Yellow Boat recap

[scarfman]

I've been meaning to write up my reaction to performing in the play The Yellow Boat, based on a true story about a boy who died of AIDS in the 80s after a transfusion, at church two weekends ago, and then the director emailed us and asked us the same thing. I wrote it yesterday at work when it was slow and I'd finished my book.

The production of The Yellow Boat was a great experience for me because it had been about twenty years since I'd performed in a play. I greatly enjoy acting, to the point of having majored in it my first year of college in hopes of a screen career. Both my wife and I plan to participate in any similar project that may occur in the future.

It was also a boon to me to have a chance to get out and see people regularly during the rehearsal period. I have few social contacts in town outside my parents. I spend most of my free time with the tv and the internet and, while I don't see anything wrong with that (much of that time is creative work like cartoons and fiction writing), I still like to see people face-to-face more often than's usual.

Finally, the play itself rang a chord with me. During the audition and rehearsal period, my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, had a lumpectomy, and went through most of her prescribed course of chemotherapy (with radiation therapy to follow). My wife's prognosis is much better than Benjamin's in the play, but there were nevertheless some spooky resonances in the play for me that lent my part as Benjamin's dad some verisimilitude that I don't believe the other castmembers had access to.