I learned two things today that I connect here: I won Best Supporting Actress, and Alan Arkin died.
I auditioned for Alan Arkin in the 1980s and learned a lifelong lesson on playing comedy.
Alan Arkin’s lesson was applied to portraying Alexa Wright, gun lobbyist, who never went anywhere without a gun to bolster her need to feel in control and powerful after a series of horrible personal events. Larry Daggett wrote Alexa as both the antagonist and the comic relief.
I’m sure we all have made sacrifices in our lives. In fact with every choice, there’s likely some sort of sacrifice.
But I am not a fan of martyrdom.
I made a choice to move from NYC to a house when my first child grew out of her closet. I thought I could continue my thriving acting career, and I did. Even though while I was pregnant my agent left and started her own agency, I continued to work on SNL and work at regional theatres, continued to audition even if it meant I’d have to bring my daughter with me. To be honest, I love auditions, so bringing her to an audition was not a sacrifice, but a little adventure instead.
When my I found out I was pregnant again, I was on a National Tour of “Applause” headed for Broadway. The show never came in - too dated, whatever - and I celebrated 6 years of continued theatre, film and TV work as I took a “maternity leave” from auditions.
But with 2 children, getting to an audition became VERY challenging. Plus, the younger child needed extra attention. The older was approaching puberty. I stayed home and refocused my stifled, pent up energy on a fuzzy yellow ball and started playing tennis competitively in clubs.
What I found was all the women I played with - and against - were highly competitive, smart, accomplished people who had chosen to put their careers on the back burner to raise their kids.
After one disappointing match loss, a seasoned tennis player said to me, “There are three reasons these women play tennis:
they love competitive sports.
they want challenging fun exercise.
they need a consuming distraction from the life they gave up to continue to feel alive.
This last group is perhaps the most volatile, intense and sometimes hurtful.”
Nancy Burke, the author of ONLY THE WOMEN ARE BURNING, knows all three of these types and portrays them beautifully in this compelling book. There are few men I’ve encountered who can empathize with these women’s plight, their frame of mind. Her main character, Cassandra Taylor, confronts these men and women with a simultaneously scientific analytical point of view as well as a brilliant loving mother’s caring point of view.
I so admire the way Cassandra compartmentalizes information yet keeps on course as she calmly manages her older daughter’s growing teenage independence, admires and respects her younger twins’ passions and joys, maintains dignity while living in the same town has her 2 distant disconnected sisters, takes a real look at how she feels about a husband who travels 75% of the time, AND deciphers the possible causes of the women’s flaming deaths.
Narrating this book, which is set in the same town I raised my kids in surrounded by very similar anxious competitive women, was as much cathartic as it was consuming and entertaining.
Today the audiobook was released to the public. I am truly fascinated to see if other women feel the resonance the way I did. I imagine this a brilliant book for a book group.
Please, if you listen to or read this book, write a review on Audible or Amazon or wherever you purchased your copy.
Brad Inglesby’s Mare of Easttown is not just another murder mystery. Sure, it has all the markers, like every character being a suspect with a motive at some point before the mystery is solved with a last minute twist. But Mare herself that is what makes this show outstanding.
Mare, the award-winning actress Kate Winslet, is a woman whose mother Helen, humorously and ruggedly played by Jean Smart, insisted she never wallow in self pity, even when justified. A perfect example of this is when Mare tried to get comfortable on the couch with her newly set broken arm, and Helen hits that broken arm barking, “Oh, toughen up.” (I was relieved to learn how Helen became so tough in the last episode.)
In fact, the entire series kicks off with Mare, as a local police detective, being insulted by her old teammate, Dawn Bailey played by Enid Graham, for “doing nothing” to find her missing, drug-addicted daughter Katie Bailey. In a press conference with screaming protestors present, Mare outlines the facts of a new murder of a teenage girl and hands questions over to her police chief, only to be faced with a barrage of accusations flung back at her. We see her looking down for a few moments before stepping back inside the precinct building to take her next action.
This is what Mare does throughout the series. She is confronted with nonstop accusations, negative feedback and painful comments. With each one, we see it hurt, and we see her absorb it and we think, “How can someone survive so much negativity with any confidence or self-esteem?” Even Mare’s very best friend Lori Ross, sensitively played by Julianne Nicholson, turns on her with a friendship-ending rejection. Yet, the next time she sees her Mare gingerly asks Lori how she’s feeling with nothing but compassion and empathy, no ulterior or selfish motive appears in her at all.
I learned, slowly, that her resilience is exemplified by her relationship with Lori who, when Mare, Lori and Dawn Bailey are in line for the 25th anniversary of the high school girls’ basketball team’s winning state championship salute, Mare finally argues back at Dawn rebuking her accusations that the police are doing nothing to find her missing daughter. Lori referees this untimely dispute by repeating, “Mare, it’s not about you. It’s not about you! We’re in line and being announced, it’s not about you!” In this rare moment of Mare’s self-indulgence, Lori became the voice of Mare’s better self.
The one exception to everyone treating Mare as the guilty responsible party is the one-hit-wonder author Richard Ryan, played by Guy Pearce. New to town, he carries none of the baggage everyone else in town carts around about Mare. In this relationship, we see someone who sees the beauty and goodness in Mare. And we see Mare’s boundaries which seem very clear to her. The one moment she lets them down, goes home with Richard and allows herself pleasure is the only time we see her let down her veil. It’s as though she, in her excellent wisdom, has chosen this man to fully relax with for one evening, and it’s a wise choice. He is truly a good person. Unfortunately any woman who has read his only book sees that goodness, too. Once Mare witnesses their unbridled admiration, her boundary is reset and her next course of action is put in place.
So often, when Mare is put down by everyone in her life except Richard, we see her reflect, then act. But what is in that reflection that keeps her going? How does she recover from the nonstop verbal and even physical injuries? Deacon Mark, played by James McArdle, says it in the final episode from the pulpit: the only response is love and compassion. When Deacon Mark chooses to stay in Easttown after his weaknesses are revealed, he is choosing to face anything that comes his way instead of fleeing as he did in the past. In this sense, he has learned a great lesson from Mare, from this town.
Mare’s son Kevin, played by Cody Costro, chose to escape the pain of life in the most extreme fashion: suicide. One of the last things he said to Mare before hanging himself was the gut-wrenching, screaming, in-your-face declaration of hatred for her. This is the ultimate challenge. No wonder Mare didn’t grieve for him until a therapist helped her: how do you recover from that pain resiliently and with a healthy result?
I believe Mare seeks what is behind the suffering being expressed with the non-stop slings and arrows. After recognizing that pain, she takes her next step towards resolution. By seeing the others’ pain, she can filter out what she is responsible for. When she is free from the binds of self-blame and better able to envision the possibilities and opportunities toward resolution, she plans her next action, with or without authority. It’s the only way to survive and thrive with a healthy mind in a close-knit small town where everyone is either related or has a lifetime of stories about each other. She must do what she can to find the truth, no matter how painful it might be.
I aspire to have Mare’s strength and resiliency. To respond to others’ attacks by seeing their pain instead of mine. To be patient and more concerned with how they are doing than how I am doing. To see how they got to this pain, and to seek how I can resolve it with wisdom and compassion.
Singers need to breathe deeply. Doesn’t everyone? When our breath is challenged, our voice and lives are threatened. We find ways to breathe, another way to thrive, express, sing, be heard and cry for help. I am a singer who needs music, laughter and freedom to breathe. If one of those is threatened, I must fight back or die. Here is how I learned to breathe.
