Family Baggage

Filmed before a live audience in Boulder, Colorado this two-hour stage performance was written and performed by Errol Strider and Lou Montgomery. Using skits, dramatic monologues, and pantomimes, the fifteen vignettes deal with the subjects of dysfunctional families, co-dependency, substance abuse, and adult children of alcoholics. Touchy subjects, to say the least: the line between humor and pain is exceedingly thin. Yet Strider and Montgomery have been there. In "Birth Order," Strider acts out and narrates a group of siblings being born, each commenting on the pluses and minuses of being the first, second, third, etc. child. It's a funny bit--and it's immediately followed by "The Doll," a first-person present rendition of the sexual and emotional abuse of a little girl. The vignettes vary between the painfully funny and the just plain painful. Not all will strike a resonant chord with all viewers, and some people will most likely be put off by the infrequent doses of bawdy humor. But, overall, this is a unique program filled with the insights of survivors who have maintained their sense of humor. Towards the end of the second tape, there is, for me, the brilliant centerpiece of the show: a short skit entitled "Denial of Shame." It begins goofily with Strider using one hand to represent "the norm" so to speak, and the other, which he contorts into a claw, representing all of the various addictions that we use to get by. At first funny, as the normal hand keeps pushing down the addicted hand, the skit gradually becomes desperate, and finally as Strider (whimpering away) peeks through the fingers of his normal hand to confront his addicted hand, an emotional powerhouse. True to the company name, Strider and Montgomery have created an unusual and daring vehicle for "creative recovery." Highly recommended. (Available from: Creative Recovery, P.O. Box 583, Boulder, CO 80306.)