Gina Rickicki
@ginasgarbagehour in her living room surrounded by props and makeup
-Theatre-
Gina was the last interview I squeezed in before my wedding. We were able to do it right after my hair and make up trial because she is a multi-talented person.
Gina and I met when she played my boyfriend (among other characters) in a show lovingly referred to as Hot Pink. I’ve been truly in love ever since.
Interviewed 7.29.20
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Casey: So first and foremost, now that I've hung out with you for over three hours, how are you doing?
Gina: I'm OK. I mean, every day is different. As much as every day is the same, every day is also going to be a surprise to see how you're processing what's happening in your life and in the outside world. It's sort of like normal life but amplified to an insane degree.
Casey: Do you feel like you've had more up days or more down days?
Gina: The one thing my mom told me about marriage is, "You're going to have good decades and bad decades," in the sense of, like, once you're with somebody for a long time, there are going to be times when you don't like your partner, even though you love them. So I sort of look at this as, like, there have been good weeks and bad weeks. Sometimes they run successively, like I'll have a number of bad weeks in a row or I'll have a number of good weeks in a row, but it's definitely been a struggle. Those first three months, I couldn't do a lot because I hadn't had my knee surgery, yet. So I tried to go out and go for walks and I would be in so much pain that I just ended up sitting a lot. … So having the uncertainty around what my freelance life is going to look like after this, combined with not moving around a lot and just being really sad, has been a struggle.
Also, my husband and I aren't around each other this much, usually. He's a video editor and they had him start working from home, so he's in the back of the house and we're around each other, I'm going to say more — and I think this is very common — but more than any time in our relationship. And we're both the kind of people who enjoy being alone, as well. We're lucky that we live in a place that's big enough where we can kind of get away from each other. But, yeah, there have been some very dark days, and in this whole quarantine, it seems like every day is a new low and a new something to be extremely concerned about and feel absolutely powerless to do anything about. That's been a struggle, but I don't think it's unique.
I talk a lot about mental health and stuff on my (online variety show) “Gina's Garbage Hour,” and I try to make sure that people are taking their pills and trying to stay positive. There were a few weeks where, every Monday through Friday, I was doing a show at five o'clock just on my Facebook stream, playing a little ukulele and talking to people and talking about my feelings. Then the riots and the protests started and I couldn't do it anymore. One, because my job is to make sure that I'm amplifying voices of color and not amplifying my voice and my problems. But also, because it got so heavy. It's been so heavy and I'm so glad that people are still out there fighting.
Casey: Can you tell me a little bit about what it's been like to create during all of this? Because you've been creating a lot.
Gina: It's been very strange. I started off quarantine super strong with, "I'm going to craft all the time and I'm going to do this project and I'm going to do that project that I've been meaning to do." So I stoned a Peter Pan collar with teddy bear eyes because I'm strange. And I made a pearl-encrusted eye patch and I stripped and repainted our coffee table. I was trying to feel like I was actually accomplishing things, but when it became apparent that there was no end in sight, it became really, really hard to feel like anything I did mattered or that there was going to eventually be a cessation and then a return to "normal life." I think we all understand now that our concept of normal is moot now. It no longer applies.
I was lucky that Dad's Garage — because they're managed really well — they were able to do a pivot to digital programming pretty quickly. And because I've been the only one at the theater doing streaming programming for almost three years now, just by myself every Sunday morning doing “Gina's Garbage Hour” and just getting on there and making shit up for an hour and talking to people and that kind of stuff. So when they opened this up and said, "Hey, if you have ideas for shows, come and talk to us," I sent them like 15 ideas for shows. I'm always one of those people that if I ever have the chance to perform, then I've got to do it. In a way, they've become anchors to my week because I no longer have routine, but I know that definitely Sunday, Wednesday, and Thursday, I'm going to have a show and that I might be asked to jump into any number of shows the rest of the week. It's been good in the sense that it's hopefully keeping me limber as a performer, but it's also just giving me something to do. Even when I feel terrible, even when I'm like, "I don't want to do this. I'm super depressed, I feel awful," I still have to do a show. And I feel like one of my jobs as a person is to try to make other people happy and to make other people laugh and to be as ridiculous as possible while also being super sincere and grounded. I think that's important. My way of moving through the world is that I just want to try my best to leave it a little bit better than I found it.
Casey: I think performers can relate to that — that we've all kind of done a show where we didn't feel great, but this feels different, right?
Gina: Oh, it absolutely feels different.
Casey: Do you think it will affect what you do when we do go back to theaters?
Gina: I think that the amount of digital programming that has started from any number of theaters in town and across the nation and across the world, I don't see that going away. Especially considering — and I'm not an expert by any stretch of the imagination — but I can't imagine that our industry is going to be able to recover quickly. So finding different ways to create content and then monetize that content is going to be huge.
I don't know how many of our Atlanta theaters are going to survive this. I don't know how many national theaters are going to survive this. I hear that TV and film production is starting or is going to start picking up again soon, but I also don't know how safe that is.
Catherine O'Hara is one of my personal heroes and in Beetlejuice she's walking through the house with Otho and she's talking about redecorating the entire house and she goes into the study and her husband says, "Leave this one,” or, “Leave this room alone." And she says, "If you don't let me redecorate this house, I'm going to go insane and I'm going to take you with me." That's how I feel. If I'm not creating, I'm going to go insane and I'm going to take my husband with me, and my cats, and anyone else I can. … It sort of feels like shouting into the void. It feels like you're just creating for the sake of creating. I do not know how many people at all see anything that I make. I don't know what impact it has on their life because it's not like you're with an audience and you can hear their response to the stuff that you're doing. There's a lot of development of different ideas that are happening in a vacuum.
Casey: Is that freeing or is that kind of debilitating because you don't have any feedback?
Gina: It's great to be in a theater that is supporting my endeavors to do different things. I do "Checking in with Gina" on Thursdays and I'm interviewing all of these amazing people, but I don't know if anybody's watching it. Occasionally, people will tune in on Twitch and leave comments and I talk with them, but it's not like we're getting thousands of people tuning in. It's not even like we're getting a full house, what would be considered a full, 250-person house or something like that. For me, this is just something that is helping me hang on. Nobody wants to feel like the things they're doing don't matter, but I'm not going to know if they matter. I have some people who are very kind and they talk to me and they say I help cheer them up or I help remind them to take their pills or I help them feel more comfortable about their mental health situation or that they feel supported and seen and loved by me. And that's super important to me.
But this whole idea of what our hustle used to be? To try to get seen? To try to get any goddamn artistic director in this town to pay attention to you or a casting director to try to get you into the door? All of the things that I was doing to try to get their attention — and that we've all done — just doesn't matter.
At the beginning of this year, things were happening in my career that had never happened before, and I was so excited for different opportunities — getting called in on these interesting projects and for voiceover work and this and this and that. Now it's all gone. You spend your life trying to build momentum in a career and then you feel as though you're finally gaining some traction against all odds and then it's gone. I don't know if the word is heartbreaking, but it was definitely discouraging. And we don't know how long this is going to go on. I don't know if I need to change my career? If I do change my career, what even is that? What do I do? It's not like there's a plethora of jobs out there unless I decide that I want to become a nurse, and I don't think that I'm really built for that. It's very strange to live in limbo and to have... I come from a very lower-middle-class background. We come from blue-collar people just a generation before, so working, always being working, is how you live your life. That's how you prove your worth and that's how you know that you are making progress.
Casey: And none of us are doing that right now.
Gina: None of us are doing it. It's terrifying and also it's a great opportunity to reflect on how you are judging your own self-worth. How you are judging the qualities that you consider to be your best qualities.Who you are as a person makes a big difference. Every day it's like, "All right, today I'm going to try to put a positive spin on this. I have an opportunity to work on myself." But other days it's just like, "No, I'm going to watch ‘Indian Matchmaking.’"
Casey: I've been watching "Supermarket Sweep."
Gina: Oh, yes.
Casey: Yes. So I understand that. Kind of to pivot, not necessarily away from work, but just kind of to everyday life. What do you miss that you think will come back or even stuff that you don't think will come back?
Gina: Oh man, I miss a lot. I absolutely believe in moving in gratitude. I believe that even on my darkest days, I'm so grateful that I have a home and I'm so grateful that I can buy food. I'm so grateful that we can pay our bills. I'm grateful that I have a partner who, you know, we can laugh about a lot of stuff together, even when things get tense. We have a really great friendship, which is super important. But I have a very vivid dream life and I have dreamt, "All right, I'm at a clown convention and I'm learning new tricks." Or "I am backstage or in the green room and I'm just shooting the shit with my friends before we go on stage."
For people who don't know my life, I work with a group called Humorology Atlanta. We go in and entertain hospitalized children in three different CHOA (Children's Hospital of Atlanta) locations. That job has given me the greatest sense of purpose in my life. I finally understood why I was made really weird. I always want to serve people and make people happy. So I miss those children. I miss their families. I miss working with my partners. It's just you and another clown and you're running around acting like idiots, but you're also being very aware and sensitive of the fact that people are dealing with life-changing and sometimes life-ending diagnoses. I miss the rapport that I have with nurses and I'm worried about all the health care professionals out there right now. I'm so worried about them. We can't work in the hospitals right now. There were all of these restrictions that kept getting tighter and tighter and tighter in the hospital, and there is just no room for us to run our program right now. Nurses are the literal heroes of the medical field.
I miss doing things like meeting up with friends for a drink and hearing the sound of the bar behind us as we're talking about the hottest gossip or just what's happening with people's children or the partners? I miss a lot. I miss being able to hug my mother. My father passed away two and a half years ago and my mom is just in her house alone. I mean, she's fine. Betty's tough! But I've always been very huggy with her and to not be able to to touch her has been extremely painful because I'm terrified of getting her sick. She has asthma. She's in the age group, the original age group that was supposed to be highest risk. But now we all know that babies are getting Covid, and just the other day, like a nine year old passed away from Covid and that's fucking terrifying. So it's sort of like she's my Rapunzel and she's like up in a tower and I'll just drop wine off at her house every now and just be like, "Here you go. I love you." Or do outside chores or something for her.
I've always considered myself to be an extroverted introvert. I love being alone, but I'm realizing how much of the energy that I require comes from having small, positive interactions with people throughout the day and trying to make people happy. And being completely cut off from that is pretty devastating. But hopefully, this too shall pass. I know that the first time I'm able to hug a bunch of different people, I'm just going to be a mess. I'm just going to be sobbing, "I love you so much! “I need people! Maybe I am truly just an extrovert who needs time to recharge the batteries.
Casey: To kind of sum up, what do you think you'll take out of this? Or what do you think the world will take out of this?
Gina: I will say that I had greater faith in humanity before this started. Because we are in such an amazingly unique moment in history where we have a new civil rights movement happening at the same time as a global pandemic. People have to sit with who they are and people have to decide who they want to be in this moment in history. One of the great things about being so connected with social media is that we can stay in contact with people. But I've also seen such ugliness and hate and unchained bigotry and stupidity that I don't know what's going to be on the other side of this. Part of me says, "If you refuse to wear a mask and if you are getting up in people's faces in grocery stores and coughing on people, and if you are going into the Black Lives Matter marches and fomenting dissent and destroying property deliberately to try to discredit an extremely important movement, then I don't want to -- It's not only that I don't want to associate with you, but I don't want you having any part in this society anymore."
Our democratic republic has never faced a greater challenge than this moment. We are in the throes of fascism within our country, and while there are many people who are standing up against it, there are many people who are still using it to profiteer to justify their own bigotries, and are not taking this opportunity to genuinely question themselves. I'm always excited when somebody challenges me and says, "What you think about that is bullshit," or relates to me a personal experience that helps me understand how I could be a better person because I always want to be a better person. But I'm seeing things now that have shaken me to my core, and that's part of the sadness that I feel. I've always wanted to believe that they were in the minority. I always wanted to believe that people were mostly good, genuinely good.
It’s just like leaving a Yelp review, the negative people are always going to be louder. I know that I'm going to be leaving this situation with a greater resolve to fight injustice and to hear the experiences of my BIPOC friends and to work to create a better world for my friends who are brave enough to have children. I don't know how you can have a kid right now. It's terrifying. So I want to try to make things better and I want to try to shout down people who are being deliberately cruel. I think the cruelty is one of the hardest things that I've had to see. But it also reminds me of just how less evolved we are as humans than we like to believe we are.
Casey: Are we smart enough as a culture to stop ourselves before we ruin ourselves?
Gina: Yeah. This is that time. You know, the things that are happening right now in this country —we still have children in cages at our border. We have concentration camps right now. Call them what they are. … There's that old Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times." Holy fuck, these are interesting times.
I think what I've learned is the natural inclination is to say, "I've got mine. Fuck you." You have to fight that every single day. It's not, "I've got mine. Fuck you." It's, "How can I help you? How can I share what I have? How can I try to protect you? How can I use whatever privilege I have been given by just a roll of the dice? How can I use that privilege to make things better and more equitable and to try to reduce the pain in the world?" But man, that's a tall order when you're locked in your house, right? I have hope that people will see the light when we come out on the other side. I saw this meme the other day, "What do racism and Covid have in common? People don't believe it's real until it affects them." I just feel as though things are going to have to get as bad as they're going to get before everybody across this nation realizes that prizing individualism above the communal good — therein lies destruction.
If you cannot care for another goddamn person, then everything is going to unravel, you know? So that just means we have to care harder. We have to fight harder. We have to make people laugh harder. We have to think harder. … I've gotten to a place where I think maybe there has to be a mass die-off before people actually understand how serious Covid is. It's not like I'm against individualism, obviously. I'm a frickin’ weirdo, but this idea of, "I don't believe science. That's my opinion." Opinions and facts are totally different things. I don't know if this is going to have to personally touch everybody's lives, and that's horrifying because this has the potential to completely decimate our country.
Casey: Not just our country.
Gina: Our world. And it's not like the other things that were happening in the world aren't still happening. Global climate change is still happening. I admire people who have the faith to have children, and I admire people who have the faith to believe in a God right now because things sure are weird and hard.
Casey: Yes, that's all I've got.
Gina: Yeah, I feel like I'm a total bummer. I mean, I try to be like a super positive person, you know, but these are...
Casey: How would you try to be a positive person all the time? I'm the happiest person I've ever met and I have been very upset.
Gina: I was talking to my psychiatrist and she was like, "Are you depressed right now?" And I was like, "Girl. Girl. My meds are working, but if I was not sad and depressed and upset about these things, I think that would be a sociopath and that would be concerning."So I'm OK with being sad right now,
