Alexandra Silber's Blog, page 11

"From the ashes we rise..."

There are no words to express how profoundly moved I am to return to this incredible play and production, with this company, in my theatrical motherland, in this brilliant theatre.

One of the remarkable things about theatre is its relationship to repetition and “sameness.” We will wear the same clothes, say the same words, make the same movements…it is the same but the world is not. My body is not. 

We shall tell our story through new lenses of humanity and it will resonate in new ways. ...

"Tenderness" by Stephen Dunn

"Tenderness," by Stephen Dunn, from Between Angels

Back then when so much was clear
and I hadn't learned
young men learn from women

what it feels like to feel just right,
I was twenty-three,
she thirty-four, two children, a husband

in prison for breaking someone's head.
Yelled at, slapped
around, all she knew of tenderness

was how much she wanted it, and all
I knew
were back seats and a night or two

in a sleeping bag in the furtive dark.
We worked
in the same office, banter and loneliness

leading...

"Separation" by W. S. Merwin

Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.

 

— W. S. Merwin, “Separation” from The Second Four Books of Poems

 

The Shame

Dear All, 

 Thank you all for the most incredibly supportive response to the news of my surgeries. I never dreamed I would be so uplifted, for I was certain that sharing would bring about responses of pity and disgust.
 
I have been struggling to confess the full spectrum of this experience for I, like so many people, felt EXTRAORDINARY SHAME. Shame is The Great Destroyer, and Irritable Bowel Disease, or 'IBD' is a disease that thrives on shame; it grows in intensity and strengthens in the darknes...

J-pouch surgery news

 [CW: surgery, disturbing images]

After nearly 7 years dealing with severe Ulcerative Colitis, on November 30, 2020, I had my entire large intestine (aka, the 'colon') completely removed.

I wanted to share this news from a more processed  place, with radical honesty.

The last 6 months has been an awe-inspiring *three-surgery process.* It has cured me of ulcerative colitis PERMANENTLY. Though the experience has been psychologically confrontational, horrifying, inexpressibly painful, and awe-inspi...

Surgery news

 [CW: surgery, disturbing images]

After nearly 7 years dealing with severe Ulcerative Colitis, on November 30, 2020, I had my entire large intestine (aka, the 'colon') completely removed.

I wanted to share this news from a more processed  place, with radical honesty.

The last 6 months has been an awe-inspiring *three-surgery process.* It has cured me of ulcerative colitis PERMANENTLY. Though the experience has been psychologically confrontational, horrifying, inexpressibly painful, and awe-inspi...

The Art of Play

📸: @themichaelkushner
💄: @perspectivebeats

When we were young, creative play came easily. 

Children are used to looking at objects for what they can be, instead of what they ARE, at face value. 

Think of your inner artist as a child—a child at their best *and* their worst. At their best they lose themselves in play, they look at the world from a perspective of pure possibility, their innocence is a superpower unburdened by failure and fear...

...But that inner child can *also* be uncooperativ...

World Theatre Day, 2021

 God, how I miss it...

The Fo(u)r MORE Questions!

This weekend is Passover, 2021. Remember how last year we all said "Next Year in Person" and we were so certain that that precise joy would be our reality? 

Not so for many of us. COVID19 still rages on, millions across our aching planet are dead (many, so needlessly due to mismanagement, denial, and the preposterousness of politics), and many have a tragic (and tardy) new understanding of the systemic racism and inequality that pervades every part of society. Plague and oppression? Several plagu...

Stop Asian Hate: a Letter to my husband and Chinese-American family

  Dearest Silver Family,

I wanted to send you all a virtual embrace about this recent wave of Asian violence and hatred. No matter the level of personal endangerment you do or do not feel on a daily basis, it is always horrifying to see and experience hatred toward *your existence* perpetuated. I just wanted to utter it; to acknowledge it as horrendous, and to honor you as Asian human beings who deserve every respect and dignity. 
I feel like all hatred shares a roots of Fear. Which I say because I...