lost voice

[Guest guest]

I was a Speech and Drama major and sang with a professional

choir for 3 years in the Philippines. I didn't graduate there. I never

learned how to read music, but I could hold a tune. Anyway...I

was ALWAYS interested in theatre, it was my first love, it was a

passion, but it got scraped out of me.

HOWEVER.......and this part comes along almost flowingly by

now........nada interfered with rehearsals when I was a kid,

always having a power struggle with the director, always refusing

to buy the costume materials. Always refusing the cooperate and

finally sabotaging the performance. Every single time I ever had

to go on the stage, it was like going through a ring of fire to get to

the other side.

It spoiled it for me, it really did. When I was a freshman in

college, I was asked to be the mother in the Glass Menagerie. It

was the final project for a senior in Speech and Drama and I

knew and liked the director a lot. Well....at that time, nada and

fada were going through their most extreme and hysterical

morph. They had separated (again) and were yelling annulment

(no divorce in the Philippines) and nada had left town but not

before kidnapping the younger two kids....leaving us with a batty

father who was about to elope with the maid!

anyway, in this painful painful time, which also included the

house getting repossessed by a government agency (croooked

Marcos govt'), we were supposed to go out and get good grades.

Nada had a spectacular witch fit on the eve of the performance,

basically forbidding us to go. My sister who died was the

daughter in this play and so both of us were in the frying pan.

Nada carried on screaming, " You love your father more than

MEEEEEE!!!!!!! " screeching and keening away. Well, did she

SEEM lovable at all at that moment? She brought down HUGE

threats, but we had already been through so much.

I would like to think that I stood up to her, and I cannot remember

how it resolved, but we were up on the stage in the play with

HORRIBLE nada in the audience. Totally blacked out how I

persuaded her, or she ran out of steam. HORRIBLE memory.

The director of the play was very pitiful in having most of her cast

getting pulled. I cannot remember the name or face of the man

in the play. The director went on to be a very talented person, but

she died in an earthquake in 1990 in that town.

I remember feeling bad when I heard of her death.

Later, I had to write and produce a play....so I tried and totally

bombed. It was a ghost story and everyone laughed...like a

comedy. I was very embarrassed, but my emotional load was so

huge. I started not to care about something I really cared about.

At the same time, I had my first romance, and because of the

family situation I became so needy, so needy, spending hours

crying in front of him. Well...you can imagine that the breakup

came soon after that, leaving me completely emotionally

devastated.

Yep, what should have been a happy go lucky 17th year was just

a pit of horror and despair.

This all comes up because my 17 year old is in a local theatre

production and this is how it goes. We take her to rehearsal, and

pick her up when she is done. Period. We will all be there to

watch the show and go through this grueling last week of

rehearsals every night. She has a big rehearsal on Mother's Day

and she came to me, " Oh Mommy, is it OK? " I said, " Of

course...I'm not your grandmother. "

I really am happy she has these theatrical opportunities. Looking

at how I feel about her, all pride and support, I am angry all over

again for my lost opportunities and the emotional abuse nada

heaped on my during her final year as Queen Witch. The

following year she left for the States, leaving us to be molested,

and she rarely has pulled out the whip and the crown....however,

she has perfected the Waif.

Kathleen