A comic, cosmic musical comedy
By Patrice Wynne, April 13, 2007

Theater Is Ennybody Home? Sat, Apr 21, 8pm El Viejo-Topo Café Sterling Dickinson 28 Plaza Pueblito Colonia San Antonio 154-8701

Sheilah Glover performs her hilarious and acclaimed musical comedy and theatre act, Is Ennybody Home? for one night only on April 21. What Eve Ensler did for Vagina Monologues and San Miguel does for face lifts, Sheilah does for our human “foibles and troubles,” as portrayed in the Enneagram. This ancient system of personality wisdom originated in the Middle East and was brought to the West in the 1970s by 20th century Chilean psychologist Oscar Ichazo. The Enneagram defines 9 character types—Reformer, Helper, Motivator, Romantic, Thinker, Skeptic, Enthusiast, Leader, Peacemaker—which Sheilah’s characters deconstruct in all their humanness. By taking a compassionate look at each type, she shows how to find our way home to the uncompromising strengths that live within each of us. Is Ennybody Home? is witty, transformative and memorable.

Sheilah, from the San Francisco Bay area, has been in music and theater for 25 years, including a tour with one of the world’s premiere song-stylists, Barbara Cook, performing in A Broadway Evening. She has been lead vocalist for the 17-piece big band, the Starduster Orchestra, and has provided back-up vocals for Dan Hicks and Terry Garthwaite.

Written by Sheilah Glover and Julia Foster, Is Ennybody Home? has been performed in northern California, Denver, and Ashland, Oregon. It was the featured performance at the 2005 International Enneagram Conference in San Francisco. And now Sheilah is bringing it to San Miguel, in a production by San Miguel resident Patrice Wynne. For a night of laughter and wisdom, come join us under the big tent outdoors at Cafe El Viejo Topo.

There is plenty of free parking at the plaza. Reservations can be made by phone: 154-8701; by emailing: cafeelviejotopo@gmail.com  or by visiting the cafe. Food and beverages are served before and during the performance. This event is co-sponsored by LifePath Retreats.

Is Ennybody Home?:

One woman, nine personalities

Interview with actress Sheilah Glover 
By Patrice Wynne

Theater Is Ennybody Home? Sat, Apr 21, 8pm El Viejo-Topo Café Sterling Dickinson 28 Plaza Pueblito Colonia San Antonio 150 pesos 154-8701

Patrice Wynne: For the curious, what is the Enneagram?

Sheilah Glover: The Enneagram is an ancient system describing nine personality types and their movement from unhealthy to healthy expression. It was originally developed by George Gurdjieff in the early part of the 20th century, and then brought further into the psychological realm by Oscar Ichazo in the 1950s and then Claudio Naranjo in the 1970s. It is largely an oral tradition, where people learn about the types from panels of these types speaking about their experience. It is actually not simplistic—there is a lot of movement and complexity to the study of the Enneagram. It’s main benefit is to provide wisdom and compassion in dealing with ourselves and others. As one of my favorite teachers, Don Risso says, ‘The Enneagram does not put you in a box, it shows you the way out of the box.’ So I personally don’t find it reductionist or stifling; for me it provides a more spacious way of relating. It is currently enjoying a lot of use in corporate management teams, to learn how to get the most out of each empl
oyee’s gifts, and to work best with their blind spots!

PW: How did you get inspired to write and perform a play about the Enneagram?

SG: One night in May of 2002 I woke up in the middle of the night and the whole first half of the play was downloaded to me. I saw the costumes, the set, the different types and their basic monologues. I was laughing and thoroughly enjoying the show! I took a weekly Master class from Julia Foster, who is the director of the Colorado Enneagram Institute, and who co-wrote the play with me and worked on the authenticity of the personality types and especially the movement from the neurotic to healthy expression. She was my collaborator every step of the way.

PW: And how was it received when you performed it?

SG: We developed our shows very much through the feedback loop of the audience. Is Ennybody Home? had 10 local performances in the Bay Area and two in Denver, to full houses. It was refined and performed to great acclaim at the 2005 International Enneagram Conference in San Francisco. The producer of that conference was Gayle Scott, and she had been a script writer in Los Angeles. The play has been really well received wherever we performed it, even with non-Enneagram audiences.

PW: So a layperson can still get something out of it?

SG: Everyone can relate to these characters, their funny disfunctionality and their movement to wholeness. We will have a hand out sheet that describes the Nine Types and so this is a chance to learn about the system, too. There is often an uproar in the audience as people say, ‘my boss is like that’ or ‘that’s you all over, Jack—you’re busted’ or ‘oh my Gosh, that’s just how my daughter is when she’s upset’. It’s an accessible introduction to the Enneagram as a compassionate tool for understanding self and others.

PW: How is it for you to step into nine different personalities? What do you have to do to make those quick moves from one to the other?

SG: The nine types have different motivations and different physicalities. Two, three and four are image-oriented, emotionally based and looking for love. Five, six and seven are mental types, dealing with strategies around fear. And one, eight and nine are instinctually based and dealing with anger. My partner and co-author, Julia, who is more knowledgeable of the subtleties of the Enneagram, worked with me on how each type feels in their body, how they express their energy (or don’t) and how they relate to the world. I am the type who identifies with every other type, so it’s easy for me to feel like everyone else! And the costumes and the songs help me with those transitions. In the first act all the characters are exaggerated, which is fun. The process has been very healing in my personal life. The bossy, angry personality was hard for me to embody, but I learned to express that side of me, which had been somewhat disowned. My daughter is this type, and our relationship has become easier from the knowledge I gained from ‘stepping into her shoes.’

Is Ennybody Home?, a comic, cosmic musical comedy and theatrical exploration of the nine Enneagram personality types, is co-sponsored by LifePath Retreats. For reservations, contact 154-8701 or cafeelviejotopo@gmail.com .

Two plays. One holocaust
By Murray Kamelhar

FOTO Caption: Sleeping arrangements (3 to a bed) in Auschwitz. The man 7th from the left is Elie Wiesel.

Theater

Actors Lab presents two short plays

Tues & Wed, Apr 17 & 18, 7:30pm

Teatro Santa Ana

Biblioteca Pública

Reloj 50 A

150-peso recommended donation


On April 15, the state of Israel observes Yom Hashoah, the day to remember the holocaust. At 10am Israelis will respond to the sirens that signal the cessation of all activities, including driving. Israelis then stand for two minutes in memory of the victims of the holocaust.

Before WWI, Germany was admired for its scientific and cultural achievements. It ranked high among the civilized nations. However, as a result of Germany’s defeat in WWI, this once proud nation was overwhelmed with despair, poverty, self-doubt and anger. It was even deprived of solace. The Germans felt abandoned. They were desperately looking for salvation, and history gave them a brilliant orator. That orator gave them the idea that they were the “master race.” He also blamed their misery on the ideal scapegoat, the Jews.

The Jews were the ideal scapegoat because they were a people without a country, an insignificant number of people who practiced a foreign religion and were not vital to the economy. In this way Germany rediscovered “the universal scapegoat.”

Most of us are inclined to assign the holocaust to history. After all, what is to be gained by resurrecting the slaughter of ten million innocent people?

Yes! Ten million, for in addition to the six million Jews, the holocaust must include eight hundred thousand Gypsies, one hundred thousand Communists, eighty thousand Social Democrats, two hundred thousand disabled persons, thirty thousand homosexuals, five thousand Jehovah’s Witnesses, and other civilians throughout Europe.

The holocaust is more than genocide. It is the efficiently planned, documented and recorded goal of eliminating what the Nazis referred to as the inferior people of Europe.

In light of what I have been saying about confining the holocaust to history, how do I then convince you to see Actors Lab’s production of two short plays that were born out of the holocaust? It is not to shed more light on the subject, nor is it to relive the pain felt when we first learned of children being worked, starved and gassed to death.

No! The two plays stand on their own for their powerful writing. They are dramatic, suspenseful pieces of theater. They may cause you to think about them beyond curtain call, but it’s not required. However, in any event, you will enjoy these two plays.

Ticket donation is a recommended 150 pesos; proceeds go to the cost of a new piano for the Teatro Santa Ana which is calle “Lupita.”