Mrs GMJ Remembers

January 2019.  In case you’ve not met, I should say a few words by way of introduction.  Mrs GMJ.  An eccentric woman.  Visual artist, musician, writer.  Entrepreneur.  Traveller.  Wife.  Mother of three.  Spent many years in small town BC.   None of late.

What I have here is a kind of narrative in the works, an ongoing collaboration with a small acting company.  And because it is a collaboration, I’m not at liberty to discuss my intentions or talk in terms of treatment just yet.  It’s early in the game and even if I could speak to these things there would be no guarantee my ideas would come to anything.  All this is becoming quite apparent as I encounter the realities of working with a team.

This acting company.  Did I tell you it was small town?  Amateur?  The actors fiercely competitive for parts?  It’s true.  All highly sensitive to injury but insensitive otherwise.  In a time, for instance, where identity is an issue of huge import and topic of conversations everywhere, these actors appear to be unmoved, oblivious in their portrayal of Mrs GMJ, the truth of her identity totally irrelevant to them.  Instead, well, you’ll see.  It’s burlesque.  Farce.  Every single actor inclined to come on stage as Mrs GMJ, not one okay with a supporting role.  And so they do, all generally wearing the Mrs GMJ wardrobe, masking themselves and clouding the identity of the character they’re each meant to represent.  How is the audience to keep track?  It’s all quite confusing to say the least. 

Here is the first panel in the series.  Mrs GMJ Remembers.   The woman in the foreground is clearly Mrs GMJ.  So far so good, but the actor playing her is very upset with the second Mrs GMJ in the far distance who has come early and placed rabbits in the yard instead of pheasants as directed.  As a result, the first Mrs GMJ compromises her lines in order to squeeze in a complaint and  William inevitably loses his lines as well.  And so it goes. 

At this point my response is something like it is to the lingering cold of spring.  At least it’s not minus 20.  And I cheer myself by choosing to believe that compromises of this nature, while not reflecting my intentions at all, might lead down some interesting paths.  I plan to sustain this belief as long as it’s practical to do so.