Steppenwolf Theatre Company Blog – Chicago Theater, World-Class Ensemble

I’ve spent my life loving addicts. I’ve hopelessly and helplessly yearned for love from alcoholics, potheads, crack addicts, people addicted to morphine, uppers, downers, cigarettes, coffee, aspirin, other women, the list goes on and on. You name the addiction and I’ve probably tried to be the one to make a difference in their life. So, it’s no surprise that I’ve struggled with addiction myself. I’ve even been proud of the fact that my addictions are relatively harmless compared to most. And so the cycle continues.

I’ve loved a couple of recovering or recovered addicts as well. My grandfather struggled with alcohol and drug addiction upon returning from WWII. When my mother fell ill as a child, he turned to religion for help and managed to quit drinking, smoking and doing drugs. What I learned from him, and a lesson I seem destined to learn over and over again, is that even if the addict isn’t practicing their addiction, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they won’t exhibit addict behavior. My grandfather continued to struggle with his anger, his abusiveness, his tremendous sadness. If you don’t deal with the underlying reasons for your addiction, it’s almost impossible to live a fulfilling life, with or without the substances.

I was surprised to learn that one of the post show topics for Dublin Carol was whether or not Mary came back at 5:00 to collect her father. I was told the audience was usually split down the middle on this issue. Everyone’s experiences are different, of course, but as someone with a history of loving addicts (familial and otherwise) I have to say: we always come back.

In fact, a lot of you grabbed me after the show to say “well, I’m an optimist. I think she comes back. This confrontation between them HAS to result in a better relationship.” I never knew how to respond. On the surface, and for Mary, I hoped that was true. But I’m just not sure that IS the optimistic view. Experience tells me that a reconnection with him will result in years of new hurts: his silence, his continuing struggles with addiction, his preference of his son, his unavailability, his selfishness, his deep sadness, his feelings of inadequacy, his inability to be held accountable for his actions.

But I do think Mary returned. And maybe that means I’m a pessimist. I think we always return. Some of us become addicted to loving people who are unavailable.

My experience working on this play was remarkable. I will be forever grateful to the Steppenwolf, its artistic and technical staff, the incomparable Amy Morton, and my fabulous cohorts Billy and Stephen for all of the love and hard work that went into bringing this play to you. It was an important topic for me. And its always terribly hard to say good-bye.

This entry was posted by Nicole Wiesner on Wednesday, January 7th, 2009 at 3:46 pm and is filed under Dublin Carol. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.