My Hecate Encounter

Zhauna Franks -- from the official SNM web site

My Hecate Encounter

The second time I saw SLEEP NO MORE, I received my first 1:1 encounter.  It was with Andrea Murillo’s Nurse Shaw.  There is something indescribably extraordinary about your first one. It’s sort of like the first time you fall in love – it’s unexpected, it’s frightening, it’s euphoric, and feels overwhelming in myriad terrible and magnificent ways.  It tantalizes in the moment, and causes angst in the loss.

The next time I saw SLEEP NO MORE, I actually went looking for a 1:1 encounter with a guy this time.  I will always be a little in love with Andrea Murillo (or Nurse Shaw or maybe both)—she gave this somewhat jaded spectator my first satisfying “fourth wall” IMPLOSION experience.  And I excitedly wondered what it would feel like to fall in love for just an electrifying theatrical moment with a young, handsome, hard-bodied fellow.  Well, the guys weren’t biting that night, or they weren’t biting me.  But rather than put the blame on myself, I ‘sour grapes-edly’ dismissed it as their personal proclivities dictating spectator choice as they all seemed to be picking other guys for their 1:1s.

I wandered down into the rep bar, where nothing was happening at the moment.  No one else was there, and I availed myself of the opportunity to admire details – set details, lighting details.  I even looked for glow-tape (a theater staple to combat the dangers of darkness on- and back stage), which I didn’t find.  (These actors must have ‘night vision’ contacts or something!) Having soaked up the ambiance, I was on my way out just as Hecate was emerging from a locked room in the corridor.  She immediately made eye contact, scaring the hell out of me again.  I thought I was going to be chastised for examining set pieces closely to see how the witches stayed safe standing on a cabaret table in the dark, with strobe and laser lights to disorient them.  She didn’t chastise.  She told me to wait there, because she had something for me.

I then realized that I had stumbled on what was to be my second 1:1.  Granted, it was another girl, but hey.  Nothing unpleasant about that, and she had an inviting smile and gentle eyes.  I decided to trust her and let her take command. I didn’t even mind when she took my mask off as I knew it was coming this time.  And when it was off and she was looking at me, I felt a kinship, almost like greeting an old friend.  Again, I will not say what exactly happened in the encounter.  I will say it was ‘narrative’ (which my first had not been) with physical elements.

What I want to talk about most is something I don’t know if I can truly explicate with words.  I will try. There is a critical theory called Reader-Response, which basically states that it really doesn’t matter what the author(s) of a work intended, it’s what the reader takes from it that is important.  And the ‘reader’ will draw insight from a text according to their own experiences.  The reaction I had to my 1:1 with Hecate, played that night by the beautiful Zhauna Franks, can only be described in terms of Reader-Response.

I came to NY and SLEEP NO MORE at a time when I was extremely vulnerable and low emotionally and psychologically. Some terrible things had happened to me recently, and I was taking them very hard.  I tend toward melancholia anyway, so when real tragedy strikes, I feel its sting more than I think a lot of people do, and it is very difficult for me to climb out of the chasm I get lost in.  Loved ones expressed concern and offered help, but I could not stop despairing.  I did not want to go to NY, though the tickets were already purchased and I had a traveling companion who would have to go without me if I didn’t make the trip.  I just felt too down to go somewhere I was supposed to enjoy, too hurt, too guilty about my culpability in what happened, too hopeless….  Ultimately, my super-ego intervened and pointed out that I had a duty, and that SNM was something that I had really wanted to do before sadness struck, so I girded my loins with my big girl knickers, and I went, still carrying the burden of grief and sorrow heavily on my shoulders.

My reaction to my Hecate 1:1 has absolutely nothing to do with the dialogue author’s intent, and is not connected to the SNM stories in any way.  But the almost maternal touch of the actress and imagery from her monologue penetrated deeply. There was much more to the story she told, and I may not even be getting these details correct.  They are what I absorbed and remember though :

·         Tears. Enough to fill a bottle. Tasting salty tears.  That had profound resonance for me as I had cried and tasted a lot of tears in recent days.

·         A boy, frightened and lost in a forest. He just went deeper and deeper in, and he could not seem to find his way out no matter how he tried. Also weightily relevant for me as I was feeling under water and unable to reach the surface.

There is more I cannot share because you would not understand, but I know the perfect timing which allowed me to hit both Hecate and this 1:1 was not an accident.  It was divine intervention, and a reminder that I was watched over.  I was utterly blown away.    Suffice it to say, that not only did the encounter touch nerves, it soothed them. I had a catharsis of Aristotlean proportions.  My experience was a kind of Holy Theater, and something very sacred to me.  I felt burdens lift for reasons I couldn’t fully fathom but have contemplated mightily since.  I realized all of humanity suffers sometimes, and I realized that some of the ways we get through it are by making and experiencing art, by lightening each others burdens, by touch and holding hands and embracing one another, even a stranger.  As with first love, my first 1:1 was intense, provocative, and wonderful.  My second 1:1, however, as with more mature love, touched my soul and continues to help in a much needed healing process.  

I had a chance to talk to Zhauna out of makeup, costume and character after the show.  A lovely human being, as well as a very fine actress.  She remembered me and told me that she had perceived that I was frightened, so she had nuanced the encounter to accommodate what she was getting from me.  She said it can have a different energy to it, depending on the attitude and demeanor of the spectator, but she had selected the one that seemed right for me.  How fabulously in tune she was, for frightened I was, and an emotional wreck.  But theatre helped.  New York City’s magic helped.  My patient, wonderful traveling companion helped.  SLEEP NO MORE helped.  Hecate helped.  And Zhauna Franks’ instincts and skill as a performer helped immensely!  I was so glad I missed sexy, fantasy trysts with nubile lads. They would have paled in comparison.

I want very much to go back and experience the show again, and again, and again.  I don’t know if it will run long enough for me to do that as I live Dallas.  But if/when I do go back, I don’t know that I’ll seek any more 1:1s.  I have had the absolute best.