Memory Lane is a Desert Road | My Theatre Experience
NOTE: this blog is being developed and hopefully will be completed in a few days before I travel to China
A few years ago my daughter, Nabra, wanted to know more about my life especially my experiences as a photojournalist. As the years go by my memories of my life have become more and more difficult to remember. Her encouragement motivated me to try and recollect the past.
We would meet periodically. First in Milwaukee where she first lived after graduating from university. Then in Seattle and on our travels to Egypt and Mauritius. We would sit down for a coffee and with a notebook in hand she would ask questions about my life and experiences. Back in LA, she would follow up with questions and I soon started writing down what I ended up called "Ramblings and Recollections".
As part of my attempt to remember my past, we would take vacations to places I had once lived. I called them Memory Lane trips. Nabra and family accompanied me on trips to Morocco, the Philippines and Laramie, Wyoming.
me in a Japanese cave across from our house in Bagiou that I use to play in | me (right) with two of my brothers - 1965-68 | Nabra at Tomoyuki Yamashita cave where he made his last stand against American and Filipino forces during World War II - 1945 | 2016
Then years later with her interviews and my writings, she begin writing a play that she called "Memory Lane is a Desert Road". It is from a recollection where I reminisce about the many times I have been on desert roads for hours and sometimes days and with barren landscapes to look out on, I have often thought about and pondered life .... and memories.
On the road from Geneina, Darfur to Khartoum | 1985
One such trip was when I traveled to Darfur, Sudan to cover the famine and then with no money left needed to make my way back to Cairo, Egypt. I ended up hitching rides to Khartoum and then hung on to a packed train and eventually found some space on top of the train as it made its way through the Nubian Desert to Wadi Halfa and the border with Egypt.
On the train from Khartoum to Wadi Halfa, Sudan | 1985
Nabra who has written a number of plays and had a number of them performed in Milwaukee and Seattle including one about her mom and Nubian folkoric stories, submitted her Memory Lane play to Hollywood's Eight Ball Theatre and they selected it to be there main stage play. That's when she informed me that I was the co-author of the play .... and that's when it became personal and not just another one of Nabra's plays |
It was October 2024 when Eight Ball Theatre selected the play to be performed in April 2025. I was on my way to Egypt via Milwaukee and New York when the first of many zoom meetings took place |
