(The pictures I have posted are all pretty much by Jori, an awesome awesome person from Providence. Here is her Flickr!)
I wanted to post a couple of bits of writing that people did about Less Miserable:
-and here is the body of a super sweet email to the cast:
So I got to see the show in Providence, even though I'm from Philly, and
before the show those of us in the audience were having all kinds of
reunions--some of my favorite Philly people and others that I've met in
New Orleans or Maine or elsewhere over the years. In the totally packed
warehouse, I had a sense of being amongst extended family even though I
only knew a handful of the hundred or so folks there.
My friend Emily said after the show, "Wow, I was coming prepared to be forgiving. But that was amazing."
Not
only did y'all pull off a difficult piece of theater with masterful
aplomb--y'all were also casting a deeper spell. Being in the audience
was like being part of a ritual--being offered something magical from
our community, for our community. To see what you all pulled off
reminded me of all the things we are able to do collectively that we
often get too pessimistic to try for, or fail to celebrate when we do
them. It filled me with love for all of us in the creative, radical
struggle--and hope for what we can still accomplish and discover
ourselves capable of.
Y'all gave us a huge gift. I've been thinking of moving on from
Philly and worried about losing my amazing community there; seeing Less
Miserable reminded me of how broad our community really is--how many of us
there are. It also did what I think DIY art needs to do: astound,
astonish, and inspire us with what we can pull off in unorthodox
manners, collectively, for the love of it.
I used to do theater a long time ago and I remember the let-down of
after the play, going back to normal life...I can't imagine what it
feels like for each of you individually to have been part of something
so magical and now be back in some other identity, but I want you to
know from someone who saw what you all worked so hard on--and I could
see people working against their strengths, taking huge risks, exerting
tremendous amounts of energy, and making us all love you and cry for
you--that what you offered us was transformative and important. As
important as all the work we put into fighting the system and caring for
our friends. Art like this provides a forum for us to become who we are
collectively through sharing experiences of joy and grief. Where else
would I get to cry publicly with hundreds of people about the injustice
of the world, about our dead friends, about failed love--all the pieces
of our own stories that the play reflects back to us?
Thanks for casting that spell for us. With mad respect,
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