The Tempest, and "Garlic: a Metaphor"

Yesterday I almost finished the new play. The title finally came in the night. I wrote fifty pages of this play without knowing its name. That's like marrying someone you barely know. I wrote this one on intuition alone, very little planning. The first scene came in a dream. I wrote it quickly. It's called "Garlic, a Metaphor."

So many things came together in the last two days. Yesterday I was exhausted and elated, restless and jumpy and dreamy and satisfied. I still have to write the final scene, which will be fun, it will be dessert.

Today I'm just tired. Couldn't get out of bed until my housemate tempted me with polenta and espresso.

"I'm not bringing it up to you!" she laughed.

So I went down. The polenta, with garlic, tomatoes, zucchini and basil from the garden was out of this world. I asked her to marry me.

Last night we went to see Elizabeth Mendana, Theron Shaw, Conners McConnville (also in Wing It!) and Leon Setti perform in a dance version of The Tempest. They were all amazing, Elizabeth as the feisty and naive Miranda, ("O brave new world that has such people in it!) and Theron doing splits on a peice of long white fabric hanging from the ceiling, singing and playing the flute. His line, "It would sir, were I human," was a gentle rebuke to the magician Prospero.

Conners was fantastic as a drunken sailor with an eyepatch, and an elfin sprite. Leon was a benign and jovial Lorenzo. All in all, an occasion for kvelling.

Yesterday was my mother's birthday. She would have been seventy-two. My sister called me to say kaddish but I was out. I called her this morning and we said it. I dreamed of my mother last night.

"We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep."