Since far too often we only publicly say nice things about people when they are dead I’ve decided to randomly pick a Facebook friend every day and say something nice about them.
June 16, 2019
Today’s person: Rebecca Klingler!
Rebecca Klingler once gave me a pie cookbook. That’s how well she saw into my soul.
People like to say that change is good. There are posters and t-shirts - it’s like a saying. I would say that change is not, by definition, good. It is inevitable, but that does not mean it’s good, because what if you are, say, in the peak of cool neatness? Change would be bad.
There are points in time when so many things seems right that I want to freeze and keep them, and Rebecca’s time at the Mime Troupe was one of those times. It was so much fun acting with her, touring with her, watching her create some utterly bizarre and amazing characters. And as a comrade in the Collective she was always thoughtful and considerate when so many veteran Troupers were still struggling to free themselves from the time when Collective when meetings were more like Thunderdome death matches. Rebecca brought a calm honesty to the meetings, while still bringing a passionate political determination. She was a combination of the young innocent, the wide-eyed idealist, the steel-ribbed revolutionary, the voluptuous hedonist, the hilarious clown, the brain-on-a-stick intellectual, the pie baking earth mother, and the wise elder all at once. But after years of working with her I’d just gotten so used to her wonderful presence that I was stuck in disbelief when she said she was leaving to pursue the big and small screens.
Yes, she’s gone on to do very cool things - movies, tv, her own web series (“The Calamities of Jane”), so for her change worked out just fine. And I’ve done stuff since her those days with the Troupe that I would not exchange, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some things I wish could have stayed exactly as were were, and a part of my life.
And working with the wacky but focused whirlwind pie-whisperer Rebecca Klingler is one of them.