Natalie's Story

This text is the original, short version of the one-act play that was writted by Deborah Charlene Segal over a period of three years. It culminated in an inspired and enthralling staged reading by the Off Broadway West Theater company who performed the work in front of a standing-room-only crowd on the evening of Tuesday, November 13th, 2012, at their 414 Mason Street location on the sixth floor. In addition to hearing this mind-bending script, the audience was treated to a fabulous...
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This text is the original, short version of the one-act play that was writted by Deborah Charlene Segal over a period of three years. It culminated in an inspired and enthralling staged reading by the Off Broadway West Theater company who performed the work in front of a standing-room-only crowd on the evening of Tuesday, November 13th, 2012, at their 414 Mason Street location on the sixth floor. In addition to hearing this mind-bending script, the audience was treated to a fabulous theatrical voicing of the play. MCTP plans to publish an expanded version of this script when it becomes available.Although the text is short, is raises some profound questions about the nature of love, the trustworthiness of lovers and the reliability of modern myths and urban legends. And it also raises some insightful questions about how peculiarly-American forms of Buddhism are used, and/or misused. And the play pointedly asked the questions, "Who is really seeking the ultimate liberation, and who is just using that as a shield to cover up a life in ethical disarray?" And, to some degree, it echoes the warnings of the latter Old Testament prophets who reminded us that following the letter of the law, or having an ideology down pat, is not a substitute for human caring and common consideration.This collection of short scenes packs a formative literary punch. And also, it must be noted, it is not entirely a speculative work, but a work formed around what little is known of this character, Natalie Jackson, and her short life and tragic death in the company of the revered beats.In this sense, this theatrical rendering is iconoclastic; but even so, even in spite of the humanitarian failings of our two most vaunted beats in some of these scenes, one still finds within these pages a tiny taste of their transcendent nature. And thus, like all works of well-though-out literature, we see that no life is simply good or bad, spiritual or mundane. The truth is complicated. And the truth can be dangerous.