"Doris" was my first solo work. Its style was born of necessity and fear. At the time I was performing in "Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind" and was finding my footing while performing in short plays written by me and my other castmates. The notion of presenting a series of solo performances under the umbrella title, "Neo Mondo Solo" was floated about. I thought, "I could do a solo show," and then actually said aloud, "I could do a solo show." This would have been sometime during the autumn of 1995. I had no idea what kind of show I wanted to do. I did know one thing and that was that I didn't want it necessarily to be about me.
Here's why.
In the late 1980's, Chicago was a veritable hotbed of solo performance of the especially naval gazing kind. I'd moved to Chicago at the shank of the 80's for the performance scene. It looked like it might be around for a while and looked like something I could sink my teeth into. And, here I was sinking my teeth in but didn't want to write yet another naval gazing show where I'd blame all my adult failures on my parent's inability to raise children adequately.
So. It was getting down to the wire. Dates had been decided. The "Neo Mondo Solo" festival would open on March 15, 1996 with Todd Alcott performing "Living in Flames." The day before, I'd turn 35. The festival would continue with Anita Loomis performing her show, "Female Deviations: autobiographies of desire," opening on Tax Day. I would close the festival with my as yet untitled show on the 3rd of May.
I had no idea what I was going to write about at all until I recalled reading Studs Terkel's "Working." I'd first read it when I was about 12 years old. I really only recalled one specific interview from it, that of Grace Clements who worked as a felter in a luggage factory. I recalled how she described heaving large pieces of wet felt and how she lost most of her hearing and described how she couldn't hear the telephone ringing in the house if she was in her back yard. The memory of it came welling up and I thought, "I think I have an idea."
I decided that I'd tell someone else's story. I'd interview them and reveal their history for a paying audience. At the time, I was working for The Unabridged bookstore and there was a woman who came in semi-regularly who I thought could be a very interesting person to interview. Her name was Estelle Sugar and I thought, "She looks so danged interesting and I could call the show 'The Estelle Sugar Show.' That'd be great!" I only had to get up the nerve to ask Estelle if she'd be interested in being interviewed for a few weeks and having her life turned into a show.
And, so, I screwed my courage to the sticking post one day and approached Estelle as she was sitting down to coffee in a nearby diner.
"Hello. You don't know me. But, I'm working on this show I'm supposed to be doing in the spring and I'm hoping to interview someone who would be willing to tell me their life story. It'd be like a biography for the stage..." Estelle looked at me and curtly said, "No. Not interested."
I spent the next several weeks wondering who I might find who might be interested in sharing their story. I decided to call a retirement community near the bookstore. I asked the activities director if there was anyone he thought might be interested in helping out with my project. Turns out, he most certainly did. And that's how I met Doris. 93 years old and the widow of a minister. Smart. Opinionated. Funny. We hit it off and I spent many an afternoon listening to Doris describe her life from her childhood in Maine to her eventual move to Chicago.
Here are some of the things that Doris said.