SAID: I will remember, Carolyn Guillet, the day I saw your one-act play and I caught my breath

Cause you made me think about the dancing and the stumbling…about all there is

About the men we mate with, and how, and the father whose memory we chase, and the failures, the sad disappointments in life

To cause me to think–is that really all there is….to life?

Is it really all there is to love?

SUNG

Cause if that’s all there is, if that’s all there is

If that’s all there is my friends, then let’s keep crying

Let’s bring out the booze and have a bitter old ball.

If that’s all…there is.

SAID

And I wonder why this character loved her father so much

And why she wished she were like him, and wished she had his life when she could have had her own

And why it was important to tell us about Michael and Samuel and Gregorio and Charlie and Keith

And why she says, repeatedly, one only loves once, meaning? Daddy?

I had the feeling there was something missing but I didn’t know what

But when it was over I was asking myself–is this all there is to the circus of love?

SUNG

Cause if that’s all there is, if that’s all there is

If that’s all there is, my friends, then let’s keep balling

Let’s break out the booze and have a black bloody heart

If that’s all…there is.

SAID

I sit in the audience and remember my own list of men

And compared the experiences of love and lust and feelings unsaid, unfinished–the many paths taken and not taken

I forget I am watching and listening to this character(s) tell us more and more and more about these mad careening lives

Her twisted fateful path–but could that really BE …all??

Why doesn’t she end her sadness and madness, if that’s all she feels?

SUNG

Cause if that’s all there is, if that’s all there is,

If that’s all there is, my friends, then let’s keep writing

Let’s break out the booze and let the fool within, run free

If that’s all…there is.

SAID

But I know, you must be thinking–this isn’t a theatre review, is it?

This is some joke, a song, a diatribe…and she is just offering herself therapy or avoiding professional suicide or some such

And Plucked Hammered and Strung must be the strange work of a genius–a woman who plays piano and sings desperately, and talks madly, oft times sadly, with the ghosts of the past, including herself

Who, when she is at the end of her life, she too will say

Is that all there is?

SUNG

Cause if that’s all there is, if that’s all there is

If that’s all there is, my friends, then let’s keep dancing

Let’s break out the booze and numb our pain

If that’s all…there is.

Go!

(With a nod to Peggy Lee)

Plucked, Hammered & Strung, Carolyn Guillet’s one act, one woman cabaret-play performance, directed by Arianna Bardesono, at the Infinitheatre, Bain St. Michelle, 5300 St. Dominique, November 6th, 7th, and 8th, 10 pm. RSVP 987-1774.