Role-playing an Energy Vampire

Transforming painful anger into joyous laughter was exactly what I set out to do when I wrote the play, Bloody Day at Brawley, a political satire on the greed of LADWP (Los Angeles Department of Water and Power), apathy, community strength, and the on-going steal of Eastern Sierra water.

The villain of my play was loosely based on the antics of our new neighbor, known as the Onceler (think of the villain from The Lorax by Dr. Seuss) who bought the house next door on our little cul de sac of ten homes that ends at the John Muir Wilderness in the Fall of 2019.  I had just discovered the Keep Long Valley Green (KLVG) mission to negotiate with LADWP on preserving our local waters and had returned from a pilgrimage to my ancestral lands of Catalunya when the Onceler moved in.

I joined the KLVG team and launched their newsletter, Every Last Drop: Exposés on the L.A. Eastern Sierra Water Wars. After a year of interviewing and writing, I was filled with bitter anger at the unfairness, bullying, and ignorance regarding the devasting impact of water loss for the Indigenous people of the Eastern Sierra, the toxic air created through the desiccation of Mono and Owens Lakes, loss of native habitat for flora and fauna, increased fire danger for the Eastern Sierra, and lack of effective mitigation. I was sick with anger that Angelinos use seventy percent of this stolen water for their landscaping.

Meanwhile, I watched our neighbor raze half an acre of native vegetation, tear out huge pine trees, attempt to build a rock wall on our property, and pollute the stream with exquisite arrogance. I became enraged at the waste of so much water in his construction during a drought, even as other neighbors said that the Onceler wasn’t doing anything illegal, just immoral. Then my friend suggested that I “off the guy by writing the next murder mystery dinner play” for the Sierra Classic Theatre.

Bloody brilliant.

Now in its 23rd year the Sierra Classic Theatre’s murder mystery dinners are performed at local restaurants. Guests are served dinner, the show goes on, and someone dies at the end of the first act. Like the game Clue, the audience tries to guess the murderer and their motive. During intermission, the actors, while still in character, mingle with the guests and answer their questions. The killer is revealed at the end of act two. After the final bow, prizes are awarded for correct and creative answers.

I channeled my fury into writing a comedic play with a message. I changed the Onceler’s home to Lotusville, a nickname for LA since 1930s which originated from Homer’s Odyssey and refers to people who eat lotus flowers which makes them forget their purpose in life, completely disregarding their roles and forging a path only to please only themselves.

Bloody Day at Brawley is also about the strength in community and features five neighbors, characters based on iconic personalities in our little town in the shadow of the mighty Mammoth Mountain Ski Resort. In the play, I took equal shots at everyone, including the witchy herbalist character, based on yours truly, by having her breathe into a paper bag every time she became too enraged at others’ ignorance. I made comments on the poor quality of food at Tom’s Place, our only restaurant in Crowley Lake, trusting that Michelle, the owner, would know that I was coming from love and satire. Then as an insurance policy, I asked Michelle to be the killer in the first two performances, so she, too, could let off steam about the egotism and entitlement of Lotusville folks. Nobody guessed her and everyone roared with laughter at the inside jokes, saying it was one of the best shows they had ever seen.

The audience felt the community spirit so strong, each night at the end of the play, they spontaneously broke into a call and response to the cowboy, Piñon Pines, repeated idiom on why you take care of your neighbors,

“Cuz that’s what you goddamn DO!”

I played Dull Holland, the wife of Bull Holland (the Onceler), whose grandfather Mull Holland build the Lotusville aqueduct. In 1906, William Mulholland built the first of two aqueducts that divert snowmelt in the Eastern Sierra into the aqueduct and carry it 336 miles to Los Angeles. Dull literally represents the kind of person who frustrates me the most – cavalier, brutal, narcissistic. When I wrote Dull’s character, I believed she knew exactly what she is doing. She plays a fool, but she is not. Here’s Dull’s bio that I wrote for the program.

I am Dull and marrying up is my claim to fame. I went to college only to get my MRS. My first husband was a stock broker. Second was a lawyer. Bull is my third sugar daddy - if he wasn’t so old and short, I’d say he’s the best because he’s the richest. I throw lavish parties and only wear designer clothes. Sadly, I haven’t had a party in weeks because my idiot, I mean my “lovely” husband Bull bought this dump in Brawley Lake. Can’t see how he’s going to turn this dirt pile into a mansion suitable for a woman of my standing. My chihuahuas Fifi and Fluffy are my only true joys in this world, until they get die, then I’ll just replace them.

Yet, it felt like I was missing something to address Dull two-dimensionally. Now that I would step into the role of energy vampire, I wanted to give her depth or meaning for her cruelty, but the director didn’t want the audience to like Dull.

So, I asked Sherry Glaser. an activist, playwright and performer best known for her six-year Broadway run of a one-woman show called Family Secrets, how could I learn more about this character Dull. Sherry prompted me to give Dull authentic, relatable motives, even as I made the audience hate her. Make her a person.

I became Dull when my friend Tarah gave me gel extensions on my fingernails and painted them blood red. Toes to match would poke out of stilettos that I had to learn how to walk in while dressed like Peg Bundy. As we performed my play throughout the week, I came to realize that puffed and pampered people are quite vulnerable. You can’t carry firewood, turn the number dial on a lock, or type at the speed of thoughts when you have fake nails. These so-called privileged people must wait for others to wait on them because they cannot make energy - they can only steal or take energy. That level of defenselessness leads to socially unacceptable behavior and weak bravado that I played to the nines each performance. I wanted to squeeze out every possible lesson and have an absolute blast! And we did!!!

I tend to use one stone for a few birds. This play is my ancestral healing, water activism, Witchcraft, and writing rolled up in one full circle, magickal moment. When I was in Spain the Fall of 2019, I poured water from an Eastern Sierra creek onto the sand-filled turret of the ruins of the Jorba Castle, built in 900AD in Catalunya. In my spell, I incanted that the colonist thirst be slaked and no one take more than their share. For decades, I envisioned my ancestor Jose Antonio Yorba, who was awarded the first and largest Spanish rancho in Orange County, as a romantic adventurer, not the religious-zealot solider who colonized Los Angeles and much of southern California that I discovered he had been.

In the 1800s, Californio Dons and Doñas were like kings and queens whose daughters were princesses like Catherina Zeta Jones in the Mask of Zorro. I grew up a block away from where my ancestors had built the first olive groves, on the original rancho, although it had been lost decades before. As someone open to terrapsychology, also known as the soul of place, I could sense the fandangos whenever I closed my eyes, hear the fluid guitar and the crack of the cascarones, a hollowed egg filled with perfumed confetti that confessed your love for another. As I traveled back to the Eastern Sierra, the image I had created for my ancestors collapsed like a deck of cards and with it, my façade cracked. Romantic visions hide ugly truths.

Although I try to ignore this Spanish vanity, I don’t always succeed. Through playing Dull, I realized how easily I have succumbed to being condescending or vain as a way of stealing energy. Once aware of this behavior I could change it. Dying in new and increasingly hysterical ways each night, provided the fertile soil for acceptance and compassion.

This New Year’s Wish (I like that more than resolution) is to allow people to be who they truly are and absolve myself of responsibility for fixing or enlightening anyone other than myself. This is a big deal for me as I have often prided myself on how much I carry for others, forgetting this deprives them of respect and confidence. Letting go of responsibility for others frees my energy so that I am as light-hearted as a child and can truly let go of what no longer serves me.

Life in a rural, mountain town, of less than one thousand people, offers opportunities to learn something new about yourself. The quiet stillness of Crowley Lake is like looking into a mirror that eventually reveals who you are without the charade of a busy life. Your presence to your life is where the gifts lie. Be true to yourself and together we can turn dissonance into connection - the highest form of Magick.