BODIES PUSHED TO THE EXTREME
Stories from the Long Wharf Community
Long Wharf Theatre audience members who have participated in our talkbacks this season were invited to recount "the most extreme experience your body has been through; from athleticism, to beauty, to a moment of corporeal glory, to sickness to . . ."
The following collection provides a snapshot of some of these stories. We will continue to collect stories throughout the run of Let Me Down Easy. Please check back in and send us your own story at: beatrice.basso@longwharf.org
Moments of spinning spinning spinning, before we suddenly stop, jump, begin to sing - ah, the ecstatic golden colour of the dancing life. This folds into the aerial experience of the flipped car, over, over, me walking to the phone to call the police and the ambulance, being strapped down in great pain: my back was broken.
And how was I to get the costumes into the company for the performance? And how to heal . . . breaks into the broken bottle against my throat, the ripping of coat, I had only $12 and a roasted chicken from the corner deli to give, the rough handling, the forced opening, left dripping, no phone then, I was too poor for that - how can I walk down this street again?
I swim upwards into the warm breathing bliss of the little girl body against my belly, the beautiful brightness of eyes and hungering lips, the hot hot top of head, sweating on my chest, the sleeping as one. And now the loosening of skin on bone, the loss and the wildness of it all. Two feet, one at a time. Couldn't be better.
- Marya Ursin, Audience Member
I was kidnapped and attacked by an Italian cab driver in Brindisi. He explained that he liked me. I was lucky to get away.
- Long Wharf Theatre Guild Member
"In 1985, at the age of 39 I decided to run the NYC Marathon as a 40th birthday present to myself. After training a year with friends, I was on the Verrazano Bridge. At mile sixteen, I was beginning to sag.
Then I saw and heard the crowds lining 1st Ave. A shudder went through my body, followed by a surge of adrenaline. That carried me through to the finish on a runners high I have yet to have again. After crossing the finish, I staggered.
Two volunteers assisted me to a few benches. I was so depleted that even one more step would have been too much. Within a few minutes I had recovered. The sense of joy and pride and fulfillment is with me even today! My time of 3:50:30 causes me to tingle even as I write this."
- Richard Fidler, Audience Member
The experience that immediately leaps to mind is childbirth, which I feel is the most earth-shattering, mind-blowing experience a woman's body can go through. Although the last time I experienced it was over 28 years ago, the memory remains vivid.
The escalating pain was so intense that I felt a wild panic. I wanted desperately for it to just STOP. I wanted to get off . . . to take a time out - but there was no way to slow down that train. I felt like it would never end.
The miraculous thing was that the second the child was born, and put into my arms, the pain was gone. All I could feel was immense gratitude and joy, and a feeling of deep connection with all that is.
- Ellen Greist, Audience Member
The beauty and miracle of pregnancy.
The first time your body goes from "never in shape" to morphing; endless days and weeks of aches, so severe that my husband said "I know you will have had a great workout when they haul you away in a stretcher" . . . imagining being "The Hulk."
The all-encompassing survival and recovery of the breast cancer journey. The various surgeries, the aggressive chemotherapy . . . the hair loss . . . the cracking of all of your sensitive orifices . . . the loss of ALL body hair . . . physically rehabbing . . . emotionally dealing and rebuilding.
The intense stress you put your body through every time there is a "critical mass" at work; from the loss of the thought process paralyzed with fear, to the visceral shooting of fear throughout the body and the feeling of "dropping through your bottom."
- Audience Member
