by Jeanne Huff
EXCERPTS:
Full disclosure, I reviewed the 2022 BCT performance. Here’s what I wrote: “In Revere’s deft hands, she faces it all unflinchingly and with wit, delivering nearly equal parts humor and pathos throughout all 80 minutes (no intermission) of the play: ‘F- you, cancer.’ … It is a don’t-miss tour de force.”
Boise Weekly reached out to Revere via email to talk about her play, her upcoming event, and life. The following conversation has been gently edited.
Jodeen, a 60-minute reading of yours at Ming Studios in 2019 became a one-woman world-premiere play at Boise Contemporary Theater in 2022 — and in November you performed a bare-boned show of “The Persistent Guest” in New York. The show’s basic premise is based on your real-life experience battling breast cancer. Can you talk a little about how/why it all came about — what was the genesis of getting it written down and performing it — and how it has informed or guided your healing journey?
It all started as a blog (how original, A Blog!) for me to document what I was thinking/going through and as a place for my friends and community to follow what was going on with me. I wrote most days in real time as I was having the feelings and experiences, not after the fact. I am so grateful I did that, because I seriously doubt I could have cast back and resurrected those experiences and emotions after time had passed. Now I get the benefit of the visceral punch of the experience, filtered through the wisdom and separation of time. Tig Notaro says “Tragedy plus time equals comedy.”