We may communicate in any form we choose

 

For most of my life, I was roughly the size and shape that I am right now. However, for the past couple of decades I have struggled with weight. I first developed diverticulitus in the early part of this century, and then a couple of years later and repeated bouts of infection forced me into a surgery. While recovering from that, I first topped 200 lbs on the scale.  I wasn't terribly worried at the time because I was sure that I would reset to my usual range and waist size.  But I didn't. I carried about 25 lbs more than what I wanted for many years. Then my mom died, and I had more medical issues. Then my dad died. I stressed and ate and drank everything and I put on a lot of weight. And I did all the diets and weight-loss tricks and my weight would yo-yo for years. Because it wasn't sustainable. Not eating carbs isn't sustainable. Living on lemon juice, water, maple syrup and cayenne pepper isn't sustainable. Fasting isn't sustainable. Diet foods...you get the point. Then 2020 rolled around, and I got COVID...like the full force virus that wanted to kill me and it laid me up for a long time. And then the headaches and joint aches, and inability to walk up a flight of stairs without losing my breath long-haul motherfucking COVID was with me for about a year.  And it sucked.  But I have written about that elsewhere as you know, my four loyal readers. But the effect it took on my body wasn't just internal, but external as I put on all the weight I had lost after my death-bingeing.  

June 1st of this year, a month after my second vaccine (and two weeks after the long-haul affects went away) I joined NOOM.  I'm not a paid spokesman or anything, but it did change my life. Simply debunking the BS I thought I knew about weight loss was one thing, but the common-sense approach to what you put in your body coupled with tools to help me with my stress/anxiety eating really worked for me. Since June 1st, I've lost about 60 lbs.  I feel like I'm back in my body for the first time since the early part of this century.

I wrote all of that for backstory to how that relates to my acting and how that intersects with this play. You see, for the last couple of decades I've had shame when I was heavier, and that shame has been a barrier to my work. The weight wasn't a barrier.  It was my feelings about my body that got in the way. And because I couldn't fully be in my body when it was fuller, my acting was incomplete...compromised. It was a psychological barrier because I didn't like my physical being. It affected everything.  My movement, my sense of self, my confidence. It didn't need to. It was my own hang-up. There are a lot of roles I could have played then, that I have probably eliminated now. But it wasn't how I saw myself. I wish I could have been comfortable in that skin and embraced that shape, but it just wasn't the body I wanted to be in.

And that brings me...finally...to this play. My character finds his own body an "unrecognizable bag of flesh." He isn't at home in his body. He only finds joy in the body he can inhabit online. That is his true self. Playing Doyle has been a really wonderful adventure. It's such a departure from what I usually play, and I didn't even submit for this role. I submitted for the other role, but once I met Wyn, I fully understood why he was playing it. He's fantastic! When I got called in for the role, I reread the play and saw how great the part was, and then I went in and met Craig and you can read my last blog for the rest. 

Being in my body again fully is freeing. Not having any hang-ups or self-hatred based on my idea of self is freeing. And being free of these mind/body barriers has really elevated my acting. I'm so free now. I suddenly know how to move instinctively, and where to put my hands. Not having those terrible thoughts about myself has enabled me to dive more fully into this character.  A character who is definitely making me stretch to embody.  

Who are we? Are we our minds?  My mom was the smartest person in every room she ever entered, and her identity was solely based on her brain. Then she got brain cancer and for the last several years couldn't make new memories or fully live in her brain. Are we our bodies? My dad exercised every day of his life and developed his entire career around healing touch and in the end his body betrayed him to a different cancer. Our we our spirits? Our souls? This is what my character believes and you'll have to come see the play to see if he gets his happier ending than my folks did.  

This got heavier than I thought it was going to. But that's where my mind is. My mind is on the deep questions, and I always look to my mom and dad for the answers to those. And this play will make you ask some deep questions too. It's a play very much about who the fuck are we?