Drama Is

Catching up on The L-Word, and you know, it’s stupid & contrived.  Good actresses are consigned to quirky and dumb physical comedy, stereotypes are pursued, and there are things that just don’t ring true — no way the actress who plays Max has been on T for over a year, even if they do bring in real trannies for the support group scenes like on All My Children.

But it is compelling, though.  And to me it’s compelling because of a lack of nice, fun, revelatory and energizing drama in my life, that of play that gets the blood boiling & the spirit moving.   I don’t have that kind of heat, that kind of drama, and so I engage it, as silly as it may be.

I suspect it is that drama that lets us test our wings, that burns off the dross, that makes us aware of our power.  My drama, well, it’s mild and on paper and with very, very little feedback.  Someone suggested I write for a femme anthology, and while the constructs are easy, real life femme anecdotes to breathe life into the writing, well, they just aren’t in my history, and not being in my history, it also means that the femme skills are not in my repetoire.  It’s great to be able to mine lots of lessons from small beer, but it doesn’t quite make accessible drama.

Is it squeezing our own drama by the throat so it has no breath that makes us stable, or is it immersing in the drama until we become mature and centered in it?  Years ago, after TBB & I were billed as The Drama Queens I wrote a little prospectus for a group Drama Queens In Recovery, where the first criteria for entrance is if you could let someone else have the punch line.   The notion that you don’t have to fill all the space with your drama, but rather know when to step into the spot and when to leave, well, that’s maturing, don’t you think?

I know that I am drama deficient in my life.  Having never been the ingenue, or even the hot and wacky best friend means that even the role of the mother/crone is a bit lost for me, because those base notes aren’t easy for me to hit, so the chords have challenges.

I suppose that’s one reason I found Lezlie, to help me trust my drama rather than eat it, to let it lift me rather than to have to eat it.  I know my power isn’t in running from drama, it is in embracing it.

But I tell you, that drama isn’t something that’s easy to work through in my real life, at this advanced stage.

I need drama, just smart & funny drama, with a smart & funny audience.  But until then, I just watch videos of L-Word alone, with headphones.