At the end of September, Cathy, Cousin Robert, his wife Amy, and I drove to Lenox to see Donald Margulies’ “Lunar Eclipse” at Shakespeare & Company. We were drawn to the play because Amy’s friend, actress and director Karen Allen, was starring in this, the play’s world premiere. We spent a wonderful hour with Karen following her stunning performance. She had a calm, gentle presence that was exciting and engaging. Her enthusiasm for her life – in and out of theatre and movies – was infectious. (I first noticed her as Marion, Indiana Jones’ lifelong love.) She shared that she was taken with “Lunar Eclipse” in part because of her love for Margulies’ 1998 play “Collected Stories” which she had long wanted to bring to the stage. Like “Lunar Eclipse” (which I loved), “Collected Stories” is a two-character play. “Lunar” features the conversation between two long-married people as they watch the moon slowly go into and come out of shadow. The two characters of “Collected Stories” are a young would-be writer and her much-older teacher and mentor.
On the strength of Karen’s enthusiasm and my deep appreciation for both the language and dramatics of Margulies’ newest play, I read his older one. It was easy reading; crisp dialog, two interesting women, and a fascinating and evolving relationship between them. Lisa, the young budding writer was learning her craft, finding her voice, insecure and uncertain in the beginning, then increasingly at home in her art and in herself. Ruth is a crusty experienced writer and teacher, past her prime in some ways, but insightful in her critique of Lisa’s words and ways, and, as the play progresses, reveals herself and shares generously. As Lisa grows, the relationship at first grows, then falters as Lisa’s upward trajectory meets Ruth’s decline. Tension between the two erupts in the final dramatic and painful scenes; tensions, pain, and questions left unresolved at the final curtain.
I can see why, as an actress and director, Karen would be drawn to the beautiful prose and challenging story. I was drawn by Lisa’s search for her voice and footing. I saw myself in her searching. I’m happy that she and I moved from searching to experimenting and finding.
More disquieting was Margulies’ treatment of who owns your narrative as you reveal yourself, as you tell your story. Others can steal it, reshape it, distort it, expose pieces of you that you might prefer to hide or that you didn’t know were there. And readers will bring to your words their own needs, prejudices, and preoccupations, perhaps – inevitably even – reading in something you hadn’t written. Your voice and narrative are an invitation to the reader’s narration, to their voices.
As a writer, I cross a boundary as I move from writing to being read, and I’ve struggled at that crossroads. Anything I publish will take on a life of its own.
I recall being at a similar crossroads as I was deciding whether to run for office. I had confidence in my ability to tell my story. But I also knew that once told, it would look different in the retelling. I knew not everyone would like it. Or like me. I had to learn to accept that. And I certainly knew that different eyes and ears would see and hear me in ways that say more about them than about me.
A true story. In October 2019, 10 months after I had left the Massachusetts legislature, I agreed to a press interview on the subject of the House’s well-known and well-deserved reputation for its top-down, follow-the-leader brand of domination in place of democratic debate. Six years earlier in 2013, the House, after years of delay, was poised to act on a comprehensive transportation finance bill to deal with decades of deferred maintenance and a backlog of needed repairs to the state’s roads, bridges, and public transit. Numerous studies pointed to the need for major investments over several years and, as chair of the House’s Revenue (aka tax) Committee, I had a great deal to say about (and a great deal of responsibility for) how we might raise the needed dollars. But, true to form, the Speaker, Robert DeLeo, neither invited me to planning meetings nor responded to my requests for a seat at the table. When a bill finally emerged from behind closed doors, we were told the bill would be debated that day. (This, too, was true to the pattern of discouraging thoughtful engagement by House members.) I found the bill woefully inadequate and deeply flawed. In fact, I thought of it as a piece of junk and a serious abrogation of our responsibility. I felt that I couldn’t, in good conscience, simply go along to get along, as was expected of me.
Before heading out of my office for what, to use a term of art, can only be described as a courageous conversation with the Speaker, I met with my staff, asked their thoughts on the bill and on what I should do. I warned them that I would likely be rewarded for expressing my anger and opinion with being fired as committee chair, and this, in turn, would affect their jobs. They encouraged me to just follow my conscience. With their blessing, I left my office to speak truth to power.
And this I did. I calmly but clearly expressed my serious reservations with the bill and my deep disappointment with being frozen out of its development. The Speaker, as I had anticipated, told me he couldn’t have me as part of his leadership team if I didn’t vote for the bill as it stood. In saying this, he was simply affirming what he and I knew to be one of the rules of engagement. I told him I understood this but, in truth, didn’t feel part of his leadership team. My advice was rarely sought and almost never heeded, even in matters before my committee. To his credit, the Speaker said he understood my anger and acknowledged that he had failed to honor my desire to contribute and to meet the responsibilities he had given me. He pledged to do better, renewing his part of our “contract” - empowering me to do my job in exchange for my diligence and judgment. Bob and I shook hands as I left his office. I felt no better about the bill, was by no means certain that he’d live up to his pledge, but was still the chairman and felt that at least that we had set the stage for a better working relationship for the years ahead.
Yes, but in 2019, writing about what I had reported as a frank adult conversation of some six years earlier, the Commonwealth Magazine reporter, Andy Metzger (known to be a “gotcha” kind of journalist), said the Speaker had threatened me. To be clear, there had been no threat, just the acknowledgement of the reality both the Speaker and I knew and understood. Andy interpreted what I had said and asserted that I had been threatened. He then asked the Speaker for his reaction to my having said I had been threatened which, again, I had not said and, indeed, did not feel to be true at all. The Speaker reacted by calling me a liar; not that I had lied, but that I was a liar. Sadly, words put into my mouth resulted in a rupture of, if not a friendship, then at least a longstanding partnership. My attempts to square this away with the since-retired Speaker have resulted in four years of unanswered notes, emails, and phone calls. My hope for some acknowledgment if not apology from Andy or his editor were similarly unrewarded. An occupational hazard.
Writers, too, have to accept that their readers become the authors of their experience of the writer’s work. I have to accept, maybe even welcome, this dynamic between writer and reader.
So, back to “Collected Stories.” In the play, Lisa writes a novel based on things she learned from private conversations with her mentor and friend Ruth, including intimate details about Ruth’s life. Lisa didn’t ask permission to write and publish this story, nor did she give Ruth advance notice. This, as the play is ending, leads to a confrontation and a ruptured relationship, not to mention Ruth’s anger, pain of misplaced trust, and deep feeling of having been abused and exposed. I suppose that’s why I didn’t love the play. I didn’t get the happy ending I wanted. Ruth didn’t get the satisfaction of having encouraged, empowered, and guided a budding young writer as her art and her standing grew. But if I didn’t get what I wanted (Ruth acknowledged, respected, and rewarded), perhaps I got what I needed. Unlike Lisa, I’m a much older writer, but still new to publishing. And “Collected Stories” reminded me that, as a politician, I had come to know confrontation, difficult relationships, disappointments, being misunderstood, and loss. But I also came to know victories, successes, opportunities to grow, to serve, and to contribute. An even trade I made and would make again. Indeed, a trade I make now as a writer.
So, Lisa and Ruth, I hear your pain. Donald Margulies, thank you. My eyes are open wider for having read “Collected Stories.” Sadder but wiser, I’ll move on to write my stories, the risk of being misunderstood, mistreated, or ignored notwithstanding.
Thoughtful and serious writing about the relationships between what we say and what people hear (or want to hear), how discourse can be twisted and distorted, and the literal and the reality.