Mary Barker

Joyful lessons from gutsy performer

Using only a tiny stage, a couple of hats, a rocking chair, an embroidered footstool, one guitar, a bale of hay and the kind of courage reserved for a woman who would put herself in such a predicament, she stood there in the Carl Cherry Center, under the lights, before a full house, and performed.

There were no other actors. No gaudy costumes or special effects. Just one woman staring into the eyes of about 50 strangers in a room the size of a studio apartment.

She was as vulnerable as a fourth-grader wearing too-short, hand-me-down jeans on the first day of school And she was brilliant.

It would be trite to say she bared her soul, for what she did was allow you to take yours back

She calls it “A Long Drink of Silence,” but the message is deafening.

I needed to hear its roar two nights in a row. I needed my friends to as well.

Now, there are all kinds of life-defining moments —your first library card, the blue ribbon for the 50-yard dash, grandpa’s open-heart surgery, taking the training wheels off the bike, sitting on that first horse, finding your favorite cat just after it's been hit by a car, building your own house, witnessing the birth of quadruplets, the autographed football under the Christmas tree, the first time you make someone laugh, the first time you make someone cry.

Then, there is Jill Jackson and her autobiographical show.

She stands up there on that Carl Cherry stage in Carmel— the way she has four times a week for nearly a month — with nothing but a few props and her life story. Two acts, one 15-minute intermission, as much wisdom as you dare to embrace.

Certainly, everybody has a story. Some probably even have one sort of like hers. They just don’t tell it nearly so well.

Without revealing too much (the show’s final performances are this Thursday at 7p.m., Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2p.m.), this is an almost two-hour look not so much at this brave, talented woman, but at yourself.

She introduces you to things familiar and strange, but the language is universal.

Birds and snakes and little girls. Fame and fathers and faith.

Mamas and brothers and little girls.

Parking garages and plates of spaghetti.

None of them, of course, are actually on the stage with Jackson. She brings them to life and delivers them to your seat with a motion of her hand, an excitement in her eyes, the compassion of a set of outstretched arms.

Jackson can make you laugh out loud and make you hurt so deep you almost wish she would stop. Almost.

Because, more than anything, what Jill Jackson does is make you want more. More from her resilience, more from her spirit, more from yourself.

She challenges you to take risks and still be willing to relinquish power. To turn anger into insight To believe when it doesn’t make sense to believe anymore. To laugh too loud. To sing about everything. To write your own songs. To cry until you giggle.

She is pure joy, and she is all guts.

I think about how I want her to end up in San Francisco lights or to make it on Broadway. And then I think about what she taught me in just four acts and two intermissions, and I realize she’s already there.

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