The Little Flower of East Orange

Stephen Adly Guirgis writes with an emotional intensity that bursts forth in anger, sorrow and biting humor. Well-known for his work Jesus Hopped the A Train, Gurgis' characters alternately cover themselves with street-harsh words and reveal their desperate agony to create a roller-coaster ride that is often loud and cathartic.

In The Little Flower of East Orange, a co-production by the LAByrinth Theater Company and the Public Theater, where the show is staged, Guirgis presents the relationship between an addicted son and his passive-aggressive, partially paralyzed and suicidal mother. Under the direction of LAB co-artistic director Philip Seymour Hoffman, Michael Shannon plays Danny, who narrates Little Flower as a series of flashbacks as he sits in jail after another relapse. When his mother goes missing, Shannon's Danny, alternately loving and bitter, abandons rehab with his perpetually high companion (played by Gillian Jacobs), to reunite with his mother.

Danny and his sister Justina, ably portrayed by Elizabeth Canavan who calls herself "the cold bitchy hysterical one who is also known as the only one who gets things done," find Therese Marie in a Bronx hospital after she tries to roll herself off a cliff in the Cloisters one night. While begging for scotch to ease her pain, Therese fakes amnesia so as not to bring her children to her bedside, wishing she were dead, or hoping to drink herself to death. When they finally find her, Justina panics at the thought her mother has died, but then screams what a bitch Therese is for trying to kill herself the one night Justina couldn't look after her. All three play the martyr to each other, all three jostling for the title of Greatest Victim, all seeking redemption from their anguished and co-dependent existence.

While never fully explored or explained, demons haunt mother, son and daughter all of whom feel they haven't measured up somehow - and never will. Their psychic turmoil throws them into strained interactions indicating undying love and utter misunderstanding. Danny taunts his mother in their final scene together, ultimately forcing her to admit that her deaf father's abuse caused her paralysis, but never revealing the causes of his own self-abuse.

From the vantage point of his jail cell from which he tells the story, Danny finds, at the end, his beginning and states, "let the state of incarceration do for me what I could not do for myself." And in this dead-end, where he cannot choose to leave like he did time and again when in rehab, and now after his mother's death finally sees "there is no precipice, no stopping point, no deluxe accommodations for martyrs. The only thing that stops you is death. Grace does not reveal itself to anyone who isn't looking for it...Grace is like the next breadth, it's always there."

Grace offers them acceptance - of themselves, of the ones they love, of the ones who have beat them down. It's theirs to accept, or go to their graves denying.

Recycling in the Pink

Did you know you can take your old running shoes (or any soft-soled sneaker by any brand) to your local Nike Town store and they will use it to create athletic surfaces like tracks and basketball courts and children's playgrounds? You can learn more on their Let Me Play Reuse A Shoe website.

Or that Clif Bar, based in Berkeley, CA, has partnered with TerraCycle to reuse its energy bar wrappers? Their joint initiative, called the Wrapper Brigade, is one of many that TerraCylce has created to reuse recyclable materials and, in the process, donate to charities.

Here's how it works:

Charities go to www.terracycle.net/brigades and apply to become one of the recipient organizations. Once approved, the charity receives collection bags that, once filled and returned to terracycle free of charge, receive .02 for each item recycled. In addition to collecting Clif Bar wrappers, TerraCycle collects Capri Sun and Kool Aid drink pouches, 20oz plastic soda bottles and Stonyfield Farm yogurt containers, among others.

See this video of Soyeon Lee, pianist, wearing a dress fashioned by TerraCycle. She performed in the recycled pink pouch dress at Carnegie Hall on 19 February in what her site calls an Eco Concert.



TerraCycle has limited the number of collection sites it will partner with, but the good news is that some of the companies gladly accept their used containers...like Stonyfield and Brown Cow who's number-5 containers are not recyclable by most municipalities.

Unfortunately, the organic yogurt makers, Clif, Capri Sun, TerraCycle and all the others promoting reuse are still only offering an in-between solution to the issue of using plastic, petroleum and other eco-unfriendly resources to service our food needs (mine included...I love my energy bars and handy yogurt servings). In Clif Bar's newsletter, they noted this less-than-ideal solution as well:

"We're not psyched about the fact that our wrappers end up in the garbage. We've been working hard to come up with a more sustainable solution; since we haven't found the answer just yet, we've partnered with TerraCycle to launch the Energy Bar Wrapper Brigade. Get this: TerraCycle will convert all of the energy bar wrappers they receive into handy accessories and will donate two cents for every wrapper to the charity of your choice. Sign up for free and become a shepherd for the program."

Related to this, I came across a great blog called Fake Plastic Fish by a woman named Beth Terry based in Oakland, CA that tackles this and other sustainability issues. I am impressed by her knowledge and dedication. And my friends think I'm an eco-nutso. Go, woman! Fake Plastic Fish, "They're cute, and if we don't solve our plastic problem, they could be the only kind we have left."