Eliana Marianes
@elianaactor laying amongst her coloring pages.
-Theatre-
I drove up to Eliana’s home hoping this interview would be genuine and open. I had photographed her in shows before but couldn’t tell you if we had talked about anything but theatre.
Luckily for me, she was welcoming and kind and opened up about her coping mechanisms that are getting her through this extrovert’s nightmare.
After our chat, she went to get her “visual aid” of all the coloring sheets she has done to calm her mind as she keeps her hands busy. Needless to say, there were quite a few. And we both hoped there wouldn’t be too many more.
AT the time of this recording, Eliana was an Artistic Associate at the Atlanta based theatre Théâtre du Rêve.
Interviewed 2.27.21
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Casey: First and foremost, how are you doing today?
Eliana: Yes, I...
Casey: That seems to be the question that gets everybody.
Eliana: I know! It's like we have just barely started and I'm already exhausted. Today I feel like I'm kind of on an upswing and so that feels good. I actually went on a trip to LA recently because I just couldn't be here anymore.
I had a really bummer of a January and I felt bad because I was like, "I can't be part of the Covid problem. I can't just travel because I'm unhappy. Like, that's not a good enough reason." But as it turns out, it was. I double-masked, I got tested, I isolated when I got there. I didn't do anything when I got there, I just hung out with my love. It ended up being really, really helpful. I was able to come back from that and feel like my tank was a little more full.
Casey: That's awesome. How did your last year go?
Eliana: Last year was wild. I, like so many artists, was about to open a show. We were about to go into tech weekend and it was my directing debut and it got shut down. So that was hard to deal with at first. Then, for a while, it felt like a vacation because I'm so busy all the time. I'm typically working between six and 11 jobs. So, balancing all of that is very much a part of my day-to-day. So when all of those jobs went away, suddenly it kind of felt like a vacation, especially since I've been working so hard to get this show open.
A lot of my jobs pivoted. Théâtre du Rêve started producing virtual salons, which has been really fun and fulfilling. I taught myself how to use a video editing software, so that's been really fun. Apparently, I like editing videos. Who knew?
I have been through two breakups during the pandemic. I'm polyamorous, non-monogamous, bisexual, so I have many partners, and the two kind of primary relationships that I've been in have ended. So it just ended up being a lot.
I do a virtual — or now it's virtual but it used to be a living room — play reading where a random group of people who like reading plays out loud would come over and fill up our living room, and we would eat cheese and drink wine and read a play. … So I've kept it going virtually, and last night we just read a bunch of short plays from the new play exchange. We ended up having a really great conversation after one of them, where one of the actor friends in the group, he was talking about how beneficial it's been for him to not have to be “on” all the time … I said I've had a similar experience and I've also experienced the kind of sad emptiness of, "Actually this super energetic, out, on, up person that I present is very much me."
Casey: How is your family? You talked about your two big relationships ending. How are the other people around you?
Eliana: My parents and I have different comfort levels around Covid safety and precautions, and that has been really uncomfortable. They are now both on the path to vaccination. They've each gotten their first dose. So I'm hopeful that, with a new (presidential) administration and after they have both been vaccinated, time with them can be more productive. But we're very different, and the pandemic has really deepened that divide, which has been hard.
But honestly, the thing that's been hardest is that my sister, who I'm very close to, has been stuck in Brazil this whole time. She was running a research station there. She had a group of birders who were coming in on like March 15. Then she was going to leave and go back to Trinidad with her husband, who's a Trini man. They were just holding on for that one last tour group, then they were going to go, and they just missed the window. And Trinidad, unlike pretty much every other country in the world, has not repatriated its citizens. So wherever a Trini person was at the lockdown, they are there. … So they've been in Brazil the whole time. … So that's been that's been really hard. I've just been really worried about her for most of the pandemic.
Casey: Oh my gosh. Jeez. That is some drama.
Eliana: It is some drama! It is.
I heard a podcast about pandemic fatigue — and not the shitty way that it's been co-opted, but the actual way they were defining it and discussing it as the constant day-to-day exhaustion of the anxiety of living with all the things that we're having to live with right now. So, not having jobs, not knowing where money's coming from, not knowing if I'm going to get sick or die, or if I go to the grocery store am I going to come back and infect my roommate, am I an asymptomatic carrier, you know? All of these things that are always bubbling under the surface that we can't just turn off, you know?
Casey: Has there been any sort of relief from that or has it just been hard every day? What makes you able to continue on?
Eliana: I would say relationships. Carolyn Cook and I are kind of a staff of two for running Théâtre du Rêve, and we've become such dear friends. I mean, we've always been friendly and have always really enjoyed working together, but we've become really dear friends during the pandemic, and we've gotten really close with a lot of our collaborators on the salons like Lauren Morris, Jen Kimball, Lexi McKay, Thandiwe DeShazor, and those folks who have really rallied around Théâtre du Rêve.
Also, staying in touch with my friend-os by socially-distant outdoor dates. One time Gil and I sat on my front porch when it was actually snowing. I was wearing snow pants and a parka, and he was wearing a parka, and he had wrapped up in two blankets that I brought out for him, and we had little heaters going on the front porch, and we huddled there for like five hours because we were just enjoying our time together, you know? And Larry Davis, Megan Hayes, my roommate Jennifer, and I have formed a little coven, and we have little new moon, full moon gatherings where we write things down that we want to release and burn shit.
I have learned during the pandemic that it's actually really good to say "I'm not doing very well today." … I never had the courage before to say "I'm not doing OK today." I always just tapped into that inner well of, "I'm fine, this will be fine. I love being here. I love doing this thing." You know? That inner Tigger. That well was full, but now that well is empty, and so when I say "I'm not doing well," nine times out of ten the people I say that to will say, "How can I support you?" And there usually is something, even if it's just, "Tell me that things are going to be OK" or "Actually, the way you can support me is by distracting me" or "Let's do a crossword puzzle together."
Casey: Do you think that will be hard to take into work when we are back full-time?
Eliana: I don't think so, actually, because I realized that the three core jobs that were always my core jobs are actually the three jobs that are the best for me: teaching Viewpoints at Drama, Inc., … working with Théâtre du Rêve with Carolyn, and being a standardized patient at Emory.
Greek folks have a saying: "The fish stinks from the head down." So, if the head of the organization is not solid, the rest of the organization is going to be riddled with problems. And all three of those organizations have amazing heads of those fishes. All three of those organizations have amazing, caring, passionately loving people at the helm steering the ship. So those are the three jobs that have kept me afloat financially, emotionally, and still managed to find a way to make some fulfilling kinds of art during this time. Those three jobs are going to be the ones that I most heavily invest in in the future because they've proven to be such great jobs in that way. So I hope not, and I hope that my bar is a little bit higher now that I've experienced having jobs with great leadership and passion about the work.
I hope that I will continue to have the luxury to say, "No, I actually really only want to invest in jobs like this." I don't know that that will be true, but I want that to be true.
Casey: Yeah, it felt like a luxury before, but hopefully it's not after.
Eliana: Hopefully it's a necessity now, and hopefully there's an actual litmus test that I can use, and I can make the financials work so that I can say, "No, this job doesn't pass the litmus tests. I'm not going to do it."
Casey: That's brilliant. I love that. What do you miss about before?
Eliana: Can I say everything?
Casey: Of course you can! Anything specific? I mean, I know we all miss theater, right? But is there anything that you're like, "Damn, I did not know this was really missing in my life?"
Eliana: I miss doing fun things in person with my people. We had a group that would meet once a month where we would play canasta, which is this super old lady card game. It just so happened that eight of us know how to play it, so we would get together and play. … I want to touch cards. I want to lay down cards in front of me and have my partner put cards down on top of cards that I have touched and not worry about killing each other.
Being polyamorous is really hard during a pandemic. Trying to think about who I am in a pod with and who they're in a pod with. The whole purpose of polyamory is that I don't expect any one person to fill all of my needs. I have many needs. Other people have many needs. I am well suited for meeting some people's needs and not well suited for meeting other needs of that person, you know? So that has been really hard. My romantic and intimate life has really struggled because I am not able to stick to the model that has been working for so many years for me. So, yeah, I miss polyamory.
Casey: It's almost hard to remember at this point. You know?
Eliana: It is. It's been going on for so long. Yeah. I mean, there are some things that I have discovered that I really love during the pandemic, like crossword puzzles, and I have a lot of time to do crossword puzzles now. I think that love will survive and, hopefully, I'll continue to make time for it.
Casey: Focusing on the things you found is definitely better than focusing on the things you've missed. So that's good to hear.
Eliana: For sure. I really miss teaching Viewpoints in person. I've really enjoyed adapting this physically-based, ensemble-based technique for the tiny screen. It's allowed me to do really cool things like invite the actors to put themselves on tape, and then we watch movement together, and inserting video clips into my lesson plan so that we can see it in action right away. That's very useful and I'm definitely going to keep that going in the after-times. But I miss being in a room with an ensemble of humans who are trying things, trying physically-based, ensemble-based techniques — some of them for the first time — and watching their "aha" moments. Just like "ping!" you know? And being able to pair energy together, and invite these folks to work together because I think they have something to learn from one another. I miss that a lot.
Casey: What do you think it will be like when you're able to do it in person again?
Eliana: I think, until the vast majority of people are vaccinated, we're going to be exploring distant spatial relationships from one another and seeing how much we can create with distant spatial relationships. But honestly, I think it's the same thing. My roommate and I talk all the time about the first day we're going to be able to go back and sit inside a theater again. I think we're probably just going to cry, you know? That first moment that a moving Viewpoints session happens in the room with the people that I'm teaching, I think I'm probably just going to cry. It's just going to feel like coming home in a way.
Casey: For sure. I so look forward to that, too. Watching some people on stage, in a seat. As we approach a year of the pandemic, what do you find yourself thinking about? Are you thinking about the anniversary?
Eliana: I think I probably want to have a party but I don't know how that would look. Is that just a pod party? Or is that a virtual party? Or is that a virtual play-reading night? I don't know. So I'm thinking about that. I think marking anniversaries is important.
I have a kind of funny answer to your question, "What am I thinking about right now?" I'm actually in what my therapist and I are fondly referring to as the “Do Nothing” phase. I'm a chronic overfunctioner. I always want to make everything better for everyone and I always want to fix all the things inside me that aren't working and that make things worse. Carolyn really challenged me a couple of weeks ago after one of my breakups. She said, "What if you start from the premise that there's actually nothing wrong with you and that sometimes people just let you down?" … I was like, "No. I can't handle that. There must be something wrong with me." If I could only just have done this, been better, communicated more clearly, been more supportive, loved this human better, then they would have loved me in the way that I want to be loved. If I start from the premise that, actually, I'm not broken, I'm just fine, I'm doing the best I can, and I'm learning and I'm growing just like everyone else, I lose a little bit of control. Not a little bit — I lose a lot of control over my life. But it's control that I don't have. You can't make people love you the way you want to be loved. I can only be responsible for my clear, honest, and timely communication and state my needs and expectations and hope for the best.
So part of going to LA was like, "I'm going to start the Do Nothing phase. What happens if I start from the premise that I'm OK, and I get the luxury of not checking in with everyone around me all the time to make sure that they're OK?” I get the luxury of not feeling like it's my responsibility.
I'm finally on the pandemic bandwagon. I have joined the Do Nothing-ers.
