Playing with Purpose

About the Book

The original work in PLAYING WITH PURPOSE is the result of labors of love and loss. It is serious work, like a serious life.  But also, like any life, the work contains touches of humor. I have written about cancer as an environmental epidemic, about the Nazi Holocaust as the cessation of normal human history.  I have written about ecology and planetary responsibility, about men and women, about aging and suffering and about joy.  Also: about trauma and ordeal, and the wonder of the human soul, which so often transcends circumstances and situations—not as a foolish flight away, but as a deeper penetration into real existence—thereby transforming reality with a touch or two of beauty, and illuminating desperate darkness with a flash or flicker of hallowing light.  This is poetry, some innate, potential quality that plays seriously within life.  I have, from this awareness, written about identity and destiny and do, as well, point toward the nexus between character and fate: that ancient thematic premise of incipient tragedy and inner evolution.

For me, life is drama and theater, notwithstanding its intense focusing and amplifications, remains one of culture’s supreme methods and forums for the intimacies, intricacies and integrity of the human condition: a condition that is never far from contradictions and is never outside of ambiguity.

Ritual theater—if it is indeed just that, a public rite on the tightrope between the sacred and the profane—is always about mysteries.  There are, in my estimation, only three legitimate mysteries, all else being abstractions into ideas and the imagination.  These three mysteries are sex, death and nature—the elemental context that has always surrounded and sustained the passions

of the human adventure.  Nature is our stage and a green ritual theater is no exception to this wisdom.  The mysteries draw us, and no one remains free of their power of seduction.  So life is, and so, in our passages, we have time to act, reflect and speak. Theater is an old arena, as if a public microscope, to unfold the stories of these journeys and to ponder the absurdities and the possibilities of human meaning.

In my work, I have tried to create and reintroduce a language-rich theater that is not about argument and ideation, but which is about presentation and apprehension—taking hold, consciously, and being taking hold of, physically, sensually, in the body and through the emotions.  Perhaps I have made a contribution that is poetically powerful enough to stand in the tradition of drama from Sophocles to Shakespeare, and that is spiritually and politically urgent enough to earn a place beside Brecht and Beckett?  Even if such a place would only be in the shadows of giants, still this would be my wish.

To say more than is said here, I should, assuming the role, place on the wonder-mask and the magic, dancing cape of poetry.  To do less, would be disingenuous.  To do so, would be to become what is written.  In theater, as in life, honesty is important.

To live,

Everything must grow.

Words are seeds.

They can be planted

In the mind,

In the emotions,

In the soul.

The Earth greens

Each Springtime.

The human world greens

In the Summer of compassion.

This is my bag of seeds.

It contains

The flora of contradictions,

The herbs of polarities,

The bushes and fruity vines

Of ambiguity.

You, little known

To yourself, who stand

Before the seductive wind,

Who are you?  Really?

Do you know?

Should I whisper?

You are field,

You are meadow,

You are fertile soil.

About the Author

David Sparenberg’s literary work consists of dramas, short stories, poetry and visualization/meditations. This work has been published in over 100 periodicals and journals in six countries. He is the director of Dance on Capitol Hill and the Underground Theater in Seattle, WA; founder/director of the World Tree Eco Theater Ensemble, and founder/director of Earth Arts Performance and Productions. David is playwright, director, actor, performance poet, storyteller and planetary activist. He can be emailed at ActingWithDavid@aol.com and is available for support and fundraising assistance for ecological, health, peace and justice, diversity and sustainable culture, projects. Performance bookings and reading toures can be arranged through Earth Arts Performance & Productions: EarthArts2000@aol.com. Or by writing to: Earth Arts, 4213. S. Lucile, St. Seattle, WA 98118.