Tour Whore, November 25, 2012

Ado and Farewell

by Cameryn Moore

As I write this, I have been in Boston for two days. It feels all the more unreal because of the way I left New York City, at 4am on the day before American Thanksgiving. I had intended to leave at 4pm, after finishing my phone hours for the day, but the more I thought about the massive pre-holiday exodus that would slam the entire five-borough metropolis into first-gear-all-the-way gridlock, the more I realized that is not the way I wanted to finish the tour. So I packed up my shit, and creaked quietly down the stairs, accelerated out onto the expressway, smiling the whole way. I wanted to fly onward, fast, go go go, ride the momentum a little further.

There was momentum, still. I didn’t think there would be. I expected a shitty turnout for my one full-length presentation of Phone Whore, and I expected to just come down from that with a sad little thud. It could have been that way, too. There were seven people in the audience, counting the bartender and not counting the technician. But five of those people had not seen it before, which made the Q&A session lively still, even at 10:45 at night. Three of those people I really wanted to see it, Fringe friends of mine who had seen at least one of my other shows but not the first. One of those people was a programming decision-maker at the venue and really enjoyed the show, which meant that coming back to this lovely venue should be easier next year; they know what I can do. So that was good.

it’s a basement in NEW YORK CITY, the stakes felt as high as the ceiling was low

The next night—the night before I was supposed to leave—I made a feature-spot appearance in a friend’s open mic, in the same theatre as the night before, but with audience this time. My friend Penny has been running this open mic for five years; she has cultivated a dedicated following, as much for the supportive atmosphere she creates as for her personality as host. So there were people there, and I had a little moment of nerves again, the performance nerves I get when I am in a new city or a new theatre, and I want them to like me, I want to make a good impression.

This has been especially true in New York City, where I have always felt that all the talented people from all over the world like to come, to see if they can make it, to take a shot, to make it big, and who do I think I am, in the middle of all that? Even an open mic in a basement black box on the Lower East Side, even when I had no immediate show to pimp, even there I wanted to blow it open, because who knows, who knows, it’s a basement in NEW YORK CITY, the stakes felt as high as the ceiling was low. 

I had no time to rehearse the opening of my piece, which involved splicing the first minute of slut (r)evolution with the final flashback scene and surrounding monologues. I had just a couple of minutes and an index card with which to communicate the light cues to the technician, 30 seconds to explain to the slightly baked house-band guitarist where to place a chair and black box. No time to warm up properly, only a backyard with leafless shrubs and cushionless patio furniture, surrounded by the sides of neighboring buildings and other performers muttering their lines or staring at the brick walls while getting into their zone. 

On deck in the dressing room, I rolled my shoulders and shook out my arms and stretched my mouth and eyes wide a few times and whispered, “the big black bug bit a big black bear and the big black bear bled blood,” not a vocal warm-up as much as a ritual. My imaginary ursine friend has shed so much blood over this tour. One more night, big black bear, one more night.

I could feel it, when I got to the climax, every particle in my body spinning in escape velocity made flesh

There on the stage, I greeted the audience like a soon-to-be lover, or at least that part of the audience that occupied the space behind the imaginary face of my invisible hook-up. I went into my flashback, to Burning Man and countless clothespins clinging to my flesh, and remembered the joy of that journey and discovery. Even though I worried that I wouldn’t be able to get either myself or the audience to the right place without the 45 minutes of build-up, by the end of my piece I could feel it in my goose-pimpled skin, in the burning silence of the people watching, in the muscles that were stretched so tight that I had to cling to the cheap wooden chair in order to keep from exploding out into space…. I could feel it, when I got to the climax, every particle in my body spinning in escape velocity made flesh, I could feel it when I screamed YES to the universe with the stage lights burning a response onto my receptive skin, yes, they said back, yes, this is right, yes. “In case you were wondering, the answer is yes,” is the final line I said, and heard a woman in the audience sigh wonderingly as the lights faded to blackout. Oh yes, I had gotten us all there.

Afterward, I bundled up in my faux-fur coat and huddled on a bench in the backyard, trying to calm my post-show shakes. High, so high, I was riding SO FUCKING HIGH. A few people came out and sat and talked with me. Being show-biz people themselves, they were respectful of my buzz, and were willing to sit and listen while I tried to explain what I loved so much about that part of slut (r)evolution. That scream of yes at the end is a moment where what I want in the play and what I want in my life, those things converge, and every time I do the show, I get to say it, affirmation to the universe, yes.

That was the momentum that propelled me out of my Brooklyn billet at 4am, that was the thing that kept me awake on the four-hour drive to Boston and my lover’s bed, the sheets for which were still in the dryer, thanks to my last-minute change of travel plans. The thing about not getting caught in gridlock, that was real, but that wasn’t everything. The momentum would not let me stop. Really, I just needed to keep going. 

Still need to keep going, to be honest. As much as I love my friends here and rejoice in seeing familiar streets and coffee houses and freeway signs, this is not home, this is not home. That space on stage is home, a point of leverage from which to blast off to the next one, and the next. After I unclench my fingers from around the chair, I push my feet into the concrete floor, push off, dive upward. There are other places to go.

camerynmoore.com

[Publisher: Although this is the final edition of Tour Whore for this season, Cameryn will be returning in January to begin a new column on the CharPo-Montreal and CharPo-Canada sites. Cameryn will also be doing Smut Slam, December 5, at Mainline Theatre in Montreal as well as performing in the upcoming weeks in the city.]