My friend is my age, she works harder than anyone I know, harder than I could at a company that nearly killed me (a job she helped me to get 5 years ago), she is a corporate project manager, professional singer, story-teller; an amazing mom, friend, mentor and tour guide – and she is still bringing it – everyday.
I was in Chicago in early October – with an opportunity to see her show (in previews) at a wonderful little theatre in the Loop near Daley Plaza. The play is about the lives of three women, of no particular substance and certainly not without same, taking on the challenges of their cultural norms, friendship and past and current practices in marriage.
The production is good; the script is better; my friend’s performance is B.E.S.T.!
She simply asked me to come to a preview, share my thoughts in the “talk back” then she’d buy dinner. She didn’t happen to mention that it was, by all definitions, a star-turn for her. She left out that she is carrying the load of teacher, lover, mother, friend and matriarch – leader, professional and human being on and off stage. What an amazing opportunity to see her work blossom right in front of me; to watch her leave her doubts, past burdens and training (by sadists) in her dust as she rises from the footlights in all her ethnic glory. (It’s a story of Muslim women. I didn’t even know she had middle eastern roots – or what that implied – until we were out of college.)
We were trained as professional actors – and we left school with skills – serious skills in some areas – and scars – serious scars in some ways. We left, in cap and gown, broken by the institution and the life therein, in a way that we had not understood was possible when we walked in as sweet little high school ‘stars’ only 4 years before the graduation of a class of about 15 people. We went to school when the institution’s reputation, as represented by the graduates of normal-sized classes whittled away for the first two years of four, was far more important than the money that 4-year students could pay. (Now they’ll tell you that ‘everyone has the right to go through the entire program’ READ: We seriously need their money, I mean have you seen our new performing arts center?!). [But I digress…sorry]
Over the last 30 years, we have both felt that every role, performance and review felt like vindication…felt like the great “fuck you” that we didn’t have the words for way back when. But this tour de force is a proclamation of freedom from her past. She stands on the stage and calls on Thespis to witness this actress; this woman who has fought through the demons of the shadows, emotional, physical and life’s challenges – and never looked away. She is hope of healing, self discovery and personal Truth. She is my hero…she is a goddess, a fierce warrior – and my friend.
