My City Was Gone
- lisa Stathoplos
- Mar 8
- 6 min read
Updated: Apr 27
My City Was Gone
My city….. is gone.
I visit. I see ghosts. Streets I walk don’t match the vision in my mind’s eye. Broad vistas blocked by new architecture, buildings in which I strutted and fretted, disappeared or unrecognizable — housing a cyber start-up or another craft beer pub. Some stand forlorn, empty. I’m forlorn, empty. The people I knew, worked with, played with, gone. I’m displaced, lonely, longing for someone, something, familiar. I call out. No echo finds its way back. Lost in time. Lost to time. Lost to the place that once was “mine.”
It’s like the end of that movie about seeing dead people. I don’t belong here anymore.
I’m the one who’s gone.
The ghost is me.
How do you reconcile loss without ownership? How can I claim a thing that was never really “mine”?
Oh, the city is still there, but the place, as an actor, I’ve called “home” for more than forty years is not. I’m an outsider looking in. Certainly the critics, directors, writers and handful of actors with mutual respect for each other who had my back, who knew and appreciated my work and worth, are gone. They seem gone anyway. How do I know? I can’t get a job. Well, not in this city. There’s a twisted irony; it would take a book to explain and it almost makes me laugh. But, long into my seventh decade, it’s much more likely to make me cry.
Did I trust someone I shouldn’t have with a private truth? Are there false rumors? Is it pettiness? No forgiveness? Am I, Goddesses forbid, deemed “difficult?”
If I hear from the twisting twisted “grapevine” that someone, particularly a woman, is “difficult”, I’m intrigued. “Difficult” women are likely interesting, talented, and have rare qualities: authenticity, passion, honesty. Things I revere.
I run into audience members and critics occasionally. They remember me, miss my work. I feel momentarily affirmed.
Oh, hey, look! That brick and stucco building just there, hidden behind that looming and ugly new hotel? Thirty seven years ago a ragtag crew of New York and Maine actors, along with our visionary director, launched an upstart theatre company in that black box space and we took this city by storm. Oh, and see that ancient little Church on the corner of State and Brackett? Fresh out of college, my first professional gig was with another group of New York actors who landed in Maine and decided to stay. They pulled me into their fold. We staged everything from Shakespeare to Mamet to Durang in its intimate inner sanctum.
Ah, dammit. See now, I’m reminiscing.
There are two things I hate talking about: one is acting. The other is acting. Okay. The other is Celiac disease. But, actors on acting put me to sleep.
I’ll get back to “my city” — I’m gonna let “Celiac disease” hang in the air.
Actors on acting. Ugh. I don’t want to talk about “my process” or “my career’ — which is long and lucky — I’d rather chat about what you like to do with your spare time or whether we should go for a bike ride or sled. Unified Field Theory, Krishnamurti’s Think On These Things.
If, to a fruit fly, one day is like ninety years.
When talk show hosts have celebrities on, I’d like to hear about their personal adventures and lives outside the world of the stage or cinema but, invariably, they wax breathless on their latest project and how incredible it was (fill in the amazing or the horrifying here) to work with so-and-so. Bored, I saunter into the kitchen, blithely fill the dish sink, whilst wishing for someone inspiring. Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Marie Curie — that cute kid with the glasses philosophizing on the internet.
I’ve trained as an actor since I was seventeen, had a vibrant career, defined success my way. I never kept up with the latest from Broadway, films, awards — though I’ve garnered a few. Scripts intimidated me — often still do!
At Theatre school I was in thrall to my fellow Theatre majors who seemed tuned in to all things “acting.” I was plain clueless. And awkward. It’s not that I didn’t care — well, unless it was. Deep down. Maybe I saw the perplexing conundrum from the start: you spend years training, developing skills to help you authentically play someone who is not you, and lose the time, opportunity and experience of just being in the world — living life, meeting a wide variety of people, doing a cornucopia of jobs, traveling, having a life outside the theater. Where would I draw from if not all that?
And yet, I diligently studied the greats, the craft, but had a whole other life — a second professional career as well! Turns out, if you don’t stay “dialed in” with the “in” groups, you might become obsolete.
Auditioning is terrifying, wrenching. Humiliating, after a certain point — acutely so in a city that likely knows my work. Nevertheless, and, as much as scripts still bewilder me, if you throw some typed words on a page at me, explain who the character is, sure, I’ll take a whack at it. I can summon something. Something authentic, compelling. Something real.
I love cold reads — pressure’s off. Assuming there’s a director with vision — and that’s a big assumption, it’s a singular gift — the work will be challenging and rewarding.
When I’m given a part, that’s when I dig in like a mad dog. Yeah, I take the work pretty seriously. Homework, research, script analysis, questions, questions, questions will be my mantra from then until show close.
I spent two years studying every book and shred of film on Maria Callas before ever setting foot in a rehearsal for McNally’s Master Class.
Once the final curtain drops, though, all is gone like the wind. I’ll remember no lines and very little of the experience except if it felt successful and collaborative. My love of theatre work is largely because of its ensemble nature. Ensemble has been my driver, my aim, for all these years. The star system leaves me cold. Plus, it’s stupid.The work of making a world come to life means lots of players doing their parts — both in front of audience and behind the scenes. It’s a weird art form; you can’t really do it alone.
Back to “my city.” It never was my city, really, though I worked routinely within its perimeter, formed critically acclaimed companies in it. Now, I have no place in its theatrical world; I am invisible, not wanted, not an “it” property anymore. It’s kind of hard to believe. I didn’t take for granted that I’d get work but, I always got work. It’s difficult to have spent an entire adult life studying, training, working, and teaching in a field and suddenly realize you are not “in the club” anymore.
Well, let’s face it, I was never in the club. My life was separate for many reasons and I kept it that way. I lived elsewhere. I had children, a husband who fished out of a cove far from the city, another career, another life.
Aging guarantees losses in spades. The pile grows high. Loss to death, divorce, loss of friends, lovers, students, work life, loss of purpose, meaning, connection. Each new loss tossed into our burgeoning rucksack of memory pushing us to busting. We lurch about lugging precious, invisible cargo.
I didn’t know what I “wanted to be when I grew up.” College was a mandate my parents instilled in me from a very young age and I worked summers from that young age solely to that end. But, what for? When I finally arrived at university at eighteen years, uncomfortable in my body, searching blindly in my soul, and longing for love and acceptance outside my stable home, the only thing I knew to do was act. “Act’ as in the theatre — the stage — the one place I could hide problematic “me” inside someone else’s skin. I discovered I have some skin in this game. I’m pretty good at it. Everywhere I went, from Maine to Berlin, casting directors, critics, audiences, noticed. Like I said, I’ve been lucky.
And now I’m talking about acting.
But, I did think it would last. Such an unwelcome surprise, my own ghost, preceding my death, haunting me. Reminding me of all that is no more. Making me miss the city I thought would forever be “mine.”
My City Was Gone, The Pretenders
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