It was my final year at school at the National School of the Arts in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, and one of my drama teachers was assigning each of us a couple of plays to sift through to decide which three we would choose as our final performance pieces. I took them all home and spent the next two days deciding which resonated with me most.
Amongst the plays was Spoonface Steinberg by Lee Hall. It was first released as a radio broadcasting in the 90s, which touched its listeners so deeply that it was repeated and then sold as an audiocassette. Soon after came the stage adaptations and then even a television adaptation. I suppose what makes it so popular is that it centers around a universal question - what is the meaning of it all?
I was 18 and thinking, wondering and exploring. I was overwhelmed with a feeling, which to a great extent has never left me. What was the meaning of it all? Was there any meaning at all. What was the point. There is no meaning. Not really. Or is there?
I'd never heard of Spoonface before but settled in and began reading.
Spoonface Steinberg is a monologue which centers around a 7 / 8 year old Jewish autistic girl dying from cancer. She is so taken by opera singer, Maria Callas. If you don't know her music, perhaps you've heard of Madame Butterfly? That's Maria Callas.
I had grown up, with what I felt then was a misfortune, with opera and classical music blaring so loudly that our neighbours could hear it. So.. I understood Spoonface's preoccupied interest in Maria Callas. I read on.
Spoonface becomes fascinated with the stage divas and their extraordinary stage deaths. She begins to ponder on the meaning of life and death and what results is a series of highs and lows, lapsing between her own world and struggles and the wider universal problems and its associated pain.
Every time I read it or spend enough time thinking about Spoonface, I cry. Not only because it's centered around the question: "why on earth do we live in a world where an innocent girl of that age has to endure this"... but more so because of what Spoonface taught me. She takes us on a journey through daily issues in life, from the trivial, to such depths of emotion, joy and pain. Feeling empathy for her is an understatement. The tears were for her, for myself, and for every bit of pain that exists in the world, every atrocity committed against mankind, animals and nature, every unfairness. Why why why did the world have to endure so much pain?
I was so overwhelmed. Could I do it. Could I take on what I viewed as the enormous task of doing Spoonface Steinberg justice?
I handed the script back to Mrs Hardy the next day. I watched it find its way into the hands of another girl and my heart dropped.
I had to do it. It was so important to me and if I'd lost her because of my own lack of self-worth I would be devastated.
Because that's what theatre is. It's connecting with your character on such a level and portraying them with as much integrity as possible. It's about integrity in every tiny movement, sound, gesture, psyche and piecing together each tiny part to form a whole that is true to that character.
After so many years of struggling to put it into words, I read a quote somewhere that likened dramatic art to geometry. The relative arrangements of the parts of something. You need to meticulously ensure each part makes sense and fits. Psychologically, emotionally, mentally and the stage itself. Each tiny relative part to build into an integrated whole.
So I did Spoonface. I sifted through her pain which became my own, I cried and rose with her and fell with her and rose with her again. Because that's what Spoonface did. In the face of certain death, a life cut short, the depths of her beauty, her essence... is mind blowing, utterly painful and beautiful.
Spoonface describes how she came to learn of different ways of praying. The first she describes as just getting up and saying things. The second is going to a synagogue and praying with other people. And finally, the third way, she describes as everything you do being a prayer. That you have to do everything the best way you can as everything is a prayer straight to god. When you smile, when you walk, when you kiss someone, when you dance, what you do when you meet other people- everything is a prayer. Irrespective of whether people are religious or not, whether they're human or a lama or even a tiny little insect.
She links this kind of prayer to when the world was made and how, when god made the world, he made it out of magic sparks. And all the magic sparks went deep down into things, so very deep, that today the whole point of being is to find the magic sparks deep within yourself and within everything else. Irrespective of the pain and devastation around us, you need to find the magic sparks. And once you've found them, set them free.
Spoonface has her answer to the age old question - "what is the meaning of it all". Most of the time I still struggle with what it all means. However, one constant that I am able to draw from beautiful little Spoonface, time and again, is that I don't feel so alone in my questions.