Real Live Mormon Women

3
by Eric Samuelsen
March 29, 2014
Plan B Theatre, Salt Lake City UT

When a character in a play speaks a truth plucked from your own heart that no one understands, you begin to wonder if people will really understand the play.  You wonder if people will get it or if they will walk away feeling like all of their prejudices have been confirmed.  The play is Eric Samuelsen's 3 and I fear the likelihood is high that the outcome will be the latter.

3 is a series of short pieces about Mormon women and in many ways it is uncanny how Eric, who to my knowledge has never been a Mormon woman, captures some of the struggles faced by Mormon women.  One thing he fails to capture, though, are any of the triumphs.  Sure, Kel (in the first piece, Bar and Kel) does end up having a personal relationship with her visiting teaching "project" and comes to recognize what is wrong with Bar's approach to service, but she still plays the part of Bar's faithful #2 to the end.  Bar herself is a woman we are all familiar with, but she becomes a caricature of the pushy Relief Society sister.  We all got to pat ourselves on the back for being so much more enlightened than she was because we never saw her humanity.  We never really understood her.  People are rarely so simple and completely awful in their motivations.

Even so, I looked at her and felt mortified again for every visiting teaching fumble I've ever committed.  I thought, "Is that how people see me?": the less active sister who called the Bishop to complain I was stalking her when I left two messages on her cell phone in a 4 week period, the sister who wanted to get her GED but didn't want to study, any little slice of my life where people who have already made their minds up about the Mormons could point and say, "See!  They're pushy!  They only care about their own agenda.  All they think about is appearances...I was right."  Ok.  So maybe you are right sometimes.  But there are so many more times when you are wrong.

The second piece, Community Standard, was heartbreaking in its veracity.  You could tell that Janeal's monologue struck a cord in the audience when she asked a rhetorical question and a woman in the audience called out the answer ("Did he ever listen?" "NO!").  Struggling with how the power dynamic in pornography played out in her own life, I loved how this was manifest in recurring dreams of being on the Titanic and "girl porn," where the main character doesn't get an unrealistic sexual response but, instead, a sensitive male response that doesn't align with her reality.  For all of its nuances, though (her journey of self-realization was striking), it still felt like a moment where someone could say "See!  I was right about them."  As a playwright I recognize that you can't tell all stories at once.  The fact that not all Mormon marriages have this dynamic does not negate the fact that some marriages do.  But acknowledging in such a powerful way that some Mormon marriages do have this dynamic while sitting in a theater in Salt Lake City (a town that feels like Ground Zero for Entrenched Anti-Mormons) made me, as a faithful LDS woman, feel way too vulnerable.  I acknowledge both sides of the coin on this topic and my harshest critics--I say my critics instead of "critics of the church" because attacking my religion is attacking my core--my harshest critics seem to only acknowledge one side of the coin.  I don't think anyone wants to pull back a bandage to show the wounds of their culture while people are standing around ready to poke it with a sharp stick.  I recognize that I may be being too sensitive here.  I blame it on one too many pokes with a sharp stick.

The third piece, Duet, is the one that resonated the most with me, at first because of my many years as Ward Music Chairperson and then because of the beautifully sympathetic portrayal of Sondra, a woman who finds herself in an impossible situation (one that I've never been in, but that I can deeply sympathize with).  Using singing as a metaphor for emotional intimacy, the piece explores how we support each other and how we let each other down.  Sondra's story unfolds as a series of contrasts: beauty they can't keep their eyes off/ugliness they can't bring themselves to look at, perfection/imperfection, harmony/disharmony, acceptance/rejection.  Sondra appears to reject the choir sisters when, in fact, she is dealing with entirely different issues.  This should soften the rejection of Sondra at the end because we have seen that surface appearances don't even come close to telling the whole story, but it doesn't.  What I most wanted here was for one moment in the play to expose some beauty rather than some more awfulness.  Could the "typical" Relief Society sister not have gone to her friend in the end?  Did she have to walk away?  I know there are people who walk away, but there have been so many times that I have seen sisters not walk away.  Could that sister have a voice in this play too?  Could the other side of the argument have a "See!  I was right!" moment too?

Perhaps I misspoke when I wondered whether or not people would understand this play.  I really wonder if people understand that the spectrum of human experience applies to the Mormon experience too and that looking at one end of the spectrum doesn't invalidate the other end.  Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the play, though.  Perhaps I'm not getting it.  Perhaps my assumption of sympathetic understanding is entirely off base.  Perhaps if I said to my friend Eric that "I would give anything to sing with that man for the rest of my life" he would feel only kind-hearted pity and thank his lucky stars that he isn't as misguided as I am.  I hope not.

Why Does Utah County Need a Creative Writing Open Mic?

The easiest answer to that question is that I'm in Utah County and I need an Open Mic.  I need that feeling of community.  I need that energy.  I need to come out of my dark writing cave and have regular positive feedback.  I need to know and be inspired by the other writers here.  I need to hear opinions I disagree with (and opinions I didn't know I agreed with!).  I need the adrenalin.  I need the applause.  I need a regular night off from being Super Mom.  I need this community and I think there are others who do too.  Raise of hands?

Perhaps you haven't raised your hand yet because you don't know exactly what I'm talking about.  I'm talking about a weekly gathering devoted entirely to sharing creative writing.  This would be equal parts community building and writer building--a safe place for new writers to take tentative steps or not-new writers to try out an unfamiliar genre and a comfortable place for seasoned writers to share new work or practice new pieces (or old pieces).  Any form of creative writing is welcome (time limit: 7 minutes) and all writers are heard and celebrated.  No formal critique is offered (though if you ask me beforehand I could give you some brief feedback afterwards).  No judging occurs.  Pieces can be memorized, read from a notebook, read from an iPhone, read from the back of your hand--anything goes.  This gathering would also be uncensored.  I know that's controversial in this area and I worry that some people translate that to mean "this gathering will be offensive."  That's not necessarily what will happen on any given night (we do ask everyone to play nicely!), but, yes, no matter where you land on the spectrum of beliefs (religious, political, whatever) you may hear something you ardently disagree with and/or find offensive.  It's the nature of the beast.  You have to trust your fellow writers to not take you down those paths lightly and you have to value free speech above maintaining your own comfort level.  I'm a pretty conservative writer.  I don't swear.  I don't write erotica.  I don't go off on political rants.  I have a really funny piece that uses the word "breast" in it, though, and when I went to an open mic that started with an injunction to only read "rated-PG" pieces I had a moment of panic.  Was this piece PG-13?  Was I going to be shunned if I read it in this setting?

I'm a rule follower.  I will never take two donuts if the sign says "Take One."  It really doesn't take much to reign me in.  In fact, I'm such a good rule follower that I don't require explicit rules.  The barest hint of a rule is enough to restrain me.  A satin ribbon is as effective as a chain link fence in my world.  This is why when it comes to my own writing, I am my greatest source of oppressive censorship.  I feel too strongly the aesthetics of everyone around me.  If life is a landscape shaped by judgement calls then my curse is having a map that shows them all.  It's not that I don't understand or value the need to make judgement calls or to draw certain lines.  It's just that I don't feel comfortable drawing the line for other people because I feel like so many people draw the line for me (whether they realize it or not) and I'm trying to figure out the lines for myself.  Even people who value boundaries need a place where the only boundaries are the ones they fashion for themselves.  Poetry is a place where you can speak the unspeakable truths.  Take it from a devoutly rated-PG woman: that isn't always PG.  It is, however, worth it.

If you are interested in making this idea a reality in Utah County, please leave a comment or follow this blog for more information on upcoming open mic events.  Information will also be posted on the Speak For Yourself page on Facebook.  We have a trial run as a weekly event at Guru's Cafe at 45 East Center in Provo for the first three Thursdays in May so I hope that you will all raise your hands by coming.  Bring your work or just support the writers in this area with your presence (and applause!).  May 1, 8, and 15 at 7 pm is when you can raise your hand to support creative writing in Utah County.  See you then!