Red

a vocab word that’s a color with a lot of symbolism. Also, Landscape of the (redheaded) Body.

I’ve only had red hair once in my life; it was for a large and spectacular role in a play I was in: I had to look like the other lead’s sister, and she was a redhead. The director wanted me to be a redhead too. So I got hold of a cheap box of bright orange, and went ginger. My hair was long then, too—about as long as it is again now—so it actually took two and a half boxes of dye to get it all. This was the mid-‘90s, just before my stint with the swordfighting boys at RenFaire and just after college. O wait, actually—I think this must have been my penultimate semester still in college, because I remember having pissed off the school’s powers that be by getting this part in a professional show and not a school one. I’ll explain:

I was the victim of what I call the ‘Not A Pretty Girl’ syndrome in theatre. Even within my school experiences, which are supposed to be places to learn and train and not be type-cast because not professional, I was still too big and smart and weird to get any lead roles most of the time. I’d get saucy maids or old lady neighbors or nothing at all, but no big meaty leads. This penultimate semester, I was about to graduate with a BFA in Acting and a BA in English, and I knew I deserved something better before I tossed up my mortar board. 

So, I decided to do something different, to take my education and my CV into my own hands. A graduate student I knew was putting on a professional production of Landscape of the Body at a local theatre and wanted me to take on a large lead. This was a much different type of part than I’d regularly been getting at school, and looked challenging—it involved narration, breaking the fourth wall, and singing several songs. The play is a bizarrely surreal John Guare piece, centering around the death of a teenager and the life of his mother, presented in fragmented flashbacks including narrative songs, a harsh detective, a man in a gold lamé dress, a severed head, some beautifully poetic monologues... and the whole thing is, cabaret-like, narrated by a dead porn star. This last part was offered to me. The director said I was the only one he knew who could pull this difficult role off—I had the required skill set and the ability to tackle a role of that large size, unlike pretty much every other actress he knew. And I could sing.

I mean, holy cow; that sounded great! Finally a part that my weird and wide talent deserved. And I’d get to be pretty! One big obstacle stood in my way: we weren’t allowed to do any shows outside of school productions whilst enrolled in the BFA program. Something about not wanting to taint our training with work that’s done in a different way. At least that was the claim. Morosely, I poised myself to turn down this exciting, strange, professional play for the one I was required to audition for at school. But when I saw what part in what school play I’d be refusing to audition for in favor of this? I decided to break that rule. The school play was Irish drama Dancing at Lughnasa. The role? The oldest sister, mother figure for the rest of the characters. At the time, especially when compared to the glitzy, bloody, and oddly dark Landscape, Dancing just sounded dreary, dull, and depressing. And to play yet another poignant and sad Someone’s Mom? No thank you. I was 22 years old; I was sick of old lady neighbors, mothers, and maids. I was tired of painting lines on my face. I was sick of gray hair color—this professional part would require me to dye my hair bright red.

Partial cast of Landscape. Must’ve been…1994 or 5? I’d list the names but I don’t remember half of them. I also don’t remember who took this picture. I do remember it was Boulder, CO’s Guild Theatre, which no longer exists.

I took the Landscape role gladly, school policies and rules be darned. And anyway, it was only an audition for the sad gray part—what if I didn’t end up getting cast? The spectacular, singing, lingerie-wearing, sparkly dead pornstar narrator was a sure thing. He was pre-casting me, not merely auditioning me. It really wasn’t a choice, once I thought about it.

The theatre department’s reaction to me taking a professional role over their typical part they’d expected me to fill was similar to that of an abusive partner when his victim calls him out, or stands up for herself. I explained the situation, the role, the choice I had made and why. Their initial reaction was to play the classic narcissist’s how-could-you-do-this-to-me card. When I wouldn’t budge, they switched to veiled threats: I wasn’t supposed to break out of school and do community theatre; it’s a bad influence on the training they were providing for me, this might affect my castability later, in my last semester… 

Well, I figured, if I can get cast outside of school, in big professional parts, and if the only parts school is willing to give me are old ladies and maids, then gee, maybe not being cast by school anymore ain’t the devastating thing they’re trying to convince me it is...

I knew this was the right choice, and that bowing to their harsh and what felt like arbitrary rules would undercut my growth as a performer. 

I shone as this new challenging part, in Landscape. At only 22 years old, I got great reviews from the local critics who touted me as a highlight of the show, and I learned a lot in this part that stretched me to my limits. My school did end up grudgingly making an exception to the no-pro-show rule for me, since the director was one of their own grad students. They cast a very lovely and talented junior in what would have been my part, and she did a great job.

I made new deep friends, including the music director from whom I’d go on to continue voice lessons with afterwards (also a redhead), and one intense, emotional, friendship with a member of the cast. But that’s a story for another post. Or actually probably not. Was I being influenced by my orange tresses? Sassier and brassier? Maybe. Or maybe I was growing up, taking power for myself for the first time. Maybe being a temporary redhead opened up my attitude a bit in that direction.

You can’t really see how bright the red is in this pic, but nice bangs huh. I still wish I had that woolen shirt and floral scarf. I’d still wear that ‘90s look today.

All the big romantic or pivotal relationships in my life are all redheads: My best friend from 5th grade on is a beautiful willowy redhead who speaks French and can sing. My first husband had a long strawberry plait held back with a Celtic knot, and a red goatee like a pirate. My good friend Christina looks like a Raphaelite painting, and was a rigger for Cirque du Soleil. Not even counting my life partner right now, who I met at 15 years old in the back of a science classroom, bright red mullet gloriously declaring his metalheadness. He’s since shaved his red head in his middle age, but I still see him as a ginger. It’s a state of mind almost more than it is just a hair color, isn’t it. I’ve always made jokes that they all come from the same alien planet, but in fact I don’t think I’m really that far off. And why I seem to attract them into my life, I’m not sure. I’m not complaining, but. It seems weird. Why have they accepted me as their one human ally?

Pictured here, besides black-dyed me and brown-haired roommate: Strawberry fiancé (kneeling), and goddess-like curly ginger Christina (pointing at you). At this time (must’ve been 1998), we enjoyed posing for all pictures like a bad JC Penneys catalog page.

But another big thing that this means is that I have not been allowed to go redhead myself very often at all. Why? It’s my hair, right? I can do what I want with it, and with green eyes, how cool does ginger look on me? Yeah, but natural redheads get pretty bent out of shape if someone not from that mothership does it artificially. Though it’s funny—I’ve had more than one person tell me they think of me as a natural redhead. My erstwhile hair stylist was one of them. I’m not a redhead! I protested, gobsmacked. Sure you are, the sweet little psychic born-again stylist assured me. I shook my (brown-haired) head.

That one time I went dark mahogany brown, it turned out with too much burgundy in the mix. This was in the early aughts, when burgundy was pretty trendy and so I didn’t care. But my redheaded husband kept looking at me sidelong after I emerged from the salon, until he finally had to admit he didn’t like it, at all. Burgundy went great with my complexion and my eyes, but nope. Too red.

In fact, the very first time I ever dyed my hair—I was 16—the only reason I got the balls to do it was that my best friend and bosom buddy, that bestie from 5th grade that I mentioned before, threatened me. See, we were both in this mod-moving-into-proto-goth style, fashionable, angular and elegant, and pretty hardcore. She said, “If you don’t dye your hair black? I will!”

Gaaaah okay okay!

Slightly later than the above scene, freshmen in college. We’re still good friends even though we live in separate states. And my hair is now black again, while hers has stayed bright red.

Anyway, my hair loves dye: it soaks it right up and doesn’t grow back awkwardly. That fateful day at age 16, it was a black and burgundy wedge cut. I’ve been going dark about yearly ever since (except that few months in Landscape as a burnished ginger). And for goth prom back in the Before Times, I discovered my hair especially likes blue, much to the trauma of my stylist at the time. But I don’t mind. These days my hair is blue-black, and very long but with a high undercut. Sort of an echo of the wedge cut the first time I went black.

Back to the Landscape of the Body days: only a couple days after the boxes of orange met my tresses, I was standing at the bus stop on my way to rehearsal. A woman stopped me and exclaimed that I looked like a Celtic goddess with my height and my hair! I didn’t have the heart to tell her it wasn’t my natural color, or that Irish women of the time period she was talking about would’ve been half my size. And probably brunette. I just took the praise. And plugged my show.

NOTE: this musing is a cobbling-together of two other pieces: an old personal essay on a pen-named blog, and a small section from Chapter 4 in my memoir, Next Time. In the book, I trace the triad gaslighting abuse of my careers in adjuncting and theatre, and my narcissistic husband. It’s a read that catches fire, if I do say so myself. Flames like a redhead. I’m trying to get said memoir published at the mo’, so if you have any ins, do let me know. In the meantime, support and share my work.