245 AND COUNTING—Combating Addiction with a Little DoReMi

By Jenan Jacobson

Jenan Jacobson

I recognize that I have an addictive personality. There are aspects of my life that I need to keep firmly in check and balanced because I know how far that character trait can take me. This is something I have learned through trial and error, and it has made me wary of the many possibilities that might turn into an addiction. I keep far, far away from any potentially addictive substances, not only because I know the hype behind them, but because I know myself. I practice restraint in everything I do, or at least I try to, and I buff up my willpower so that it can keep me balanced in my life. The thing is, most habits can become addictive, even beyond substances or practices commonly recognized as being problematic. People can become addicted to video games, or exercise, or any other manner of everyday habit.

Nicky from Orange is the New Black

The nature of addiction is that it is something taken to extremes. It is an all or nothing attitude that becomes inherently destructive. I can’t claim to know the science behind all this, but I can speak as someone who has struggled with destructive, addictive behavior. Breaking free of an addiction is trying—and the remarkable difficulty associated with attempting to do this makes for high tension moments. There is a reason television shows and movies often have characters engaging in this struggle: it is relatable to people, even if they don’t suffer in quite the same way, or to the same extent, and it is also intrinsically a point of conflict. Fictional addicts like Nicky from Orange is the New Black and House’s titular character are engaging to watch because you cannot truly understand how much they want whatever it is they want, but they are compelling in their desire for it, even as you recognize how truly destructive it is.

Dr. House

            245 and Counting by Molly Alexa Horan confronts the realities of addiction, and tries to find a solution for the disease. The characters all suffer from their own specific brand of addiction, and each manifests a different level of receptiveness to treatment. Given the musical nature of the show, however, it makes sense that the universal bridge to these troubled minds is through song. You will not meet a person who has not used music at some point in his or her life to work through some sort of emotional turmoil—be it head banging to some loud, metal cacophony, or crying through one pop ballad or another, people gravitate toward the parts of oneself that can be unlocked through melody and rhythm. Told through group meetings and individual breakthroughs, this play deals with the ups and downs of recovery, and advocates for the rising interest in music as medicine. Troubled as they are, the characters in the play are at times unnervingly relatable, and the play draws you in until you are utterly invested in the outcome of their struggles. Whether or not you have any experience with addiction, this is a play that can be understood on a fundamental level. Don’t miss it!

Have you ever had any experiences with addiction? Do you believe in the curative powers of music? Comment below!

245 AND COUNTING, Book, lyrics and music by Molly Alexa Horan

Four 20-something addicts hit rock bottom and land in rehab at the Rhapsody Music Rehabilitation Center. The musical follows their journey through 245 days of recovery, tracing personal discoveries, evolving relationships among the group members and with their psychiatrist, and lessons learned through therapy and music.

Friday, July 22nd at 7pm

Sunday, July 24th at 4pm

Tuesday, July 26th at 7pm

For tickets go to https://www.therianttheatre.com/item.php?id=281

At the Theatre at St. Clement’s, 423 West 46 th Street, NYC

The Riant Theatre’s Strawberry Theatre Festival  

"We’re Worth More than Anyone Bargained for"—JUST SAY IT THREE TIMES to Get out of That Rut

By Jenan Jacobson

Jenan Jacobson

I lay in bed last night having what my sleep-deprived brain would call an identity crisis. This was following a day that put things into dramatic perspective. I had spent much of the afternoon and morning slumping around, doing little and aspiring to nothing. I read a little bit, pet my cats, took an aimless walk in the park, but the day was filled with a sense of listlessness. Rarely have I considered myself indolent, but the ennui that gripped me was overwhelming and inescapable. I could come up with tons of excuses for myself—I work hard most of the time, and gee, school has really taken it out of me, and I really do deserve some down time, etc. I had halfhearted visions of doing something creative, being purposeful and generating something new,

but every time I moved to start writing or painting, I would fall into the old rut of wondering what was the point if I was never going to be great? This tiring day filled with the heft of undeserved nothing was followed by a dinner where we hosted some family friends. There is nothing worse than answering for yourself and trying to sound like you know what you’re doing or where you’re going when you’ve been wallowing in a state of stasis. As a college student, there is never any reprieve from the looming question: what are you going to do after school?

            Lin-Manuel Miranda, creative genius behind Hamilton, is a consistent tweeter. He repeatedly posts messages on the app, and what’s more, they are little bits of literary cheerleading. He assures us that we are great, and then admonishes his followers not to waste their time, and get going, doing whatever it is we need to be doing. While encouraging in some ways, it is also daunting, if only because the chances of reaching his level of creative production are slim to none.

            

            Given this mood I found myself in, it was remarkably refreshing to read Erin Moughon’s Just Say it Three Times. These were characters I recognized: stuck in their lives, unsure of what they need to be doing, and living in a way that does little to maximize any potential they have. Starting out with characters like these, stuck in a situation I imagine many are familiar with, it becomes clear that this is a play that is going to confront these attitudes. And who better to lead it than a poet from the 1800s, Aphra Behn? Summoned through dubious means, she is intent on radically changing how these people think about the ways they are conducting their lives and making use of their inherent potential? We’ve all looked up at figures who seem to have done more than is humanly possible—Shakespeare, da Vinci, Martin Luther King Jr., etc.—and been both inspired, but also cowed by the feeling of inadequacy when confronted with these great thinkers and doers. However, what I think this play does an amazing job showing is that these are the people we need in our lives to encourage us and inspire us. It’s a delicious chance to put aside reservations and ask: Why can’t I be the next Shakespeare? These are the characters we need to motivate us, these are the giants whose shoulders we are standing on—and with them, perhaps we can aim even higher. Just Say it Three Times got me out of my bed to start writing, and not because I had to, but because I suddenly had the urge to create. Do yourself a favor—if your future seems far too hazy and muddled, and you just don’t know what to do with yourself on these summer days, come see this show.

            Have you ever had an “Aha!” moment? Who are your inspirations in life? What are your proudest accomplishments? Comment below!

        

            JUST SAY IT THREE TIMES by Erin Moughon

Joanna and Emilia are spending another night at home drinking and bemoaning the

state of their live – until Joanna summons playwright Aphra Behn to visit them from the

1800s.

Friday, July 15th at 7pm

Monday, July 18th at 9pm

Thursday, July 21st at 7pm

For tickets go to https://www.therianttheatre.com/item.php?id=256

At the Theatre at St. Clement’s, 423 West 46th Street, NYC

The Riant Theatre’s Strawberry One-Act Festival 

BLACKBERRY WINTER: What Do We Want? A Responsible Solution to Society's Ills! When Do We Want It? Now!

By Jenan Jacobson 

Jenan Jacobson

The play Blackberry Winter by Kai Elijah Hamilton  brings together many issues relevant to the state of our society, blending aspects of Black Lives Matter and also the single-minded dedication—bordering on obsessiveness—of a mother whose child has gone missing. A woman who cannot get the support from the people around her, the character of Carolina is “a strong-willed African American mother” who seems to be the only person fighting in her own corner. Her position is a familiar one: a mother who is convinced deep in her bones that her child is still alive, even at the pressures from those around her telling her to give it up. 

This is a remnant of the failures of the authorities to provide the proper support for someone in her situation—what happens when the Criminal Minds experts don’t find the kidnapper, when they leave and return to their normal, day to day lives. Unfortunately, for a mother who is in the throes of devastation, this is not a situation that she can easily extract herself from. And, as far as she can tell, there is nobody reaching out a helping hand.

We have all had these moments. Perhaps not as intensely felt as a mother who is desperate for the return of a lost child, but the experience of letting loose a cry for help that goes unanswered is common enough. Students on college campuses, advocating for reforms in the policies that deal with sexual assault, issues contained in Black Lives Matter that constantly come up against legal roadblocks, or mental illness that is written off as a cry for attention and brushed aside. We are a society that lets people fall through the cracks. We are failing those who need help, and therefore people are led to increasingly independent courses of action. 

Not only does Blackberry Winter make us question the effectiveness of authority in dealing with cases that might prove challenging for them, or require more than their half-hearted provision of resources, but it also questions how victims are treated in these processes. We don’t know precisely what Carolina’s life has been like for the duration of her son’s disappearance, but we know she has not been provided with the resources to cope with it. Regardless of whatever means have been exhausted to try and find her child, her obsession surrounding it shows the poor coping strategies of someone whose psyche has been left to fester. This play reveals the chilling isolation encouraged by our refusal to properly dispense aid to those who need it. In addition to being strongly indicative of a problem in our society, the play is also deeply moving, psychological in the most compelling way, and constructed from strong characters with real voices.

Have you ever gone up against a problem, only to find the people who should be helping you are gone? Are there more ways our society is failing us, and can you think of ways to correct it? Please comment below!

Blackberry Winter will be performed as a part of the Strawberry One-Act Festival on July 16^th (Saturday) at 1pm, July 17^th (Sunday) at 5pm, and July 20^th (Wednesday) at 7pm. The performance will take place at the Theatre at St. Clement’s at 423 West 46^th Street, NYC, between 9^th and 10^th avenue. Tickets can be purchased online at www.therianttheatre.com.

GARBAGE: Joining Hamilton in Building Bridges Over the Lines Drawn by Trump

By Jenan Jacobson

Jenan Jacobson

When I heard that Trump was running for president, I figured it was something like when someone nominates a pig for the local mayoral campaign. A joke. Something not to be believed. I thought everyone would have a good laugh and get it out of their systems so real politics could continue. Shockingly enough, the pig has won a spot in the presidential election. Similarly, when I heard about the plans surrounding Brexit, I assumed it was akin to crocodile tears. It was a child throwing a tantrum, and soon enough it would blow over so long as you did not give in and feed it another cookie. Well look at where we are. Things are looming in a way I could not conjure in my own nightmares, and my family is seriously considering moving to Canada. (The Canadians are good at taking people in, we have learned recently.)

For me, and many others, I would imagine, the most startling thing about those encouraging these courses of action in our politics, is how people are buying into the notion of separateness as ideal. We have all these voices in positions of power, ranting about the differences between people, and the lines that need to be drawn, and so it becomes important when we can find outlets that embrace the crossing of these lines. Because while this is the unfortunate age of Trump, it is also the era of Hamilton. Art is doing what it can to bridge gaps, and generate connections in our modern America. It is important to focus on similarities—similarities that reinforce the commonality of our humanity, and the experiences that punctuate the human condition, regardless of race, class, or religion.

Canadians accepting Syrian refugees

Garbage, a play by John Michael Wagner, tells of meeting between a young college student who has been given community service and a recovering alcoholic whose full-time job is working on a garbage truck. They’ve been assigned to the same truck, and despite a rocky start, they begin to realize some of the similarities apparent in their various issues, as well as the ways they might be able to help one another. These men occupy vastly different social standings, the distinction between full-time job and compulsory, short-term punishment for the college educated never truly forgotten, and this might prove a point of animosity between the two. These tensions arise often enough. Friends have told me the same thing for when they get summer jobs, and the set-up is reminiscent of Annie Baker’s recent play, The Flick, which also deals with these distinctions setting people at odds with one another. However, in

Garbage, these social hurdles are ultimately avoided in favor of jointly tackling universal problems that can be understood no matter what your background is. Trouble in love. Trouble with addiction. Issues in mental health. Together, as they go about their work day, the characters Tyrone and Alex give each other insight into their individual problems. Helped, perhaps, by the different perspectives they can provide. So no, we are not all carbon copies of each other. There are differences between people, but these are differences to be celebrated. Rather than get caught up in their differences, the two characters end up working together, pooling their different experiences and insights to understand themselves more fully. 

How else do we see barriers being set up between people and how else might we try and knock them down? Have you ever been in a situation like this? Comment below!

GARBAGE by John Michael Wagner

Based on a true story, GARBAGE explores issues of class, race, alcohol, drug abuse, and Christianity. When a college kid sentenced to community service reports to a sanitation worker, they discover they each carry a lot of garbage. Together they learn what stinks and what's worth keeping.

Saturday, July 16th at 3pm

Sunday, July 17th at 9pm

Tuesday, July 19^th at 7pm

For tickets go to https://www.therianttheatre.com/item.php?id=287

At the Theatre at St. Clement’s, 423 West 46^th Street, NYC
The Riant Theatre’s Strawberry One-Act Festival

LIKE THROUGH A MIRROR: Being Thrown into the Deep End of Dating

By Jenan Jacobson

Jenan Jacobson

In the span of a single summer, four married couples that were close friends with my family got divorced. Having watched these couples as models for parenthood and married life, I was understandably distressed and confused. I had never seen these people filling roles in my life that did not somehow revolve around their married status—suddenly Thanksgiving dinners were a mess of balancing which half of the couple would show up this year, and we were sending out quite a few more holiday cards. I was still young enough to believe that these people no longer really fit into the order of the world around me. They had broken free of my limited understanding of the world, and for me it seemed like the end of their lives. Reflecting back on these childish thoughts, I now see divorce a little bit more clearly, and I can comprehend futures for these people who have seen fit to part

ways. As a friend to the children of these shattered marriages, the new question that burned on my tongue whenever it came up was how they felt about a new person entering into one of their parent’s lives. Romantically. I, of course, restrained myself, but I always wondered. What was it like to enter back into the dating pool so late in the game? Having spent so much time removed from the writhing and changeable arena of casual romantic interaction, what is it like to return and be suddenly submerged? Have the rules changed? This is the same for widows and widowers. What does it take to become that vulnerable again? Having been parted from the normal and expected, what does it take to foster a reemergence of budding romantic feelings? If the break happens later in life, does age suddenly present an impossible impediment to finding new love?

In the play Like Through a Mirror by Joseph Lizardi, two actors rehearse for a show, donning roles that hit a little too close to home. Playing characters that fall in love despite an age gap, the rehearsals allow these actors to share parts of themselves with each other, moved along by the closeness mirrored in the play. Both characters find themselves in positions that have them reentering the wilds of availability, widowed and divorced, and unsure quite how to approach new relationships. The play balances the performed and the utterly genuine, and also emphasizes the importance of art in resolving issues in one’s own life.

My parents were both divorced before they met each other, and so I am the product of a reintroduction to the dating scene following such a rift in one’s life. Sometimes these trials and errors need to happen, it seems, and when forced to, people will swim rather than sink when thrown back into the deep end of dating. In the play, we watch these characters come to terms with being alone, and then perhaps being something more, and we root for them as they navigate these tricky waters. Come watch them figure out how closely fiction can inform fact!

Have you ever experienced a reintroduction to dating? Have any stories about meeting the right person the second or third time around? Comment below!

Like Through a Mirror will be performed as a part of the Strawberry One-Act Festival on July 15th (Friday) at 9pm, July 19th (Tuesday) at 7pm, and July 21st (Thursday) at 9pm. The performance will take place at the Theatre at St. Clement’s at 423 West 46th Street, NYC, between 9th and 10th avenue. Tickets can be purchased online at www.therianttheatre.com.    

NIGHTS ON THE COUCH: Keep Calm, You're Having a Baby

By Jenan Jacobson

Jenan Jacobson

Deciding to have a baby is life-changing. That right there is a game changer—the entire way you have oriented your life is going to shift, and with the birth of your son or daughter comes a rebirth of your own. I have often wondered at my parents’ decision to wait for so long before they had children, and whenever I asked them about it they always talked about how they wanted to be at the point in their lives where they wouldn’t be regretting any paths they hadn’t taken. Your life is not entirely your own after you have kids, at least as far as I can tell from

my observations of family members and friends. This being said, everything that leads up until that baby-having moment is fodder for the self that makes you a mother or a father. Like a chain reaction, all the facets of your life that come together to create your personhood inform the life that you lead jointly with your child. The type of discipline you were dealt as a child by your own parents might inform how you deal with your child’s tantrums, or the adventures in love you experienced in your youth could generate a certain brand of advice-giving when your kid is pining after his or her first crush. Your life is dramatically altered, to the point where the you of the past that partied into the early hours of the morning might not even recognize the person up at that early hour, changing a diaper. However, the person you become is irrevocably tied to the experiences that you see shaping that original personality.

The play Nights on the Couch by Matt Fotis deals with this transition into parenthood in a way that shows just how connected all the different parts of your life are, and how these pieces build on each other to follow us through the process of growing up. The play focuses on the character of David, 30 years old with a brand new baby in his life. Looking at the new life in front of him, feeling his own life shifting, the flashbacks that take him through the stages in his “previous” existence tell the story of the man who is just now becoming a father. From very young and arguing with a best buddy to older and struggling with the whims of women, we see the pieces that fit together to create a life. While the snapshots stand in their own sphere of a story, the conflicts particular to a specific time in his life, there is an undeniable accumulation of complexity of being. Additionally, the play ushers in a new life by packing in the history of the lives that came before it. It is recognition of life in the grand scheme of things, and our connection to each other across time and space. At its center, the play reveals the tight spider web of connecting lives and peoples, and shows how each intersection is an essential shaper of who you become, and how you go on to impact the people you interact with.

Are you having a baby soon? Will you want kids? If you have children, how do you think the life you’ve led will impact your interactions, and how will your life change after you’ve had one? Comment below!

Nights on the Couch will be performed as a part of the Strawberry One-Act Festival on Thursday, July 14 at 9pm, July 17 (Sunday) at 7pm, and July 21 (Thursday) at 9pm. The performance will take place at the Theatre at St. Clement’s at 423 West 46th Street, NYC, between 9th and 10th avenue. Tickets can be purchased online at www.therianttheatre.com.