A Theatre Buff Says Good-bye For Now

This theatre buff has a host of performances lined up for the summer, but there is a hitch to the review process: I’m in a time crunch and could not be happier.

Some of you will recall that I started to comment on plays in November, 2015. It was an intentional activity meant to reconnect neural circuits eleven months after the first of two concussions, and it was an important therapy. The writing forced me to make sense of notes written in the dark, to remember details, and then to coherently describe a performance. The reviews, and I use that term with reservation now, boosted my confidence: even though I could not create, I was able to describe.

Twenty-five months after Concussion #1 (January 2017) my characters returned: they had been AWOL since December 2014. For the next nine months I created like a possessed woman, and I note as I review blog posts that I did not publish as many reviews during that time. Concussion #2 struck in October 2017. Creativity, once again, went AWOL but the ability to describe remained; I resumed the ‘therapy’ of writing about the plays I had seen.

Theatre was a life buoy during these difficult months and years. Not only could I not create, I could not read, and when I did read I could not remember what I had read. Theatre took me out of the terror I experienced each day. It offered an alternate universe, the one that I have encountered when I become totally absorbed by a book. The morning after a production, when I sat down to my keyboard, the performance from the previous night grounded me. I could see it; I could feel it; I could describe it.

So, what does this preamble have to do with theatre reviews? It’s my way of saying “Thank you and Good-bye!” My muse returned this March; I’m both grateful and thrilled. I began a new manuscript that addresses literacy. It’s fiction. I also revised the second manuscript on aging. This latter one has just come back from my editor and there is more work to do. Time set aside for the keyboard is now strictly reserved for creation and revision.

Since March I have seen a few plays that I would highly recommend: Come From Away, Billy Elliott, Rope, and Waitress. From now on, my recommendations will come via Facebook (Bonnie Lendrum) and Instagram (Bonnieleal). As I promised at the outset of this blog,I will only recommend plays that have absolutely engaged me.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to read reviews over the past four years. It is my hope that you have come to enjoy theatre as much as I do.

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