E
njoy your meal!” said the waiter.
“You too!” I responded thoughtlessly.
The dialogue which shapes our lives is often
a fumble. We stutter, misspeak, offend, reveal too much
or not enough. Once we say what we do, it cannot be
unsaid. In a technological world, what we type is forever
imprinted somewhere. Contemporary “cancel culture”
ensures that what we say and write is not only permanent,
but unforgivable. Similarly, what is unsaid in one moment
can remain forever unsaid, and the chances we don’t take
in speech or otherwise are rarely offered to us for an
opportunity to do-over.
This phenomenon, and perhaps its pressure, was one
reason I was drawn to playwriting. Drafting the dialogue
of drama allowed me to control speech and situation,
making the uncertainty of reality anticipatory. The first
piece I wrote for the stage centered on this very notion,
called “Backspace,” my quasi-one act play had a plot
driven by the nonexistence of a backspace key on the
typewriter used to write our lives. Without the power to
return in time and in text, everything, once written, could
not be rewritten. In the end, the characters confronted
the one-directional passage of time and developed skills
of apology and forgiveness to progress through their
stories. There are ways to move forward in a life marked
with errors, as we have all been forced to do, but moving
on does not always eradicate missed opportunities from
our memory.
Playwriting is attractive as a medium in part because
the dialogue I write can achieve anything I choose. With
that power, I can say the right thing, offer forgiveness,
give depth to the unknown and resolve conflict.
Still, the stage attempts to proxy reality, and as such,
does not show perfectly smooth speech. Certainly,
there would be no purpose in drama which was gutless
or without despair, but the truth lived on stage is a
manufactured one in which the desired ending is reached
regardless of contextual complexity. The act of writing a
drama, and not simply living one, gives me a semblance
of control.
Living, however, has provided me ample opportunity
to misspeak. One of my most serious errors in dialogue
happened when, as an adolescent, I took it upon myself to
criticize the life choices of a sister’s friend through the self-
righteous gossiping in which I had learned to participate.
After at least 30 long minutes critically disparaging her
grades, friends and clothes at a slumber party, I was
shocked to find out she had been eavesdropping from my
sister’s room next-door and overheard all of the unkind
things my friends and I said. In the tense period after the
interaction, I took to writing the drama as I wished the
reality had unfolded. In one version, my friends and I had
complimented her, and she became confident and joyful.
In another, she did not cry outside the door but instead
laughed, taking our words as facetious and offering us
easy forgiveness.
In reality, my 12-year-old self apologized profusely
after a period of embarrassment-induced blame I threw at
my sister and her friend for sneakily listening in. I could
not undo what I had said, but I tried to offer a revision.
Fortunately for me, she and I remain friends today, since
she accepted my apology. But this outcome was not
guaranteed, and on other occasions, these accidental
unkindnesses and offenses in dialogue have had lasting
consequences. Sometimes, we have to write forgiveness
into the story ourselves.
Dialogue is instrumental to the unfolding of our lives.
How many times have the trajectories of our lives been
decidedly altered when we were brave enough to greet a
new friend, impress the right executive or defend what
we stand for? How many times have we failed to speak
and so cannot know what could have been? There is a
profound ache that comes with the regret and anguish of
life paths not taken and the torture of wonderment they
stir in us.
What if I had just said “yes,” or “no,” or something at
all?
I have not been unscathed by the force of regret for the
unsaid. One particular fate-induced meeting still stands
out as a catalyst for longing.
One night, while I was solo-traveling in Stockholm,
I found myself stranded eight miles from my residence
— I had been living in Iceland and forgot the sun sets
during the night in other parts of the world. Without
a phone or cash, I wasn’t sure how I’d hail a ride back
across the city’s isles, but that summer I had adopted the
Icelandic mantra, “Þetta reddast,” or “it will fix itself,”
so I remained unconcerned. I saw a boy my age walking
the same direction as me — using his obviously-charged
phone — which seemed like the logical way out of my
situation. Conveniently, he had called an Uber to the
same district that I was staying, and I shared the ride
with him through the city.
On the 40-minute journey through the night, we
talked through multitudes of the political and personal,
finding fateful linkages of days we’d both been in the
same capital cities, interests we shared and beliefs we
both found inalienable. When he implored me to stay up
through the night, to explore the posh district and race
against the sun’s rising, I fumbled for words and landed
on non-adventure.
The next morning my instinct of making things right —
or rather, rewriting the regret — set in. As I took a train
to Oslo, I wrote the dialogue I remembered and altered
the ending, subtitling it, “with the grace of hindsight.”
What might have happened that night if I said yes? The
question would weigh on me for weeks.
Most people can name a time they wanted a do-over,
and writing for the theatre gives us a
chance to create one. This past summer
I co-directed playwriting workshops in
Kosovo, and we drew on this desire for
rewriting the personal to make peace
with past things said and unsaid. We
created an activity called “Goodbye
Stranger” for our final week, where
students were to think of an encounter
with someone they saw once and then
never again. They could write the interaction with any
ending they desired.
One student wrote of the last time she saw a former
crush, when she wanted to accept his apology for the
hurtful things he said. When she performed the piece
with the dialogue she wished she had actually used,
her voice was brave and pure. She showed me that it is
redemptive to forgive.
Another student rewrote an interaction she had with
an aggressor on public transit, who threatened her with
stares and catcalls. She reimagined the scene as one in
which she defended herself and the women around her
from his taunting. She showed me that it is redemptive
to empower.
Another wrote of the interpersonal depth she thought
existed within her favorite celebrity, who she had seen
once on the street. Her scene detailed his hardships
and hopes, reminding us what we might miss when we
take someone’s surface as their entirety. She showed me
that it is redemptive to inquire. Making things right or
deep or new by rewriting moments missed is a process of
redemption and one of reclamation.
I keep writing dialogue to put the world back in order
— to forgive myself and others, reimagine lost time and
put an end to conflict. On the page and on the stage, the
progression of things is in my control. It would be nice if,
in the writing in times of war, we ended it, or in recovering
time spent we had second chances to muster bravery. In
fictive worlds, we can imagine these better outcomes
and actualize them when we choose. This process is not
as imaginary as it seems. After all, in being reminded of
the worlds I wish to inhabit, it becomes easier to set out
creating them.
Wednesday, January 8, 2020 // The Statement
4B
5B
Wednesday, January 8, 2020 // The Statement
ILLUSTRATION BY JONATHAN WALSH
BY EMILY RUSSELL, STATEMENT COLUMNIST
Redemption
in
dialouge
There is a
profound ache
that comes with
the regret and
anguish of life
paths not taken
and the torture of
wonderment they
stir in us.
PHOTO COURTESY OF EMILY RUSSELL