The Visit

In 1990, I was in The Visit

Which was the opener

For the 28^th season

Something about that show

Just sort of…got under my skin

I remember, uh, that I didn’t have a really big role in it

But I remember feeling like it was

Uh, really getting to me

Some shows just don’t sit well with you, you know?

But this one…

I was never one of those

Spirit-y, ethereal

Vibes and auras kind of actors

I mean, I didn’t really judge others

For being that way

It just wasn’t my thing

Jim, who a lot of people hated

But who I got along with okay

Was the Artistic Director at the time

And when we were doing The Visit

He pulled me aside one day

And asked me if I was all right

Because I looked…

God, I looked awful

I used to go home to my apartment

Which was like, two feet from the theater downtown

And I’d just sit on my couch

And stare at the wall in front of me

Quoting these lines from the show

That weren’t even mine

‘The world made me a whore, now I’m making it a brothel’

I don’t remember when I started having the men over

It might have been while we were still in rehearsal

But I remember applause

When I think back on that time

I remember always being applauded for something

And then bowing

And then the darkness

When the lights would go out

That theater was so scary

In the dark

It was like two different places

I remember lying in my bed

With someone’s head on me

Right on my chest

Every night

A new person

And cash on the table in the kitchen

Cash I didn’t need

Can you believe that?

I tell myself that whatever was going on at that time

Wasn’t the fault of the show

Because that would be crazy

The show isn’t even about whores really

It’s just a line, you know?

One line from a play

That I had a bit part in

But…

I remember being in a living room

When I was a kid

And my mother would be sleeping

It would be a Saturday

And I’d be watching cartoons

And the morning would turn into the afternoon

And sports would come on

And I’d go to get my mother

Because I’d be hungry or bored or whatever

And there’d be a man in my mother’s bed

Always a different man

And sometimes…

Sometimes I’d sneak a five

Off the stack of bills

On the kitchen table

. . . . .

When the show was over

All that ended with it

Which doesn’t sound accurate, right?

Sounds like a quick fix?

Well, there are no quick fixes

But sometimes, people are, if only momentarily

Able to stop themselves from drowning

Being in that play was like drowning

And when it was over

I was back in the boat

Except this time

I could see the holes in the boat

I could see that eventually

One way or another

The boat was going to sink

But that’s true of all of us, right?

That’s why we do theater

It’s our way of shoveling the water

Out of our respective boats

Before we go down

Into the water

Into all that quiet darkness