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Photo by Gail Harvey, no reproduction without permission
Old Friends, New Venues When the happy news broke that the successful Fringe Festival play, “My Mother’s Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding” was going to be re-mounted as a Mirvish Production, there was a lot of happy screaming. Much of it came from a woman in Orillia, who happens to be my mom, a long-time fan of the leading lady in this play, Lisa Horner. The chance to see Lisa on stage again after a number of years [Lisa never stopped working, to be clear: my mom simply didn’t have the chance to hit Shaw or Stratford productions she starred in] was very exciting for ma mere. And since it was her birthday, the only logical gift was tickets to the show.
I had already had the supreme pleasure of seeing MMLJWW at Bread & Circus in Kensington Market in the summer. There was a line down the block: hopefuls who hadn’t pre-ordered their tickets. Many would have to try again, and again, because the show was dynamite and word on the street was intensifying. Because I lived outside of the city and was determined not to miss the play, I strolled in with my pre-paid. This after a beautiful reunion dinner with the star of the show herself.
Reunions aren’t always a good idea when it comes to friends from high school. If you’ve lost touch, it might be for a reason, right? And then sometimes life just has a way of bringing people back onto each other’s flight paths right when they need to be back in touch. Sitting there in a restaurant, catching up on too many years of life over one meal, it was as if a hundred years had passed or just ten minutes. Still the same girls in so many ways, never mind the calendar. Yet changes have taken place that call upon that original enthusiasm for one another with the deeper richness of all the ups and downs each of you have weathered since you last shared a meal. It’s there in the eyes: I have been away at sea and am here to tell the tale, girlfriend! Something I wish it was possible to share with young women as they enter into the stage of life where passionate friendship often has too much toxic drama attached: if you are a good friend, and if the other person matters to your heart, you will treasure each other so deeply later you won’t even be able to believe it. That language is unlike any other in the world: it has nothing to do with husbands or wives [or it does] but is like seeing someone you remember consoling in a cafeteria when all of life seemed impossible when ha, looking back now, that was a minor challenge compared to the losses to come, the furies to absorb, the career highs and lows, the losses again.
I think it’s safe to say my mom enjoyed the play. We talked of little else all through dinner, into the sleepy hours, then again this morning at breakfast. The show is fantastically entertaining, funny and packed with gorgeous chances to hear Lisa Horner sing, and can she sing. And act. And say lines that pretty much have you smothering your face in tissue for their easy yet devastating delivery: the truth as spoken by a heart and soul on a stage. Talk about gifted. But it was also, for me, a very emotional experience to watch this play with my mom. She told me the whole time she was watching the show she kept thinking of Lisa and I way back when in high school, our loud girlish arrogance filling the basement [my studio, as I liked to think if it, at 17], the sound of it and the drama of it. And when my mom threw her arms around Lisa after the show it was the hug of all hugs and it spoke volumes. It was a hug that embraced a whole lot of time, an understanding of mother love, and nostalgia, too, and sheer pride because Lisa had kicked some serious ass in those two hours. For me the oomph was multi-layered too: I have the kind of mother who will go and see a play called My Mother’s Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding with me and not only that, tells people that’s what her week-end plans are. And then she laughs her head off through same play because it is damned funny. [The woman next to me seemed to have come to the wrong play, and I felt sorry for her missing the deep joy of cackling.] It was also thrilling to see someone on stage who is so very very good at what she does, and hear everyone around me howling and clapping. The whole cast is grand, let me be clear, but you know, the other level of the deep joy for me was watching her shine and being grateful to the tips of my toes that we’ve re-connected right when we have. You can never know enough hysterically funny, kind and schmart people who really get what it means to be alive. Nobody's perfect, but some people are perfectly awesome. I'm rather blessed in this department.
Listening to: A Million Miles Away, Jann Arden
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