• Is there in stillbirth, no humor?
A recurring comment from the many people who came up to Toni and I following Friday's performance was how much they appreciated the use of humor in the play. Now, I know there are funny moments, but I had forgotten how many of them I intended to actually be funny, like expecting laughter, because quite often there is no laughter and I have just come to accept that.
Except for Friday, when there was a lot of laughter. In fact, I was was in such harmony with the audience, things that never got laughed at, ever, were being received with that kind of knowledgeable laughter that can only come from what you might call a survivor.
"My wife does not consent to this examination," in the second Nurse Evil scene is usually the set-up for the admission, that," No, I didn't say that," which gets the laughs from the medical practitioners. The bereaved parents thought the first sentence, and how I delivered it was hilarious, and the follow-up only funnier still.
• Misunderstandings
1. The first nurse, the one who comes in doing everything and throwing a lot of questions our way is the best nurse in the world. She had the odious task of being "first contact" and having her whisk around the room only illustrates the state of confusion we were put into by her arrival.
He took care of us for an entire shift. She sat. She was quiet. She listened. She made it possible for us to make it through.
2. They whisked the boy away the moment he was born because we asked him to, it was not a thoughtless act on their part. They warned us he would be in sad shape (he had been dead for almost two weeks) and that, though we could hold him right after birth, it would be very upsetting. They offered to clean him up first, and we agreed. Some people gasp when I say what happens, as though it were thoughtless, and there was thought in it.
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