Gemma @ 'Blindness' - Unprepared For the Emotions

What’s it about?

BLINDNESS is a socially distant, auditory and visual experience based on the novel of the same name by José Saramago, adapted by Simon Stephens (hello, Tony Award®-winning playwright!) and narrated by Juliet Stevenson.

While driving in a European city, the driver suddenly, inexplicably goes blind. But it soon becomes clear that he is not the only one, and that this blindness is a dangerous, highly contagious epidemic. In a futile effort to slow the spread, the government quarantines the infected from the rest of the population by housing them in an empty asylum.

My Experience.

I’ll just say it. I haven’t felt like writing. For the past year and a half, what used to bring me joy and comfort has loomed over me like a nasty chore. I blame COVID-19. While my loved ones and I have luckily remained healthy and employed throughout, this seemingly neverending chapter in history has taken an emotional and psychological toll on me. It’s been especially brutal not having live theatre as available to me as it’s always been.

However, today, while lazing around my apartment, mindlessly scrolling, and just overall feeling sorry for myself, something hit me. I didn’t want to let this life-changing experience get too far behind me. So here goes. On April 23rd, 2021, my friend Amanda and I set out to see BLINDNESS, our first major theatrical event in over a year of no live indoor entertainment.

Now for some context. In a major way, The Daryl Roth is responsible for changing everything I thought I knew about theatre. My Godawful first boyfriend, who shall remain nameless (I call him Fuckface), actually first brought me here to experience Fuerza Bruta. And what an experience it was! At barely 19, I had only seen shows where the audience remained passive and seated in a dark theatre while facing the stage. But this show was something else. No seats, just walking around the whole time and looking straight up at the spectacle above me. I never even knew experiences like that fell under the theatre umbrella. Fuerza Bruta was the pivotal experience that got me to seek out theatre that would surprise me, particularly immersive material.

Over the years, I returned to this space many times, most recently to experience Accidentally Brave, a touching one-woman show where I even spotted Ms. Carrie Bradshaw herself, Sarah Jessica Parker, in the audience!

So as Amanda and I waited in a socially distanced line to enter The Daryl Roth Theatre, there was a tightness in my throat. How many nights had I waited in line to enter this venue and totally taken it for granted that I’d always be able to do so? This life was so unreal, so dystopian. Amanda and I had just met in Union Square Park to scarf down our Panera Bread because we didn’t want to risk indoor dining, and now we were filling out COVID safety forms online to take our seats.

The space was surprisingly bare, all one level, with pairs of folding chairs placed six feet apart as far as the eye could see. Amanda and I grabbed our specially reserved ones. We wore noise-canceling headphones the entire time, and for most of the show’s 70-minutes-without-intermission, we were in complete or near-complete darkness, which made it all the easier to focus on the story.

Sometimes the plot hit too close to home. Pre-pandemic, I think it would have felt more far-fetched. An inexplicable epidemic of blindness?! Come on. However, in this new reality, nothing was impossible anymore, but in the worst way. Some moments made the hair on my neck stand on end, when it sounded like something, or someone was directly behind me, or even breathing in my ear. These moments were made all the more unsettling by the fact that I was in pitch-black darkness. And I’d flinch every time neon lights would flash on and lower from the ceiling. I could see why the ushers provided us with flashlights to shine upwards if things ever got to be too much and we wanted to leave.

I was sitting so stiffly in my seat, and part of me wanted to hold Amanda’s hand to get through it. The subject matter was far from light. There was lots of death, abuse of power, and fear. And then, without warning, the blindness epidemic miraculously vanished and light flooded the space. I turned to my right to see the theatre’s side doors wide open, and color and sound and not-so-nice smells assaulted my senses. It was a world that seemed so much more hopeful and alive than the one I had immersed myself in for the last 70 minutes. Tears squeezed their way out against my will, and it occurred to me just how long I had been holding them in. People walking by on the New York City streets stopped and stared at us in confusion. We must have looked like a bizarrely spaced-out, masked cult, sitting in darkness like that. But I was just so emotional and relieved to be experiencing some form of live theatre again that I didn’t care.

BLINDNESS is a painfully apt metaphor for coming out of dark times a stronger and more resilient people. I can only hope that we’ll get there.

See it?

BLINDNESS played its final performance Off-Broadway at The Daryl Roth Theatre on July 25th, 2021.