.22 Caliber Mouth

The Characters: Deanne Campino

Deanne is a woman in her mid forties who has struggled for years with profound emotional ups and downs. Nervous breakdowns have, at times, caused her to be institutionalized. She has never lost her way so much that she could not return to society.

Keeping apartments, holding down some upscale jobs; her last, at a police pathology lab reading slides.

Though diagnosed as bi-polar and depressed, her basic innate soundness, extraordinary intelligence and a small flame of willingness to love that will not burn out, is what has managed to keep her surviving.

Attractive, funny, and sarcastic, we find her in a fugue state between the darkness of the past and the light that a new flirtation unexpectedly brings.

She lives in a crummy apartment in the lower east side, surviving on food stamps, medications and other assistance programs like SSI…or as they called it in the 70’s nut pay.
She grew up in the out skirts of Boston.

Photo: Deanne as played by Lauren Robert

Where Do We Go From Here?

With tremendous excitement, anticipation and growing support, .22 Caliber Mouth moves swiftly toward full production.

If you wish to take part in this exciting project please contact us and we would be most pleased to speak with you.

From the Beginning

I don’t believe there is any age limit on searching for or finding answers for a way to make some bearable peace with our stay on this earth.

I am not a cheerful spirit. I am young and old. I am emotionally hobbled and I am far far wiser than my years. As are the five flailing characters of my play. Yes, though people experience me as fun, funny and loving (at times) my view of life is that it can be the cruelest teaching device, beyond brilliant in its hellish challenges. I believe the elusive spirits of fun and love show up whenever the hell they want despite our prompts or beseeching and likewise do the demons.

That  is why Tim Warmen’s contributions to this project have been such a blessing to me. He understands everything, but his beliefs are intact.

We met when he was called back to play the role of Colin in the Ohio Theater workshop. His audition was stunning and he had the sensibilities to back it up. His passion for my work translated into brilliant suggestions and advice. His questions brought  needed light and depth to many scenes and many songs. “Where is the humor between these two? Where is her tenderness? Isn’t it really family they all yearn for?” Like many collaborators, our fights were renown, but we believe in each other.

As many writers will tell you, this play wrote itself. I was the conduit, yes. I have always been an actor and singer and it is from this perspective that I began to write. .22 Caliber Mouth is my most recent play with music and the one that cut closest to the bone.

The lead character, Deanne chose an innocuous day, without any dramatic explosions (for a change) as the right time to begin to express her difficult story to me. Though we have certain similarities, this play is not about me. It did not happen to me quite this way. I believe that most cogent, intelligent self-examining females will understand certain aspects of Deanne and her sister Ronnie. Though they are quite different, each shares traits that resonate in all of us who have hungered for love.  

In my life, like so many, I have gone to the greatest self–sacrificing lengths to avoid the existential, to outrun the dark menace of loneliness that loiters just outside the apartment door after “he” leaves. God Bless those who have embraced solitude with poise and brave pursuit, in silent self-commune, in a ballet of thought, deed and grace, of life with vitality undeterred by broken heart.

I, on the other hand, battered by betrayal, the sting and stun of a fresh divorce, acute bouts of lovesickness and so many walks on the wild side that I should be dead… well, I’m scarred for life. What scars I didn’t get from this world I inherited through the zeitgeist of both the blood and the word.

So I write from this place, this conundrum. I do have hope and a passionate desire for love and a longing for life to come out right. Perhaps this is why these characters chose me. 

I love them.

Because they try so hard.

Lauren