Familiar Haunts

Where does a ghost story begin? For my new ghost story play, the answer is in familiar haunts—a coffee shop in Seattle, my bedroom in Houston, and a house with a past in New Orleans. One cloudy afternoon a couple of years ago, over coffee, artistic director Rik Deskin and I began toying with the idea of my writing a ghost story for Eclectic Theater Company. That was the beginning of The Familiar, premiering May 26, 2011, at the Odd Duck Studio in Seattle as an Equity Members Project Code presentation.

Returning to Houston, I began jotting ideas, sketching out characters and scenes, and whispering bits of dialogue to myself late at night in my bedroom—but only after I had whisked my feet off the floor and safely into bed, clear of the reach of whatever might be under the bed. So, I started the play with what scares me—the fear we all share of the unknown monster hiding under the bed or in the closet or lurking in the chambers of memory.

The Familiar grew and took on a life of its own. Yet, the final scene eluded me until a particular night in New Orleans. My friend Sarah and I were attending the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival and staying in Marigny Manor, a house built around 1845 and now operated as a B&B by our friends Gil & John. Late on the last night of our stay, it dawned on me how to end the play. In our room, I acted out my concept of the play's final ghostly scene for Sarah. Then, just as she said that’s it—that’s the ending, the lights flickered and went out all over Faubourg Marigny. What timing! Of course, as we were in New Orleans, we and the neighbors all made good use of the dark, gathering on Gil and John's verandah to visit over drinks by moonlight for an hour or so until the house lights came up again.

Equity Member Project Code Presentation
Seattle, WA

http://eclectictheatercompany.org

The Familiar by Rosemary Poole-Carter
Directed by: Rik Deskin
Opening: May 26, 2011
Closing: June 18, 2011

Two sisters haunted by the past, one man haunted by passion, in a house possessed by The Familiar . . .

There’s something unsettling under the bed. Elinor wants it out, Cissie wants it hidden, and Sean would rather concentrate on possibilities on top of the bed. As Elinor pulls old possessions and dusty objects from under the bed, these become props for improvisations among Elinor, Cissie, and Sean as the three of them maneuver around one another—provoking or tantalizing, wary of touch and entanglements—playing ever closer to what haunts them.

Director's Notes on The Little Death

On October 10, 2008, Eclectic Theater Company of Seattle opened a new production of my drama The Little Death under the direction of L. Nicol Cabe. Over a decade ago, Gypsy Theatre Company gave the play its first production in Houston, and in the years between these stagings, life has spun me around more than once. I have pursued numerous other projects, including novel writing, casting my work out into the world and hoping it will find receptive readers and audiences. In Seattle for the play’s opening, I enjoyed hearing the actors’ interpretations of and speculations about their characters and gained new perspective on my writing of years gone by. Then, the promising young director, who earned her theatre degree just two years ago, showed evidence of an old soul in her Director’s Notes for the playbill:

“While talking up this play to friends, I’ve referred to the show as a ‘bodice-ripper,’ ‘exactly what the title makes it sound like,’ and a ‘Southern Gothic dark romance.’ The show’s title, a delightful French euphemism, leads naturally to these assumptions of the play’s content.

As assumptions go, this one isn’t wrong. The show is indeed about sex and orgasm. Of course, to say the show is only about sex and orgasm is to do it a great disservice. Though steamy as night on the Louisiana bayou, or as wild as a Mardi Gras party, this play is not a superficial spectacle of lust and avarice. It is an exploration of what lust, jealousy, avarice, possessiveness, and insecurity can lead to in our relationships. It is the tragedy of lovers who will not, indeed cannot, communicate with each other outside of physical passion. It is an intrigue of alliances forged, and false assumptions believed, and human justice imposed. Ultimately, no one can survive without confrontation, and that confrontation comes far too late.

In a way, I suppose, it is a morality play, showing us on the mirror stage what can happen if we are too selfish or too timid. But more than that, it is a tragedy that we have all experienced at least once in our lives—meaningful relationships destroyed because of our carelessness. It is a tale of hubris and fallen heroes, through which we are not merely instructed—we experience catharsis because of these characters’ sacrifice." ~ L. Nicol Cabe