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Playwriting to Mend—Lynn Lobban
Autobiographers are cautioned not to be overly sentimental when recalling difficult events. Playwrights wishing to tell stories from their life must be true to their tale without forgoing clarity, leanness, or theatricality. Writing her story of childhood sexual abuse wasn’t foremost on actor/playwright Lynn Lobban’s mind. "After a million, zillion years of therapy and survivor’s groups, I still didn’t feel healed. The experience was so big," she said. "I told myself—and it was a bit of magical thinking—that if I found a way to go public with my story, the healing would then be over," Lobban surmised.
But Lobban still couldn’t find the dramatic device to give her story a foundation and then, "All at once, out popped Frank Sinatra" and her play, Quarter to Three, took shape. Quarter to Three centers on Woman, a character who examines her life at different stages, with different actors playing the same character at different ages. WOMAN I’m kind of straight looking, wouldn’t you say? In my late twenties and early thirties, I made a small fortune acting in television commercials partly because I have this Midwestern white—read WASP—look: blond hair, blue eyes, and an earnestness that could sell anything to anybody. In the United States of Advertising, I was the straight girl. And to look at my childhood from the outside, that’s exactly what I was. (And later ... ) WOMAN It’s taken me years to find my voice. That thing we’re all supposed to have that lets us know who we really are. I lost my voice when I was six-years-old. Perhaps the most heart-breaking character is Girl, the young face of Woman. As the audience watches, we see the shattering of her innocence. GIRL I love my daddy. He’s tall and very strong. He picks me up and puts me on his shoulders and carries me around. He walks me into my room and I can see myself in the mirror way high in the air. The primary antagonist is Father, who deceives himself and those around him, refusing to see the destruction in his wake. FATHER It’s cold in this house. I need to go where it is warm. I need to sleep somewhere. My daughter is special. We have a special connection. She reminds me of my mother—God rest her soul. She understands me. I see it in her eyes. I give her special attention because it’s good for her. She gets the worst of it from her mother. We all need love and girls especially need to know that their fathers love them. My father took a strap to me, but I’ve never laid a hand on her. I would never hurt her. I give her everything she wants. She’s going to be a doctor someday. She needs the love. And so do I. The character, Mother, is an alcoholic. Her refusal to see what is happening to her daughter is the greatest betrayal of all. MOTHER Excuse me, I’d like to return this human being. She’s damaged. Damaged Goods. I bought her seven years ago and now she’s not working properly. She doesn’t even look like the original. When I purchased her, she was happier, more joyful, much more fun. She gurgled, she cooed, she smiled. There was a connection in her eyes to something wonderful. You could feel it. It was good to have her around. There is a chorus of other characters that, at various times take on the story, the Brother, the Sister, the Pastor, Her Colored Momma, and even the Stomach. STOMACH It’s that screwed up brain of hers. I don’t ask her for all this food, but she forces it on me with some sick kind of vengeance. I’ll tell you about abuse. After she throws up all the crap, all that food shit into me, then starves me, then throws that shit in me again, she has the nerve to hate me, to despise me for the way I have to stick out. She hates that I’m visible and then she bad-mouths me besides. Intermingled within the play, Woman tells the story through the lyrics of Frank Sinatra hits, including "One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)," "New York, New York," and "Someone to Watch Over Me": songs of sadness and hope. In fact, Frank Sinatra makes an appearance as one of the chorus characters. SINATRA She has every song I ever recorded and loves every one of them. Like I said, the kid has taste. She’s a sad little thing, though. One of the lonely ones. I understand. Like there’s no one around for miles. But there are people here and they go at it. Anyway, this poor little kid, with the big bazooms for a twelve-year-old, I got to tell you, can’t sleep. That’s where I come in. She puts on a stack of me and lies there in the dark playing me for hours. Even after Mr. Sandman finally shows up, I’m still singing.
She hired a director, Elizabeth Browning. The director assembled a cast, including Natalie Barback, Molly Camp, Kristin Stewart Chase, Sarah Keifer, Joy Franz, David Licht, and Lynn Lobban played Woman. The rehearsal process, Lobban said "gave me a chance to see what the play is" and was "touched by the respect and reverence the director and cast gave the material." "The experience of playing the part in front of a paying audience was way better than imagined." The play was well-received by reviewers, but the reactions and conversations with audience members after the play, moved Lobban. "One woman told me, ‘something inside me shifted today.’" The play has helped Lobban’s healing process as much as therapy or survival groups. Now, she must take the difficult next step. "The play didn’t complete the healing. I thought it would. That was the first shock. In the meantime, though, there is this play, that, like a baby, I can’t now abandon. I’ve also learned that, finally, I must step outside the play. Someone else must take my part."
Lynn Lobban is an actor/singer/playwright. She made her Broadway debut in the original production of the Tony-nominated musical, Quilters. Previous to that, she performed in such New York productions as Martin Sherman’s Rio Grande at Playwright’s Horizons and Berkeley Square at Manhattan Theatre Club. For thirty years, Lobban has worked with the composer John Wallowitch. She created cabaret pieces based on his song book: the highly acclaimed Photographs (MAC nomination), The Eyes of Lovers, Frankie & Johnny & Me (Parts I and II), and The Second Time Around. Backstage has written: "Meticulously crafted and performed with consummate artistry, Lynn Lobban’s shows are always very special." She is proud of her appearance in the acclaimed film, This Moment: Wallowitch & Ross, a documentary that celebrates the individual artistic lives of John Wallowitch and the legendary dancer, Bertram Ross, as well as their thirty-six year life partnership. In July 2006, Lobban received her M.F.A. in Playwriting from Goddard College where she worked with Deborah Brevoort, Jacquelyn Reingold, and Sarah Schulman. Lobban’s play, Quarter to Three, had a sold-out a run at the Laurie Beechman Theater at the West Bank Cafe in New York City in early 2007. She has just completed her second play, Bit of a Blow, a look at the absurdities of marriage, sex, and family. On another note, in 1991, Lobban introduced Music Together®, the internationally known early childhood music program to New York, where it has thrived ever since. She tried her hand at songwriting and her songs have become favorites in the Music Together repertoire. Lobban is also the "Mommy" voice on all nine Music Together collections. Lobban is a proud member of Actor’s Equity, Sag, Aftra, The Dramatist’s Guild, and ASCAP. |
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Other
writer/performers, such as Spalding Gray, Julia Sweeney, and Sandra
Tsing Loh, have successfully transformed personal experience into
long-form monologues. Lobban, too, wanted to express herself as an
actor/artist. So she "started writing monologues from different
points of view."
While
there had been readings of Quarter to Three, Lobban decided
to self-produce the play’s first full production for a limited run
in March (2007) at the Laurie Beechman Theater in New York City.