Photo by Rosalie Baijer

Recommended reading: “Dan Safer on Interpreting Charles Mee” by fellow Culturebot-er Jeremy M. Barker on Dan Safer, the director of Daily Life Everlasting by Charles Mee at LaMama. It’s a great piece. It will also tell you more about the show than this will. This is about feelings.

Sundays are difficult.

I enter the theater to a dirty beat. This tells me the makers of this show are “contemporary.” There is a dance party on stage. I would have liked to join it. There are some women who are good dancers. There is a man gyrating in a sheer skirt, which makes me giggle. There are some people wearing bunny costumes that look just like one I had when I was eight. They are also good dancers. I’m not ashamed to say I’m a little envious of their situation.

The show starts.

“We are trying to figure out how to make a meaningful life for ourselves,” says a young woman on behalf of her company of actors. I mostly look at her abdominal muscles.

I don’t know if I’m prepared for this.

Here is a list of things I do not feel prepared for:
A trip I am taking this weekend.
Pursuing my dreams.

But right now I am in a theater. I am paying attention. I am taking notes, because I am a WRITER. Because this show is General Admission but I am sitting in RESERVED SEATS.

The search for meaning begins. They commune, they separate, they solo, they stick together. They dance with each other, they dance at each other. They kiss, they fight. There is popcorn and beer.

And two or three times, Heather Christian sings to me. Her voice stops time. I want to live in it.

By the last scene, I feel tired. The people on stage have been doing some very strange things. Then they all fell down and they are naked, mostly, and they are resting.

I feel like I’ve been trying really hard to understand, and have come up with nothing.

Here is a list of things I have done to try to find meaning:
Write a new song.
Join a gym.
Write a letter to my brother.
Visit my hometown.
Try positive thinking.
Try some drugs.
Try standup comedy.

Two men are sitting on a couch being quiet and happy. Now they are kissing each other. All of the things we do to try to find meaning can swallow you up and wear you out.

The show ends.

This is what I want: I want to go sit on a couch with the person I like being quiet and happy with, and smile at each other, and kiss each other, and talk about how to make a meaningful life for ourselves. This is what I’m prepared for.