Theater: No No Boy (2014)
One of the unexpected developments of finding my natural voice was the flood of emotions seemingly at my beck and call. Specifically, crying, and not just on stage. I can be in a restaurant talking to someone and I touch upon a poignant moment or emotional event in my past and I start to choke up or cry. Sometimes I’m surprised by this because it comes upon me so fast, like I can’t control it. On stage I’ll find a moment or line in the play that I can reliably count on to either choke up my voice or just outright cry. In No No Boy there is a moment when I’m reading a letter from my wife’s sister living in post-war Japan. It is a description of desperation, starvation and the putting aside of pride in order to beg for help. That letter became my on button for tears, flowing tears.
During my years growing up and into young adulthood and even part of my adulthood any kind of emotion like that would have given me a very painful lump in my throat but no choking up or crying. I never imagined myself being capable of showing that kind of release. Looking back now I know that block was the same block, the same anxiety and tension, that prevented my natural voice from expressing itself. I don’t pretend to be a psychologist but I’ve reasoned that the absence of vocal anxiety and tension is directly related to the absence of any inhibitions to show deep emotion. I can physically feel the urge to choke up move from my throat to my chest or my nasal passages. The only time I get a painful lump in my throat is on stage because I have to hold back the release until I finish a line or the right moment. In fact, on some nights I had a real struggle in getting through the letter. One action that really gets the tears flowing is if I have to raise my voice, as if in anger, and I haven’t quite figured out why that is. I’m tempted to think that all of my tears, from emotion or anger, are expressions of joy, the freedom of being unburdened by a disfluency, a shoutout to the universe.
