Consciousness, Literature and the Arts

 

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Volume 12 Number 3, December 2011

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ALAN WILLIAMS

 

there was just the two of us in the rehearsal hall

Alan performing his trilogy “The Girl with Two Voices”

me listening to the story of his return to England

some fifteen or so years ago, listening to the events

and to his reactions, on two tracks, as it were

 

the hall in the basement of the UW

with its orange acoustic baffles is actually

a film studio so it was only appropriate

that Alan’s description of Kew and Kew Gardens

projected fantasy versions on my inner screen

 

I hadn’t seen Alan perform for many years

but had memories of him on stage in plays

and in earlier monologues like “The Cockroach

that Ate Cincinnati,”  memories of performance

that will never leave me

 

what he did in rehearsal of this new trilogy

was to pull me into an alpha state where his life

became my experience and the misery he recounted

reflected mine so that in effect he allowed himself

to become a mirror just by talking

 

just by sitting there and talking

sometimes struggling with a shoe lace

or pulling apart a muffin, sipping his coffee

allowing “it” to happen between us

in the way we used to fantasize

 

only live theatre could do

 

 

P.K. Brask