The Human Experience
David Geselson’s “Unwritten Letters”
By Lisa Peterson
In the crowded FIAF Skyroom on the Upper East Side, an audience listens intently as French theater maker David Geselson speaks in the voice of a husband putting a bitter end to his marriage. “I wish you nothing good because I can’t stand you anymore,” Geselson reads from the page in his hands. This husband claims that it is his wife’s “tendency to manipulate” and “profound miserliness” that have made their marriage a miserable cage. Several insults later, an impression that this husband is as an utterly heartless man starts to crystallize. Spectators let out uncomfortable laughs at the brazenness of his cruelty. How could a decent person wield such callous words against the mother of his child? But as Geselson continues, that assessment starts to crack. This man’s wife has rejected his advances so consistently throughout their twelve-year marriage, he says, that he feels wholly undesirable. Even catching his own shirtless reflection in the mirror has become unbearable. He adds that he believes his wife has been involved in an affair. By the time Geselson has finished reading, it seems wrong to regard this husband as entirely cold-hearted. Yes, he’s harsh in his rage. But he is also insecure, defeated, and heartbroken. It’s complicated.
Geselson’s Unwritten Letters repeatedly challenges the human tendency to oversimplify emotion by exploring the complex, untold stories of strangers. The piece channels the simultaneous frustration and optimism of a young artist craving his parent’s approval, the coexisting pity and love a daughter has for her abusive father, the concurrent sorrow and bravery of a woman near the end of her life. To get each of these stories, Geselson issued an unconventional proposition on Crossing the Line’s website: “If you’ve ever wanted to write a letter to someone dear to you but never did because you didn’t dare, didn’t know how, couldn’t, or couldn’t make it through, tell me about it and I’ll write it for you.” Over two days, Geselson dedicated 35 minutes to hearing each respondent describe what they’d like to have said, and then crafted a letter on their behalf. If they hated it, Geselson destroyed the letter. But if they liked it, Geselson asked for permission to share it, anonymously, with an audience.
What emanates from this unique process is an understated, compelling performance in which he and guest actor April Matthis take turns reading aloud the letters Geselson has written. Giving voice to the speaker through his own evocative prose, Geselson gives each experience a moving, artistic shape.
The presentation of Unwritten Letters unfolds as a shared spiritual observance. Like an affecting homily, each letter invites its audience to act with greater compassion and empathy. It reminds us that we cannot possibly fathom the untold stories others carry within. The room itself is designed as a sanctuary for intimate listening. The audience’s chairs are arranged in a semi-circle, creating a snug, protective arc around the playing area. Ambient, oceanic sounds fill up the intentional pauses. A lone black printer sits proudly like an altar downstage-center, churning out the pages for Geselson and Matthis to take up and read.
The 60-minute performance reaches its most poignant moment when Geselson reads a letter he penned on behalf of a heartbroken man. It begins by recounting a recent, vivid sexual dream about the lover who has just left him. When he meets this ex-lover in his sleep, she is covered almost entirely in a bed sheet, only her belly visible. Taking his hand, she guides him to pleasure her. This lasts for only a few blissful moments before the dream abruptly ends. Now awake, the soul-crushing reminder that his love is gone overwhelms. “I miss you,” the letter seems to almost weep. “I cannot lose you for good.” Geselson lets each agonizing sentence hang in the air. A grey-haired woman seated in the second row wipes away tears. Still, Geselson resists creating a one-dimensional portrait of this man’s distress. He is devastated, yes, but he still maintains a sliver of optimism. “I believe there are written letters in the world that bear their fruit,” he continues. He ends by offering his earnest hope that this will be one of them. Geselson’s ability to articulate conflicting emotions — the presence of hope right alongside despair, for one — makes Unwritten Letters an authentic account of the human experience. By the performance’s final moments, both audience and artist are emotionally raw. Matthis pauses to compose herself as she reads one of the last notes, a letter that is part-apology and part-promise to a woman’s now-deceased first love.
Geselson has modestly described Unwritten Letters, which was first presented in France in 2016, as an ongoing work that “bridges the gap between theater practitioners and their audience.” Undoubtedly he has done so. But he has also created something even more meaningful: a piece that empowers us to see the imperfect — unflattering, even– stories we bury inside not as sources of shame, but as uniquely beautiful truths that are meant to be shared.
