Number 1 Theatrical Production of 2021

 Thank you, The Guardian. 

We did it.

 And just like that, the Troupe disperses. What a life we lead. The sacrifices made to serve as we do. For all of the emotional, spiritual and physical labor, we do it because we love it. We love to tell stories and hopefully affect change and offer insight. 

For this, we often aren't paid much, we are often far from family and friends, we miss important life events and don't often enjoy fame or the perks of glittering stardom. Theatre-people are chasing something else, and despite all of these sacrifices (and more) we still come back again and again, 8 times a week, to tell stories because we don't merely believe that art can change the world, we know it. We have evidence. We've seen it. We've felt it. We have been changed by the transformative power of art ourselves.

And our play was about the power of a play. 

So we returned. From all of our quarantines and corners of the planet, we returned. To tell our story.

We did it. The company of Indecent at the Menier Chocolate Factory went "down in the airplane" together on March 14, 2020, and 18 months later we got back in the air in 2021 and made it to the finish line. As a family. Words will never be able to capture what we shared. 

 I cannot believe that the world has gotten itself to this place— however fractured.  

I cannot believe this company got to the finish line healthy and in joy. 

And, I cannot believe that I am alive and well, having been rebuilt from the guts up— and survived to do this, the most beautiful work of art I have been a part of thus far in my career.

Ale brider.

Heaven is...

Darling Women,  

Pico Iyer said “heaven is where you think of nowhere else…” 

I love this definition so much. It captures something ineffable. 

I mention it because this experience has been so extraordinary, in ways I will be unraveling for a long while. The sacrifices of an actor’s life have always been vast— mind-boggling emotional labor, physical labor, mental sharpness, diplomacy, navigating egos and emotional intimacy with strangers, all while being so physically far away from the place we call home. I have loved Halina and all she portrays more fiercely than I’ve ever loved anything I’ve ever served. From the bottom of my heart I thank you all for it, my friends, my colleagues. 

….all this and yet I still miss Alec, Tati, my friends, even my local green grocer; I feel anxious to be away from my medical team and family. All to say: this can’t permanently BE “heaven,” because by Iyer’s definition, I do think of and long for them despite the innumerable rewards of being here…

But. 

When our beloved Fin says “without further ado, The God of Vengeance, Act Two…” and Anna plucks her fiddle playing Lisa’s peerless, straight-from-God melody… my inner-ocean swells, and nothing and no one exist but my Molly. Heaven is there. 

In that pool of light, in Molly’s eyes and embrace. 

I have tasted it. 

I have traveled there. 

Because of all of you. 

I think this play saved my life, beloved women. It gave me a reason to heal, to return to not merely a job or a place, but to the land of the living in body and in spirit. 

For this, and for so many things, I will never be able to express my gratitude enough. 

With my whole heart, 

Al

 

 

The Puppet Barge

There is nothing to see here, folks. Just the entire company of Indecent trekking to Little Venice on a Wednesday to see our own Josh Middleton's family-run-since-1985 Puppet Barge theatre on the River Thames perform The Flight of Babushka the Baboon.

Autumn in London with art, whimsy and incredible friends. Joy itself.

Zeyn in dinst fun — “to be in service of.”

 On 14 March, 2020, Rebecca Taichman's original production of Paula Vogel's Indecent played its second preview performance at the Menier Chocolate Factory.

Previews came after a period of detailed, emotional, and spiritually grueling work on the part of our extraordinary company and creative team, and as the day wore on, the world around us began its crash into the piercing silence we all came to know far too well.
 

That night, my heart surged with ache for the world, but in particular for our theatre community whose very existence relies upon its live-ness. 

Theatre is a sacred ritual— it has many of the sanctities of traditional ceremonies: the repetition of words, songs and intentions; the bearing of witness, and ultimately, catharsis. Rituals matter to human beings.  The most significant moments of our lives are all marked by them, and because the significance we create is far greater than any one of us, we call upon rituals to construct the towering cathedrals of Value under which we can reside. We pledge. We graduate. We celebrate. We bid farewell. Retire. Age. Move forward. It is impossible to decipher whether we create them, or they create us. At the very kernel of who we are, human beings long to make meaning of our existence. For many, formal Storytelling is as ancient and as sacred as any formal spirituality.

Toward the end of Indecent, ten “players” gather in an attic in the Warsaw ghetto and risk their lives to tell a play to the few souls brave enough to witness it. On March 14, 2020, we, just like the players in the attic, with no clear idea what tomorrow would bring did the only thing we could to survive the terror of the moment: we all agreed to speak the words we had rehearsed, we play our parts. Sometimes ritual becomes a form of survival. So we did our play. What else could we do?

The next day I boarded a ghostly-empty plane home to New York and we all know what came next…

Inside the narrow spaces of our locked down lives we transformed into different beings— all of us. For those of us fortunate enough to emerge from the Coronavirus pandemic healthy, we are the lucky ones. Some did not emerge at all. But none of us are unaltered.

Our company kept in touch over the last 18 months on a WhatsApp thread. We Zoomed. We shared jokes, sorrows, milestones. We aged, we altered. I myself lived through many personal joys and sorrows— I both got married and had three life-saving surgeries in under 6 months that cured me of a disease I’ve lived with for years. When we returned to one another on 9 August, every single item was in its place from the final preview—the same clothes, props, words, shoes, even the wigs in the middle of being re-set. Yet nothing was the same.
Not the world.
Not my physical body.

I don’t know that I had ever been filled with so many emotions at the onset of a first rehearsal.  

There is a phrase in Yiddish: zeyn in dinst fun — “to be in service of.”

All I could do, all I can do, is serve. The play, the character, and to quote Paula Vogel “those who set aside the time to be there in person.” 

As we began rehearsal it became clear that we could not “re-create,” we had to create anew.

And I believe that is precisely what we’ve done. This production is distinct not only because we are the London company, but because we carry with us into our telling of the story all that we have shared— a company bonded together in shared trauma and informed by a cataclysmic world event. We are as equally changed as the world around us.

And yet? The play is the same. Ritual. We speak the words. We wear the clothes. We sing the songs and move in the same lines. Ritual is beautiful because it does not change, YOU do.

One of the great joys of Taichman's production is the half-hour pre-show where the entire company sits in stillness and watches the audience enter the space.
On 3 September, 2021, our company watched with tears in our eyes, as the audience of 175 people slowly filled the seats in an act of post-war solidarity and need. What I have learned from the last 18 months, from the revival of our world, industry and the company of Indecent, is that the human spirit is inextinguishable.

Every performance feels precious now, and every audience member who joins us is brave. By engaging in this sacred ritual we have been deprived of for so long, we honour all artists, theatre makers, theatre lovers, the real-life people our characters represent, and above all: the 7 million global citizens lost to us—the audience that can no longer speak for themselves.

That is zeyn in dinst fun — “to be in service of.”

Things I want to remember about this week 8/9-8/14: a List

Oh London. I have returned. I am new. I am unchanged. The World is altered. The World is the same.

 Standing in on the same patch of the South Bank I stood upon on March 16, 2020 -- the day before the world closed down, and seeing that the river, the bridges, the city, the sky-- are all still here. 

I will never tire of a stroll through Borough Market and the bells of Southwark Cathedral.

Reunion with my dearest London pals the day before rehearsal. So much has changed. So much has not.

Finding this "Banksy" on my walk to work...

Marvelling how every. single. item is literally exactly where we left it 18 months ago... 

Not to recreate. But to create anew...

I took this photo on March 16, 2020, after a desperately sad, confused, and terrified walk to the theatre to retrieve my belongings, and I wept for our show and the world. I didn’t know if I would ever see this marquee—and all it represents—ever again. The next day I boarded a ghostly-empty plane home to New York and we all know what came next…

Tomorrow I return to the Menier Chocolate Factory and to Indecent in London, reuniting with the same, small group of people I was “in the plane crash with.”

I don’t know that I have ever been filled with so many emotions the night before a first (re)rehearsal. Yes, excited, joyous, relieved, moved and SO grateful; but equally anxious, terrified, overwhelmed, underwhelmed, and desperately sad. All of it. These, plus countless questions…

All I can do is serve.

Everything is exactly the same (the same clothes, props, words, shoes, even the wigs are in the middle of being re-set…) Yet NOTHING is the same.
Nothing.
Not the world.
Not my physical body.

I miss my husband and family.
I feel faraway from my medical team.
Yet, when your job has always been more than “just a job,” when it is a calling, one answers the call. And it sometimes comes with great sacrifices.

After everything we have collectively and personally endured, I’m re-evaluating and re-weighing what all of it means to me in so changed a reality.

You too?

I think living inside Uncertainty is more than merely “healthy,” it is an essential part of claiming our human-right to peace. But living inside Uncertainty is a practice, and one I endeavor to, daily.

So here we go.   

“From the ashes we rise…” 

Not to recreate. But to create anew.

 

"From the ashes we rise..."

There are no words to express how profoundly moved I am to return to this incredible play and production, with this company, in my theatrical motherland, in this brilliant theatre.

One of the remarkable things about theatre is its relationship to repetition and “sameness.” We will wear the same clothes, say the same words, make the same movements…it is the same but the world is not. My body is not. 

We shall tell our story through new lenses of humanity and it will resonate in new ways. The rain Rifkele and Manke fall in love in shall celebrate this new beginning, and like falling tears, shall mourn all that we have lost.

Art is the essential work of our souls, and of tomorrow. 

And tomorrow is almost here.

Ale Brider.

"Live performances will resume at London's Menier Chocolate Factory in September with the reopening of the European premiere of Paula Vogel's Indecent. Starring Broadway's Alexandra Silber, the show began performances on March 23, 2020 prior to being shut down due to COVID-19. Helmed once again by the show's Tony-winning director Rebecca Taichman, Indecent will play from September 3 through November 27.

In addition to Silber, the cast of Indecent will include Cory English, Beverley Klein, Finbar Lynch, Molly Osborne, Peter Polycarpou, Joseph Timms, Merlin Shepherd, Anna Lowenstein and Josh Middleton." -- via Broadway.com

 

"From the ashes we rise..."

    On March 13, 2020, during this very painful, confusing, and uncertain era of our human existence, Rebecca Taichman's original production of Paula Vogel's ''Indecent'' played its first of only two previews at the Menier Chocolate Factory in Southeast London.   

    For those of you who may not know, the Menier Chocolate Factory has become a beacon of theatre around the English-speaking world, championing new works, while producing and very often transferring their production to the West End, Broadway and beyond.

    Previews came after a period of extensive, detailed, emotional, and spiritually grueling work on the part of our extraordinary company and creative team (particular shout out to the associates who taught us everything, Ashely Monroe and Sara Gibbons). It also came 30 minutes after the news of the monthlong closing of the Broadway theater community.   

    Within moments, so many of my New York colleagues were out of a job. For quite a while. In London, we knew it was only a matter of hours before the lockdown came for us too. That night my heart surged with ache for our ravaged community that's very existence relies upon its live-ness.  

*

   

One of the great joys of Taichman's production is the half-hour pre-show where the entire company sits in stillness and watches the audience enter the space. 

We watched and bore witness, with tears in our eyes that we could not wipe, as the audience of 175 people slowly filled the seats in an act of wartime solidarity and need.   

The people with us on those two nights fought to be there, wore masks, sprayed down their seats.    

They needed it.   

Escape. 

Storytelling.   

The healing power of theatrical communion that, from the very beginning of its Greek origins was designed for shared catharsis, rivaled only perhaps by formal spirituality found in churches.   

For many, the theater is that very place of worship.  

It certainly was those two precious nights.   

And just like the players in the attic of ''Indecent'', with no clear idea what tomorrow may bring, we all decided to do a little play. For the "few souls" who braved coming. And it was glorious. 

*

At the end of ''Indecent'', there is a scene where two lovers, Rifkele (Molly Osborne) and Manke (me) dance passionately in the rain. It is a scene taken from Sholem Ash's ''God of Vengeance'', the play on which ''Indecent'' is inspired. 

As the sensation of the freeing-cold rain washed over us, I felt a rush of gratitude and joy. We were surrounded by waves of love, support and joy from our friends and colleagues. Moments this sacred are rare in the theater, and it was my honor to serve.  

On a personal level, only 11 weeks ago I had an adult Bat Mitzvah, and emerged in the ritual mikveh. This "rain water" felt as spiritual, as holy, and as cleansing. I felt certain I was the most fortunate woman on earth to tell this story — particular beside the dream that is Molly Osborne.  

Molly and I wept. We honored all of our actor predecessors (many of whom are good friends), and above all, the real-life people we represent that can no longer speak for themselves.  

The Rain Scene: Before...and After

*

    An hour or so after the preview performance came down, a longtime student, protege and now friend of mine, Allison, wrote to me and asked how it had gone. Allison Beauregard is a beautiful young artist: powerful, deep, intelligent, fiercely brave and, incidentally, a Queer woman. Indecent means everything to her, and I was stepping into what is a dream role and experience, and sharing the experience with her has been profound for both of us.

With her permission, I share our exchange:

Allison:
    What was it LIKE?

Alexandra:When you are a very young person
Who dreams of what being in the theatre could possibly feel like
And you dream and hope?
……..It felt like that.

36 hours later? She sent this:

Allison: I’m SO sorry to see your show’s postponement notice, Al.

Alexandra: For a moment — I got it. I had it.

*

    I have always felt as though our theatrical creations do, truly, live. Somewhere. We take a knife to the folds of the Universe and discover that Ophelia lives in this fold, Nora in another. Willy Loman, Iago, Mrs. Lovett, Electra, Julie Jordan, Anna, and the King? They take off from their creators, and go forth, belonging ever-more to the Universe at large.

     And by that logic, so too do Rifkele and Manke. Somewhere in some universe, they are always dancing together, falling in love, in the rain. Forever. 

*

I know so many of us are terrified.

But what I learned from sharing our story that first preview? The theatre and the human spirit are both inextricably linked and inextinguishable— and, to quote Paula Vogel from her very own Indecent:

    “The play belongs to the people who labor in it, and the people who set aside time to be there in person.”


Please dear theatre-makers and lovers—take heart.
From the ashes, we WILL, all, rise.