A great story often starts with a journey. An intrepid character sets out to find fortune, fame, or love; however, they almost always learn that their dreams are better left unrealized and long to return home. “Home,” however, isn’t always a location. In fact, “home” is often a loved one or the character’s true self - something that has been there all along, unrealized, and could only be illuminated by a seemingly failed journey. Our play is about the journey home as well.
“Mr. Cane, it would be easier to get Lincoln off the face of Mt. Rushmore than to get home out of the heart of a Southern writer,” Alice says to Billy in Act II. Billy is a writer finding his voice, and it isn’t until he starts writing about home that he finds his most profound timbre and publishing success. Alice is trying to find her way back home, as well, to her estranged child given up for adoption some twenty years ago. Home, when she finds it, won’t be what she expected. Home never is.
We are, hopefully, in the last months of our own harrowing journey home. The pandemic has disrupted our lives, rerouted our careers, and kept us separated from one another. We long for normalcy, crowded gatherings, unmasked faces, and theater without plexiglass. Perhaps, however, we should pause, briefly, and examine who we have become. Because of the sorrow, the change, the uncertainty, normalcy may not feel as “homey” as we expect - especially for those of us most unfortunate to have lost loved ones.
For them, I hope this play is a reminder that there are others in their life making a new place for them to call home, that it’s OK to follow the brightest star even though it may veer from where they came. They call out, and we must listen. “Love, let me lift this veil of darkness. Love, let me see my way back to you.”