Trust and Love

By Bridget Brewer

There’s a term some of my cast members and I use to describe what used to happen to me when I was asked to be emotionally vulnerable in a romantic scene. We call it “peg-legging.” Instead of saying yes to the offer of being a romantic lead, I would turn into a pirate with a peg leg. Yes, a literal pirate. My scene partner would say, “Darling, I have always loved you,” and I would reply, “Arrrrghhh, matey, well hoist the sails then, the Kraken is a’comin’ for our earthly bodies!” It was terrible. I knew it was terrible. I tried to stop. The thing is, it’s hard to stop making yourself the goofy, ugly, crazy, unlovable character in scene after scene if that’s how you really see yourself.

Boom. You can thank this show for that epiphany.

“I Love You So Much” is a unique show in my, albeit short, history of performing. More than any other show, this kind of work requires you to examine yourself – your real, undisclosed self – as single, in a long-term relationship, married, divorced, widowed, or in any of the other countless stages of relationships, and to create characters from that place of honesty. This is a wonderful request to make of your improvisers. But flirting, making sexy eye contact, swaggering in spiky lady heels up to the bar and having countless people buy me drinks – I shut down immediately when it comes to that stuff. I’ve always thought I’m better at being the funny, nerdy best friend helping my cooler, hotter friend get laid.

When you’re rehearsing every Wednesday for two months, however, there comes an important moment when you have to decide how much you trust yourself and the people around you. I encountered that moment two years ago with the man who is now my boyfriend, in fact. On a very normal night, I decided I trusted him. In spite of the long history of people who’d broken my heart and trust before him, I trusted this goofy nerd, and I decided I deserved to be able to trust someone. It was a big moment, and it led to what is currently 2 years of the best relationship I’ve ever had in my life.

I know things don’t always turn out as well as my relationship with my boyfriend – oh, how well I know that – but there’s no way to know for sure if things will turn out well unless you stop with the damn peg-legging and give it a real shot.
So that’s what I’m choosing to do with “I Love You So Much.” These Saturday nights represent something different for me. The laughter and emotions I share with you during this show are going to be the real deal, with my entire self behind them. I’m making the same promise I made to my boyfriend, and I’m doing it for myself, my cast mates, and for you: I trust you. Not as a pirate with a peg leg going for the cheap laughs, but as someone deciding, on a very normal night, that I trust each and every one of you with my goofy, lovely, weird, beautiful, real self.

I Love You So Much runs every Saturday at 8pm in January and February. Get tickets here.