20 Years on

 

TWENTY years ago at the Palace Theatre in London, this barely 22-year-old made her professional debut in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘The Woman in White’ as Laura Fairlie.

It would be absolutely impossible to explain how much I did NOT know, and how generously those around me lifted me up and escorted me not only in to the professional theatre industry, but in to adulthood itself. Many of those wonderful folks are still close friends and colleagues to this day. 

I look at this itty bitty girl now, and I think “my goodness…”  ...how very much I was still so broken, lost and unmoored; how much I still had to heal, and learn, and mature. I used to be so critical of how—despite flying so high publicly—how frightened, unwell and deeply naive she was… I judged and critiqued and maligned her at the time. I would be more compassionate now.

For now? 20 years in all I want to do is wrap my arms around her and say “well done, little one. This is just the beginning of a lifetime in ART—not *just* ‘show-business.’ There will be such adventures and glorious friendships. Allow this first triumph to be proof that life ebbs and flows, that after such loss and tragedy you can soar again, and(!) that despite this triumph there will be hard times ahead again, and on and on. Such is life…”

I don’t know if she would’ve believed me. For that night, all she believed was her heart.

Happy 20 years to me, to her, and to that lovely company. 

 

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.

We ride at dawn...

 Sometimes the American Theatre Tribe takes London.

Henry

Are these screenshots from me and Henry Goodman doing an advertisement for the Jewish Film Festival of London? 

Why yes it is.

Did we ride the train back to London Bridge together and say goodbye on the train platform... because that is always how Henry and I say goodbye? 

Also yes. 

Henry, "God alone knows when we shall see each other again," but leaving it "in His hands" is always a sure bet. I love you, thank you for sharing the most heart-opening scene of my career thus far.   It was a joy to affirm with words, after all these years, that it meant as much to you as it did to me.

 

 

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

 

WhatsOnStage Q & A: Pandemic Edition

1) Who are you locked down with?

My extremely fabulous and famous cat— Tatiana Angela Lansbury Romanov, who is a “great teacher” in this time of self-isolation. She leads by example, you see, for Tati has been practicing social-distancing and an excessive amount of permissive self-love, every day of her fabulous life.

Tati is not a “doing” she is a “being.” In times of anxiety I will gaze over at Tati and ask: “Tati, what would YOU do?” And her forthright little face will silently say “Why yes Hooman, you MAY take a fifth nap. Now scratch my cheeks and give me a treat, if you please.”

Like I said: she is my teacher. She’s basically The Buddha. Or Miss Piggy. Or a divine mixture of both.

Oh and right right right: Alec — my lovely partner (also an actor, of the classical variety). He’s here too.

The cast of Indecent, on ZOOM!

2) What are you missing most during lockdown?
I miss the gratification of firm handshakes, warm embraces, pub quizzes, dinner parties, the holy coming-together experienced in a theatre, sitting without anxiety beside a stranger, lipstick that doesn’t get smudged by a protective mask,  a stranger’s smile across the full view of their face, sharing a meal at a bustling restaurant.

I am missing the cast and production of Indecent at the Menier Chocolate Factory. It was special.

Ya know: life itself.


3) What's your default Pick-Me-Up show tune?
Oh, this one is easy: Run Freedom, Run.

Now. It is very important that I tell you how I do NOT regularly have show tunes on my playlists (it kind of feels like “work” now that it is, well, my work.)

The point is this: ONE SONG ALWAYS REMAINS EASILY ACCESSIBLE… and that, my friends, is "Run Freedom, Run..."

In the Original Broadway Cast recording, Hunter Foster sings the main thrust of the song as protagonist Bobby Strong, with epic contributions from the entire cast.

A few years ago I shared a dressing room "area" with Hunter Foster (we bonded doing “Extremely Downtown New York Artsy Theatre”). I felt a bit sheepish because I didn't know how to accurately express to him JUST how often “Run Freedom, Run” had gotten me out of bed in the morning, or how many times it had turned a bad day around. Oh! The status it held on my mid-Naughties iPod! The glory of it!

Has it made an appearance or five throughout the Pandemic? Naturally.

4) Favourite box-set binge?

This is the easiest answer in all the world for you see, I am Dame Angela Lansbury’s biggest fan. She is my only idol. And thus, I own the entire 12 season box set of Murder, She Wrote and it has gotten EXTENSIVE use during this pandemic.

Murder, She Wrote is camp, yes and dated, sure sure. But it is also soothing, calming, non-violent, and excuse me: the entire premise is the very definition of a strong, independent woman, who happens to be in the third act of her life, kicking ass and taking names across the globe, in glamorous 90s attire, while answering to no one but her own values and New England horse sense.

I love this show.

I can name the episodes by actual title and recall their season and episode number. I WILL beat you at a trivia contest about it for my love for “The Lans” and this iconic television program is the Iconic Comfort TV hill I will die on.


5) What's the When-I-Get-Some-Time project that you are hoping to tackle during lockdown?

- I am journaling, embracing Quiet, and writingwritingwriting more for myself (and less for the publishers) than ever.
- I am also taking such luxurious, indulgent periods writing some very exciting things, for publishers.
- And I’ve installed a shelf
- …and maybe I’ll re-paint the foyer.

But listen: productivity does not a “better” Pandemic experience make. Don’t compare and despair your Quarantine with someone else’s projection of their quarantine on social media. The world is aching. It’s okay to just be.

I am allowing myself permission to not “achieve” a thing, to truly face and embrace The Quiet, and I am trying to learn from it.
I cook nourishing things.
I care for Tatiana and my lovely house plants (and taking great joy in caring for living things within the walls of my apartment).
I contact friends
    and teach online.
I sleep.
I think a lot about what this all “means” for humanity and our planet…

All this to say, dear readers: in times like these, your best is more than enough.

6) What are you currently reading?

I am reading voraciously (one of my very favourite activities!)

I’d be remiss to not humbly suggest reading one of my books After Anatevka or White Hot Grief Parade (or, perhaps you’d like me to read them to you, on Audible?)

But I love getting lost in a book, and here are some of my suggestions for Quarantine Books:

- Part 1. Books about Plague! 
- Part 2. Books for The Quiet
- Part 3. Memoirs: make some “new friends!"


7) Have you cleaned out your kitchen cupboards? If so, what's the oldest thing you found?

Oh man: you don’t wanna know. But trust me when I tell you it was akin to unearthing that crayon I ate in kindergarten.


8) If you could take a virtual tour of any building in the world which one would it be?

Well, luckily we all already got a Twitter tour of Patti Lupone’s house.
So. There’s that.

But truthfully: if I could spend my entire life, on or offline, in the Tate Modern, I would.


9) How many loo rolls do you really have in your house?

Before the crisis, I had a pretty nice stash! I think I have 12 left of an 18 pack and let’s be real: if anyone needs more than that in a fortnight, they’d need to call a doctor for the much bigger problem they clearly have…


10) If you decided to learn a new language during lockdown, which one would it be and why?
Hebrew.

I actually spent the last year learning and becoming more familiar with Hebrew because I had an adult Bat Mitzvah in December!

I’ve been getting more and more in touch with the historical, ancestral and spiritual side of my experience of Judaism in the last few years, the Bat Mitzvah experience really marking that “officially,” so why not extend it linguistically as well?

I thought this would be an ideal time to take that learning to the next level and try to improve my modern conversational Hebrew (seeing as Biblical Hebrew is a lot like the difference between modern English and Shakespeare, for example—technically the “same” but syntactically very different). It’s been a joy and a great mental challenge.

It’s going well. Shalom, all!


11) Which board game would you choose to while away an evening?

So my partner Alec is so into board games it is a *thing* in our household.  He watches YouTube channels of these complex games with live-action gameplay. He reports back.

I’ll enter a room and he’ll be on a video call with his best friend in Chicago saying things like
    “Well, as the leader of the Hills and Plains, I declare war on thee!”
Or,
    “If we can take Irkutsk we can take the East!”
Or,
    “Lords, ladies, we must face the ogre and steal back our MEAD!”
And other such profoundly committed, intensely nerdy things about cards or trolls… or espionage.
I dunno.
It’s a lot.
But adorable enough to be in a committed relationship with.

Wine O' Clock!

Before COVID19 my favorite game was if you can believe it, called Pandemic. “Pandemic" is “one of the best cooperative board games out there,” says Alec, emphatically (and also, I guess… the gaming internet?) It’s about coming together to stop a Global Pandemic. Needless to say, we have NOT indulged in it, ya know: recently.

We’ve enjoyed "Ticket to Ride," “Arboretum" and good old fashioned gin rummy. Alec wins almost all the games (to his great delight, for he is a Capricorn, and though a good sport, quite competitive) except gin rummy for which I am undefeated thankyouverymuch.


12) What time is Wine-O'Clock in your house?
 It’s noon *somewhere* you guys.