice people. I take in all the blame for everything then unleash it through my art. Since I haven’t had a regular artistic outlet of late – combined with a slight envy of watching everyone else fulfill theirs – I’m just carrying it around like a camel’s hump; enough stress to sustain me for days and weeks on end.

As Marissa noted last week, the theme of this month’s ‘Pub writings is passion and desire. As I’ve idiotically stressed myself out the past few days, it becomes apparent to me that it must be some kind of reaction to the fact that I currently can’t engage in the things for which I have the most passion. The logical part of my brain tells me that this too shall pass, but my Id misses the stage like the deserts miss the rain. Yes, I just wrote that. I wrote it and you read it. We both have to live with that.

So as I wait for that metaphorical rain (and the literal ones California so desperately needs), I comfort myself with the fact that there are enough things in my life going right that, were I not so myopically focused on the bad stuff, I’d be over the moon: a film I was in is got great feedback at Sundance and a distribution deal with a major studio; this past Tuesday I recorded pick-ups for a voiceover job that I’m hoping will lead to many more; although I’m not acting, I’m taking an active behind-the-scenes role for several different theatre companies; I did get that directing offer unsolicited; I do have my favorite person in the world; I have my health; I have my every-graying hair; I have my life; I have a series of opportunities that lie ahead of me. I have. That’s what I always remember: I have. It’s like that scene from The Sopranos where Tony is venting about the world to his one-legged Russian mistress. He complains about his families, both literal and crime-related, and worries he might be depressed. Said mistress – who, again, has only one leg and escaped a particularly dangerous part of Russia – rolls her eyes, lights a cigarette and tells him to stop whining.

I have no such Siberian in my life to tell me to “buck up”. I will say is that a cheery and unexpected e-mail from Ashley Cowan does wonders to lift one’s spirits.

Hi-Ho, the Glamorous Life: Chestnut Tea with the Other Me

Marissa Skudlarek rebuts Peter Hsieh in a move we shall call, from this moment on, “The Double Skudlarek.”

The Palm Court of the Palace Hotel, downtown San Francisco. Marissa and Other Marissa sit at a table drinking tea. They are wearing beautiful floral-print sundresses and really fantastic hats.

MARISSA: So, Other Marissa. Thanks for joining me.

OTHER MARISSA: My pleasure!

MARISSA: It’s nice to be able to argue with myself out in the open.

OTHER MARISSA: Indeed, because as Tom Stoppard once said—

MARISSA & OTHER MARISSA (simultaneously): “I write plays because dialogue is the most respectable way of contradicting myself.”

MARISSA: Of course we would both know that quote.

OTHER MARISSA: Of course. After all, I’m you.

MARISSA: But, like, the other me.

OTHER MARISSA: Yeah. So, whatcha drinkin’?

MARISSA: Earl Grey – my usual. And yourself?

OTHER MARISSA: Chestnut tea!

MARISSA: Chestnut tea?

OTHER MARISSA: No really you have to try it, it’s amazing.

Marissa takes a sip of Other Marissa’s tea.

MARISSA: It’s good!

OTHER MARISSA: I know, right?

MARISSA: So this means that this is a scene with “two women having tea and talking.”

OTHER MARISSA: OH NO SOMEONE ALERT PETER HSIEH.

MARISSA: But that’s why I invited you here today, Other Marissa. If Peter can have drinks with his doppelganger, why can’t I?

OTHER MARISSA: Why not, indeed?

MARISSA: I read Peter’s article on Monday and I thought he made some good points, but they got buried under a lot of, um, how to put this—

OTHER MARISSA: Macho posturing?

MARISSA: You don’t mince words, Other Marissa; I like that about you.

OTHER MARISSA: I do my best.

MARISSA: But, anyway, I liked what Peter had to say about producibility and how much we should – or shouldn’t – take it into account when writing.

OTHER MARISSA: Yeah, I feel like if you and I sat down with Peter and Other Peter, we’d all pretty much agree about that. It’s deadly to theater, as an art form, if every newbie playwright feels like the only thing she can write is short plays with small cast sizes and simple sets. Where’s the fun in that?

MARISSA: Although I’d probably interject that some constraints and limits can actually spur creativity. A blank page can be daunting, and you don’t always have to color outside the lines to make great art.

OTHER MARISSA: Also, Marissa, I’ve noticed that you strive for balance in your craftsmanship – a play of yours might contain one “unproducible” element, but not four or five.

MARISSA: You know me so well. Yes, I did that on purpose in my play Pleiades. I realized that it required a large cast, nine actors – and I wasn’t going to compromise on that. But I could make sure that the technical aspects of it were as simple as possible. There are only two sets, the costumes and lights don’t need to be complicated, there aren’t any crazy special effects… and I still told the story I wanted to tell.

OTHER MARISSA: That’s the play you’re producing this summer, right?

MARISSA: You are such a shill. But yes, I’m producing it this summer. It doesn’t have two women drinking tea, it has eight women drinking tea! And it’s fucking awesome.

OTHER MARISSA: And then a tennis ball bounces onstage and smashes into the tea service.

MARISSA: Yeah – I still don’t know how we’re going to stage that, night after night.

OTHER MARISSA: But didn’t you say that you “kept the technical aspects as simple as possible”…?

MARISSA: Anyway, the reason I keep harping on the “women drinking tea” phrase from Peter’s article is that, when I read it, it felt like a subtly gendered insult. Why women drinking tea? Why couldn’t he have said “people drinking tea”?

OTHER MARISSA: Or “bros drinking brews”! Those kinds of plays can be just as boring.

MARISSA: Right! But they never come in for the same criticism. Guys with beers are “cool”; women with tea are “boring.”

OTHER MARISSA: And that wasn’t the only weird gender issue at play in Peter’s article. For instance, he tried to start a dick-measuring contest with himself—

MARISSA: Which is not something I would ever do with you, Other Marissa—

OTHER MARISSA: —and not just because we don’t have dicks—

MARISSA: Or, how he has the “hot twins” walk into the cafe at the end of the scene – that is such a male fantasy…

OTHER MARISSA: Oh come on, everyone likes hot twins!

MARISSA: Do they?

OTHER MARISSA: Admit it, you wouldn’t mind if the Winklevoss twins walked in here right now.

MARISSA: Yes I would. The Winklevosses are doofuses.

OTHER MARISSA: Don’t you mean “the Winklevii are doofii”?

MARISSA: And then I worry that complaining about Peter’s article makes me seem like a humorless feminist scold.

OTHER MARISSA: I think that we are being rather humorous scolds.

MARISSA: I worry sometimes that I’m uptight and no fun. I worry that Other Peter’s drink of choice, the “Pink Panty Dropper,” is a date-rape reference, and then I worry that I’m being silly and overanalyzing things. I worry that my drinking Earl Grey tea is racist, colonialist, patriarchal, classist, and Anglophilic; and that I ought to be drinking fair-trade shade-grown coffee. I worry that the setting I’ve chosen for this imaginary conversation, the Palace Hotel, marks me as an inveterate elitist. I worry that at this very moment, buildings are burning and people are dying in the streets of Kiev and Caracas, while you and I drink tea and chat about art. I worry—

OTHER MARISSA: Marissa. Marissa. Calm down.

MARISSA: I’m sorry.

OTHER MARISSA: It’s OK.

MARISSA: I can get into these moods of spiraling anxiety—

OTHER MARISSA: I know. I know.

Pause. Marissa takes some deep breaths. Sips her tea.

MARISSA: If I prefer to write from a female perspective, or discuss women’s lives, or whatever—

OTHER MARISSA: —and maybe you do, and that’s fine—

MARISSA: –then why am I annoyed when Peter prefers to write from a masculine perspective? I mean, he’s entitled to write what he wants to write. He said it himself, and I agree.

OTHER MARISSA: Because there has never been an era in Western history that privileged female perspectives over male ones? Because you’re worried that other people, dudes particularly, will find Peter’s style more attractive than yours? Because you know how important it is, in this culture, to be perceived as cool, and you feel like you’ve never been cool?

MARISSA: Yeah, I feel like, if you’re a dude who says that plays about female things turn you off, people say “Oh, that’s fine, that’s understandable,” but if you’re a woman who admits that plays about dudely things turn you off, people are like “You should try to be more open-minded, flamethrowers are awesome!”

OTHER MARISSA: Aren’t they kind of awesome?

MARISSA: See? Proves my point.

OTHER MARISSA: Marissa, I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told anyone. I’m going to tell you the real reason I drink chestnut tea.

MARISSA: OK. Why are you drinking chestnut tea?

OTHER MARISSA: Because great writing requires you to write both from your chest and from your nuts. OK, so the stereotype is that female writers are tender-hearted, compassionate, their pillowy breasts overflowing with the milk of human kindness. And male writers are bold, ballsy, Bukowskian bad boys. But truly great writing will combine those two modes. It will be compassionate but not cloying; courageous but not callous. It will speak truth to power, but it will do so from a place of empathy.

MARISSA: That was… really beautiful, Other Marissa. But I think you forgot something. A good writer doesn’t just need a big chest and big nuts. She also needs a gimlet eye.

OTHER MARISSA: I think I know what that means.

MARISSA: You’re damn right you do.

Marissa and Other Marissa get up and walk from the Palm Court to the Pied Piper Bar. Marissa catches the bartender’s eye.

MARISSA: A gin gimlet, please.

OTHER MARISSA: Make that two.

End of play.

Marissa Skudlarek is a San Francisco-based playwright and arts writer. There aren’t actually two of her, but if there were, she could get a lot more stuff done. For more, visit marissabidilla.blogspot.com or Twitter @MarissaSkud.

Claire Rice’s Enemy’s List: Why Are You Hitting Yourself?

Is Claire Rice her own worst enemy?

When I started this column it was with the directive that it could not be a place where I berated myself for not being “the wisest of us all.” Now, I am very good at berating myself. I’ve done it for years. One of my favorite things to say is “Alright, I’m the asshole here.” This is both a line from a movie I watched over and over and over again in high school and a funny way for me to take the blame foreverything that’s gone wrong. Everything.

KWOCK! is the sound my self-deprecation makes

Recently my therapist told me that was unhealthy. And by therapist I mean the internet. And by internet I mean Buzzfeed. And by Buzzfeed I mean I zoned out in front of cat gifs and now I feel like Buzzfeed is the new opiate of the masses and controlled by the devil. So, can anything really be my fault entirely?

Nope.

I feel like maybe in the future I’ll be able to not call myself an asshole every time something in my vicinity goes awry. Still, there are a few things about this past year that are irking me. Things I’ve said or done that I’m not proud or I’m still kicking myself for.

So I’ve gone back in time to January 1, 2013 and I’m having a good talk with myself over a healthy salad at a reasonably priced restaurant about what to do when those things happen.

When You Find Yourself Working With Someone Who Doesn’t Like You
He doesn’t like the show. He doesn’t like you. He has other priorities. He just wants this to be over. You can’t avoid it or change it and you shouldn’t try. You can’t go back and make a better first impression, you can’t impress him with your prowess in theatre because he already thinks you are full of shit, and you can’t pretend to be his friend. It just isn’t going to happen. It’s fine. Stop worrying. You won’t always get to work with people who hang on every word you say. Sometimes people will disagree with you for more than just aesthetic reasons. Sometimes it will be personal. Stand your ground, but don’t kick the beehive. Don’t apologize if you don’t mean it, it will only feed his theory that you are a fake person. Don’t hate yourself because you can’t make him like you even though you don’t like him. On opening night he will sit in the back row and talk through the show, he’ll laugh at your work, he’ll make fun of the actors, and he’ll annoy the audience. You’ll feel stupid for trying to get him on your team and you’ll feel vindicated because you never liked him in the first place. Here’s the thing: there’s nothing that says if someone doesn’t like you it means they are bad or you are bad or anyone is bad. The work comes first. If you aren’t both on the side of the work, then there is trouble. Recognize when that happens and be strong. It’s great when we all get along and are friends, but don’t work harder on making that happen than putting up a good show.

When the Playwright Doesn’t Like Your Concept
Communication. Communication. Communication. Communicate often, clearly and early. You can’t compromise or even create better art if you don’t understand each other. Honest and open communication might prevent a late night talk where you end up changing something you aren’t really prepared to change. I mean, maybe you should change it, but you need to do so with a clear head. Your visions of the play might also be utterly different. You are so enamored with her and her work you would do just about anything to make her happy. When you find yourself at a late night meeting with her over whiskey you will be willing to do just about anything for her because you haven’t eaten anything all day, you just got through three days of stressful tech while working a full time job, you’ve been worrying about ticket sales, and you are worrying about how long it’s been since you spent meaningful time with your husband; so you have no real brain. If you had communicated better earlier the conversation would have been different, but it would always have been stressful. Go home. Sleep. Sleep well. Take the next day off from the day job to have lunch with her. Use this as an opportunity for meaningful creation through collaboration. She’ll feel better. You’ll feel better. They play will be better. Everything will be better.

When You Say Something Stupid On The Internet in a Networking Group
By the end of the year you’ll be the only one who cares any more. Everyone you talk to about will just nod politely and wait until the topic changes. Seriously, you’ll really be the only one who cares. Get over it as fast as you can.

When You Refuse to Answer Your Emails Because You Are Overwhelmed With Anxiety
I’m not going to lecture you about how you shouldn’t procrastinate. I’m not going to coddle you and lie and tell you that procrastination is a sign of an artist. I’m not going to tell you to get over it. You just need to figure out how to work better, smarter, and with less anxiety. My instinct is to remind you that when you don’t get back to people in a timely fashion they think you are an unreliable jerk, but I’ve come to understand that berating you only leads to more anxiety, more stress, and more procrastination. Let me just say this: there are bigger, better and more fun problems that are worth stressing about. Hit reply. Say thank you. Put it on your calendar. Move on.

When It Feels Like You Aren’t Making Enough Time to Write
It’s because you aren’t. Sit down and write. The more you beat yourself up about it, the worse it’s going to be. And every time you get jealous of other writers who are always writing and you say “Ugh, I hate you” you are really saying “Ugh, I hate myself.” Stop it. Sit down and write. Or don’t. Whatever. Just stop hating yourself for it. It isn’t productive, it isn’t fun, and it doesn’t make the writing any better. And when you don’t like what you wrote, just write more. You aren’t going to be a better writer by watching shitty reality TV and hating yourself because you should be writing but feel like everyone else in the world is so much better than you are. Pick up your laptop, take out that composition notebook, scribble on a napkin; whatever. Just write.

When You Throw-Up in a Cab
Don’t. You are thirty two, happily married, have a good job, you are proud of your directing work, and often you are very proud of your writing. Hooray! That will all suddenly, and ridiculously, feel utterly unimportant when you can’t keep your food down. You will feel cold and sober and shocked at your own stupidity. Congratulations. You aren’t perfect and it was trying to be perfect that made it worse than it should have been. Sit down on the sidewalk in the rain like a good girl. Throw it all up right in the street then walk to the muni station. You’ll still be embarrassed, but it’ll be cheaper. Oh, and maybe eat before you drink. And maybe don’t drink as much. That night.