The tears were real and the emotions ran high. It was a lump-in-the-throat kind of show on Dec. 3 when former River Stage director Frank Condon debuted the script he’s worked on all semester at Cosumnes River College (CRC).
“True Life Stories Project” intermingles the very different real-life stories of six student actors: Gabriel Alberigi, Kenneth Chang, Dan Fagan, Carlos Sendejas Lopez II, Wali Rushiddin, and Alexander Sterns.
The audience watched and listened during the hour-long show as each actor recalled the tragedies that made them who they are today.
“What the actors are doing is turning themselves inside out,” Condon said. “It’s ego-less.”
The show opened on Dec. 3 at 7:30 p.m., with a preview on Dec. 2 at 7:30 p.m. Additional show times are Dec. 9 at 2 p.m., Dec. 10-11 at 7:30 p.m.
“I’ve played other characters but this seems to be the hardest one because it’s so raw,” Sterns said. “It’s just you.”
He grew up with a Mormon mother who did not accept her gay son.
The tears Stern cried were very real as he recalled attempting suicide and the rejection he faced from his mother when he “came out” to her.
“You really connect with the actors when you watch it,” Sterns said.
Each actor took turns telling portions of their stories.
Lopez retold bloody and tense stories from when he served in Iraq. He recalled details of battles - one in which his friend died.
“I have not spoken of these things,” he said backstage on Dec. 3. “My family came (to see the show) and they were all in shock.”
Lopez has a repertoire of plays under his belt, but this play allowed him to work through the real-life script of his past as a “gang banger,” and later a solider.
For Rushiddin this was her first time on stage.
When she was in her early 20s, she was raped and she dropped out of UCLA.
“It was very painful to think of and for many years I held it inside… it was a very violent thing,” she reflected.
She moved home to her mother’s house after the rape, and was later institutionalized and homeless.
“I didn’t come out of my room for three months, I didn’t touch people,” she recalled.
However, telling her story in front of cast members and a live audience was therapeutic, she said.
Her mother and two daughters will all see the show.
Sterns said he can’t invite his mother to the production, but he did invite his dad and other family members who are supportive.
Condon’s goal was to “create a stunning montage of theatrical truth about adversity and the strength to survive,” he explained in a previous interview.
Condon said the actors “squirmed” in discussions about their life stories, but once they were able to read portions of the script, they had a better idea of how Condon would weave their stories together.
The actors have been rehearsing since August.
“We all sat around this table for a month just telling stories,” Lopez said. “I remember we had to take breaks every 20 minutes for people to just breathe.”
Fagan said, “I think we’ll all be better actors for it.
He recalled working in a grueling and deadly coal mine in his home state of Wyoming.
Throughout the play, Fagan would recite quotes that tied all the actors’ stories together.
After the climax of Lopez’s Iraq battle story, Fagan recited a quote that seemed to clearly sum up not only Lopez’s story, but those of the other actors too.
“So did all those kids die thinking of democracy and freedom, and liberty and honor, and the safety of the home, and the Stars and Stripes Forever?,” Fagan said. “You’re goddamn right they didn’t. They knew what was important. They knew that life was everything and they died with screams and sobs. They died with only one thing on their mind and that was, ‘I want to live, I want to live, I want to live.”
As an actor, Alberigi said he wanted audiences to leave the show with that realization that one never knows a person’s past simply by looking at them. He has “little’s disease,” a form of cerebral palsy. He struggled with finding acceptance and understanding, but eventually found love and got married.
“We come from a lot of different backgrounds, with a lot of different types of performance experience,” Alberigi said. “I think it’s hard, for anyone at the end of the show to judge anyone by appearances.”
Chang told the story of his father who went to prison, and the cultural tension between his Chinese and Vietnamese relatives, in addition to trying to assimilate to his new American culture.
“I knew Ken from one of my classes and he told me this story…and I thought, ‘He should be in this,’” Condon recalled.
After the show on Dec. 3, a young woman in the lobby of the theatre said, “Wow, I had a class with (Ken) but I had no idea (about his life).”
Chang said in his culture people often keep to themselves. English is also his second language. Chang said he didn’t have the opportunity to share his personal story with many people.
“When all these things happened, I can’t just go tell people because my family tells me I can’t do that, but on the other hand I’m born here,” he said. “Like that line in the play, ‘I was caught between my Chinese heritage and American culture.’”
The actors have become friends and spend time together outside of the theatre.
“They really have become an ensemble,” Condon said.
Acting out their real-life emotions and experiences is therapeutic for them and enlightening for the audience.
“It was very therapeutic,” Chang said. “The more I tell it, the more I relive it, but the more I learn.”
Condon said there is a therapeutic quality to all acting.
“I think the beginnings of the theatre were therapeutic, that’s the reason they told those stories,” he said.
“The stories- you wouldn’t think they could tie together but in the end it’s all about…we went there and we’re survivors,” Chang said.
Show takes place at CRC’s Visual and Performing Arts Center, which is the former River Stage.
Tickets are $8 for general admission and $5 for seniors, SARTA, students and members of Los Rios Community College District.
Source:- www.egcitizen.com
