Smudge

This is a shout-out for the play "Smudge" that PaulA and I saw at the Eugene Theatre with our good friends LinnyJ and Mickster.

Smudge is a dark, dark, dark comedy…almost jet black…and I’m not talking about the lighting…as a matter of fact, the lighting was set perfectly by their son. (Props to Alex J.) It was the subject matter that was dark…about a young couple who delivered their first baby…not the perfect baby…quite imperfect……no limbs …disfigured…a smudge. The play tackles difficult subject matter regarding what constitutes “a life”…and the expectations of becoming a parent.

There were funny lines…but I didn’t laugh. I cried and couldn’t stop crying. (Don’t worry I didn’t make a scene…I sniffled into my forearms. I didn’t want to get thrown out and embarrass my friends.) Being a parent, I felt the horror and desperation that a new parent would feel in this situation. The young man sitting next to us laughed…and laughed a lot. I’m guessing he isn’t a parent…or even expecting. I wanted to turn to him and say, “Excuse me, but I’d like to talk to you when you have a wife someday with a belly the size of Wally the Whale.” But then I didn’t want to get thrown out for harassing innocent theatre goers. Anyway, I loved it. If you’ve ever read my blog profile you know I like to be emotionally spent ….and I was.

I am sure the playwright wanted the audience to feel uncomfortable….about laughing. It just takes someone to go first to get others to join in. There are those people who laugh when others are hurting…I’m guessing that it is nervous laughter. Whenever I trip, stub my toe, or bang my elbow (Okay, I am kinda clutzy)…Bri laughs...every time. I’m sure Bri would have been chuckling alongside Chucklehead next to us.

It must be so cool to be a playwright and have talent like the young woman, Rachel Axler, who wrote this play. (By the way, she is also a writer for the Jon Stewart Daily Show.) After the play, the actors, set, sound and light designers, and playwrights congregate in the pub. I wanted to run over and rub elbows with her ….hoping some of her talent would rub off on me.

I would totally love being a playwright. I can only imagine it… hob nobbing with other playwrights…discussing our latest works…over a bourbon….while smoking a pipe. Discussing my latest work: Act One, Scene One…opens with a washed-up middle-aged blogger wife and handsome insurance husband on the brink of an empty nest…sitting in separate bath tubs …overlooking a field. Wait, that is a Cialis commercial. Yep….I can totally picture my life as a playwright …

I’ve just got to learn to smoke a pipe and stomach the taste of bourbon….then I’m almost there.