First-Person: Playwright Rebecca Auerbach on her play Your Side, My Side, and the Truth (SummerWorks)

I resented the idea of putting my experiences on stage...
Now is the time to share
by Rebecca Auerbach

It's a funny experience putting one's life on stage. 

Your Side, My Side, and the Truth is based on true events that happened in my life; events that haunted me for years. Finally, in an effort to no longer be haunted by these memories, I decided to write down my experiences almost, I guess, as a form of exorcism. I had zero intention of turning these memories into theatre. 

Instead of freeing me, the exercise of writing turned into an unexpected journey, a process that evolved first into a solo piece before quickly morphing into the five character play we’re presenting this year at SummerWorks. 


I had in actual fact created someone merely based on me.

In creating this work, one of the most interesting experiences has come out of the rehearsal process, working with director Adriana Bucz and our amazing team of actors. The characters I created were based on amalgamations of people from my own life but the central character, who I play in this production, was naturally meant to be based on me. When we started rehearsals I quickly realized that I’d written a character that, while possessing some of the same mannerisms as myself: an intonation of voice, a vulgarity that is representative of my warped sense of humour; I had in actual fact created someone merely based on me. She is less vulnerable than I am in real life, less sensitive too. In relationships, she has had different experiences than I’ve had in real life; that is up until the relationship she finds herself in during the play. This is where my character and I start to share experiences and where our lives start to intersect. The interesting discovery is that we deal with the experiences so differently. 

My challenge as a performer has been to find a way to separate myself and my own very vivid memories of what actually happened from what the character on stage is experiencing. Part of this process has been a concerted effort to try to replace the images that have been stuck in my mind for years, those drawn from real life, with images drawn from my imagination and set within a fictional landscape. It's been bizarre!! 

It's interesting to look at the times in our lives when we are ready for things. This play is based on events that happened eight years ago. For years, I resented the idea of putting my experiences on stage, constantly worried that I would somehow be exploiting them or the people who I shared my life with. Eventually I came to the realization that it seemed impossible not to share my experience and that the time to do so was now.  I don't think I was ready before. I don’t think I even had the tools or professional experience to create this piece any sooner in my life then this very moment. Part of the process for me has been to learn the moment to make use of the past to better understand what happened and who I am. So there you have it, and here it is! 

You can catch Your Side, My Side, and the Truth at this year's SummerWorks Festival from August 9-19 at the ScotiaBank Studio Theatre.