Hi Stacey

Hi Stacey!

As I mentioned last post, there are a few topics I’ve been meaning to write you about. I’ve decided to spend the next thirty minutes or so tackling one that’s been hanging over me for a while: an improv show I did last summer. I’m not sure why I’ve procrastinated at least six months to write about this show. I’m also not sure why I wanted to tell you about it at all. Since the impulse keeps kicking around, I better just write about it.

So I do this music improv show at UCB theatre. It’s called B___ W____ C____. I’ve been on cast since summer 2016. I love the form. One night this summer we got the audience suggestion “Nepo B___ W____ C____.” Great fun. I played Jeff Bezos’s daughter who was desperate to be in a musical but didn’t want anyone to know she was a nepo baby. Of course, Jeffy B was a character, plotting to take over the world with his new evil AI Amazon watches. (The musical within the musical was also about a difficult father daughter relationship, and horses.)

In the finale of the piece my teammate Zeke (playing Jeff B) came to see me (Jeff B’s estranged daughter) in the musical. I sang about making my dad proud (as a song inside the inside musical). Meanwhile, Zeke chose to beam with pride at me. Meanwhile, other teammates Nick and Knox stormed the stage as deranged killer AIs. Zeke announced he was proud of me…which is all my character wanted. But as a twist! I started singing that it was nice to hear…but I “believed in me first.” Didn’t quite flow musically, but the playwright in me simply could not bear the message of the musical being, “If we make Jeff Bezos happy everything is okay!” Barf. So I started belting about believing in myself and finding my power and now there’s nothing I can’t do etc. I sang the AIs to death. Teammate Ross totally had my back by announcing it’s the only thing AI can’t withstand: improvised musical theatre. The crowd whooped of course. But god help me if I don’t think there’s a kernel of truth to that joke.

Anyway, our time was nearly up. The crowd was pleased. We launched into a final chorus of some kind. As we all huddled together for a closing pose, Zeke spoke some chilling last line into the space. He laughed maniacally and said a version of, “Sponsored by Jeff Bezos…I always win.” The lights went out and we bowed etc. etc.

A week or so later I texted Ross to ask if he ever had post-show regret. He improvises so so often, and he’s so so good, he doesn’t regret much. I told him I thought we should have killed Jeff Bezos when we had the chance. A Chekov’s gun for late-stage capitalism: if you invoke Jeff B in improv, feel free to end him.

I really do have regret about the show. I always want to be better than I am, firstly. That’s just my experience, like, being alive. But more, it was nearly spooky, Stacey. The meta of it all. We were attacked by AI that only the very live theatre we were doing could save us from. What if…well, what if it was some cosmic connection between us? What if you and I talk through stories? Maybe it is you who gave that audience member that suggestion. Maybe it is you who had primed me to hear “nepo baby” and immediately use it as an avenue to rag on billionaires in front of a full house. In front of you, on the livestream.

Everything feels so overwhelming and confusing these days. Like, democracy is truly at risk. Our earth is at risk. My wellbeing, like most Americans’, is at risk. These are very dark, bizarre, times. I do my best, but it’s so hard to know exactly where best to focus. (I know I share this sentiment a lot. It’s because I feel it a lot.)

Since there’s no right answer about where to focus, one could decide to focus wherever they want. I think this philosophy could be valid. However, I do fear if everyone just does what “feels right,” the world becomes (is?) simply a playground for the very wealthy. Rich people always forget discomfort is part of life–is even necessary to life’s survival, you know?

Long story short, I mainly want to focus on bringing matriarchy themes and ideas to the front/top and keeping earth alive. And I want to do both of those things via art (apparently!) and taxing billionaires out of existence. It’s really that simple. I’m not even advocating for violence! I am a pacifist! I just want it to be impossible for a human to become a billionaire. So, anyway, that’s the update on my current focus and I did an improv show kind of about said focus.

By the way, while writing this I have been listening to a random YouTube video on “finding one’s purpose.” I wrote down this quote: “mystery is mastery.” I’m not totally sure what that phrase means, but I do think I relate. Do you relate? Anyway, hoping to hear from you soon.

xoxo

Alice