The Story Within, Part Five

I loved doing the show on Friday night. I was last on the program of eight tellers, so I had a lot of time in the back of the theater to run my story. I ran it so much I got tired of it. That was a good sign. It meant I had absolutely no anxiety about missed lines or tortured sequences.

The story had two themes. One was my fear of death (wanting to avoid the risk of surgery). My intent was to convey that clearly. The other was about my taking charge of my life in spite of authority figures telling me to have the surgery. (I’ll publish the script of the story in a day or two, it’s titled “Through the Back Door,” and the video will be on YouTube. I’ll let you know when it’s posted.)

One of the things I love best about performing is when the audience laughs. Laughter connects people, heals people, relaxes people; it’s a wonderful drug. I understand why so many people take such risks to be standup comics—hearing the audience laugh is a drug for the performer, too. I’ve learned to stay silent during a laugh and not start my next line until the laughter has peaked and is beginning to fade.

One laugh was unexpected. It was at the end when the doctor describes my polyp as shaped like a birthday cake. My next line is “I thought about that and . . . .” But during performance, in the silence after the words “birthday cake,” I blurted out, “I didn’t know what to make of that.” Where that came from, I don’t know. But the audience erupted in a big laugh. Why is that funny, I wonder. I’ll check with my son and friends who came to the show and I’ll look for clues on the video. I’ll also find those places where I wanted a laugh and there was none.

A good performance makes up for all the misery I put myself through with my tribulations around memorization. I feel fortunate to be a storyteller. I love the connection I feel with an audience. I love it when an audience member tells me they feel connected too. And when the audience laughs, I feel like a million dollars.

I’m glad to have had the opportunity to share this journey with you. I hope you found value in following my experience of the stages of writing, editing, rehearsing and performing a story. Stay tuned for the script and the YouTube video. And stay tuned for the next series, which will be about my experiences with meditating.