Besides escaping an AP chemistry test, it’s no secret that school assemblies aren’t the most highly anticipated events on students’ calendars.
Sitting for two hours and listening to a guidance counselor talk about the dangers of bullying may not be the most riveting experience, nor the most effective if you are trying to really get through to students.
John Morello’s “Dirt: A One-Man Show” is a potent mix of comedy and life lessons. Instead of preaching or lecturing, Morello insists that the show is just that — a show.
Morello said that, being an actor, he was too cheap to hire other people to play his cast of characters. “So I’m just gonna play them myself,” he said.
The event was held at the M.V. Film Center, and was co-sponsored by Connect to End Violence (a program of MVCS), the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School, and the Youth Task Force.
The audience of about 120 people was caught off-guard by the one-man show, as Morello seamlessly morphed from one character to the next. At times, people laughed at the many witty observations of everyday life — other times they cried, as Morello’s characters spoke of their drug habits, their persistent feelings of ineptitude, and their memories of lost loved ones. It was apparent that everyone could relate to the content of Morello’s performance in one way or another.
Once a high school dropout, Morello now holds a degree in theater arts, and has been onstage as a comedian and actor for more than 20 years.
Morello said he was never one for school, and often spent his time in detention (which for him was better than the classroom).
“I just didn’t like going into a square classroom, sitting in a square desk, looking at a square chalkboard all day,” Morello said. “It just felt a little bit like prison.”
One class that Morello did enjoy was his art class. “Or maybe it was more my art teacher,” he said. “I had a little crush on her.”
His art teacher told him to “draw what you see, not what you think you see.”
“That’s what I try to do with this show, I guess,” Morello said.
While reflecting on his childhood, Morello recalled the first time he got high at age 16. “When I was 16, my life felt really out of control, and I didn’t feel like I was as smart or as wealthy as the other kids in my school,” he said. “Looking back, it’s probably because I wasn’t as smart or as wealthy as some of the other kids in my school.”
Morello said his views on life were inevitably changing, and he had difficulty finding happiness in many of the things he once loved. “I used to love the science fair, but then I would go and just be pissed off,” he said.
Morello said he recalls walking out of the science fair with his “tornado water” science project and seeing a big pile of rocks and dirt. “I took my jar of tornado water and smashed it and watched the green water flow across the dirt,” he said. “I started imagining blood dripping out of my body, and maybe that blood would go and become something else, someone else, someone good.”
At this point, Morello introduced his friend Jason — the first character we get to meet in the show. Morello grabbed a knit hat and a baggy sweatshirt, and immediately was transformed.
He was no longer a middle-aged actor and comedian, he had turned into “the kid who you could never really tell what class he was supposed to be in.”
Morello said Jason was a stoner whose affinity for pot made him disconnected from society and devoid of any future ambitions. “It’s like once they find out you smoke weed, they assume you’re a stoner and they assume you’re stupid, so they give you easier work,” Jason said.
Another character, David, was nicknamed “Pi” because his student identification number was 3.14.
In portraying this character, all Morello had to do was throw on a black baseball hat and assume the personality of a young man struggling to find his place in the world.
Pi is heavily involved with prescription drugs, possibly as a result of his family’s extensive use of them. “My mom is on Prozac, my brother is on Ritalin, my dad takes Viagra … and then they look at me and yell, ‘Don’t do drugs!’ And I’m like, Which ones?”
Although Pi has a deep understanding of the world around him, he doesn’t understand himself. He is able to help people being bullied in school, but he can’t help himself: “I don’t wanna even be me. I don’t even know who ‘me’ is. I just want one person to have an honest conversation with me.”
Pi is able to look past the façades put up by other students, and because of this he finds himself outside the school community. He read a poem during his group meeting in rehab called “Dirt,” describing how he feels worthless: “I am dirt, I come from it, I walk on it, I feel like it. I fall down on the dirt. I pray for the dirt to take me back to where it’s peaceful and cool and I can sleep and spill out all that I am. Please let the dirt take me back. The dirt that I am made of will re-create itself some day. Perhaps its new form will have better luck than me.”
One day, Pi is in the cafeteria and sees a group of girls teasing another student who has her headphones on. “This girl isn’t even doing anything, she just has her headphones on minding her own business,” Pi said.
He decides to walk up to the table full of girls and confront them. “Excuse me, evil girls? I noticed you were picking on this girl, and I’m sure she noticed also.
“Does it make you feel good to make other people feel bad?” Pi asked.
Pi said in his rehab meeting that he doesn’t want to be here: “I don’t want to be me anymore, I wish I could just turn into a ghost.”
With this, Morello slowly pulled the hood of a black raincoat over his head, and became a ghost.
“Hi, my name’s Melissa, and I’m a ghost at my school.” Melissa said that being a ghost at her school allows her to see people for who they truly are. “I’d rather be that than some popular girl texting 50 friends,” she said.
Melissa told a story of when she went to a party with her friend and was approached by a popular boy offering her beer. “Wow, you can lift up a whole beer? You must be so strong,” Melissa said as the audience laughed. “So he brings me a beer, and I drank it, and I don’t know what he put in it, and I woke up the next day.”
Then, when Melissa was in school listening to her iPod during lunch, a group of girls were teasing her. “These girls were making fun of my iPod, I know that sounds stupid but they were.”
When Melissa was young, her father would listen to his iPod when he was in chemotherapy. “He would sit there all day and watch chemicals drip into his body,” she said. “I bought this used iPod and downloaded all this peace music that he liked to listen to.” When her father died, Melissa took the iPod for herself to remember him by.
All Melissa could think about while the girls were teasing her was “doing horrible things to them with garden equipment. But then I would have to clean it up, so maybe I’ll just do something to myself and make them clean up the mess they made of me.”
As Melissa was walking out of the cafeteria, determined to end her life, a boy ruined her plan.
“This boy just started sticking up for me. I didn’t even know the kid,” she said.
The final character in the one-man show is Hank — a WWII veteran who reflects on his life, his choices, and the status of the world. Hank is Pi’s grandfather, and provides another perspective into the young man’s life.
“If that kid had cancer, we’d say he was so brave for getting help. If he had diabetes, we’d have a fundraiser for him and help his parents. So I told the kid that I’ve never stopped being proud of him or loving him, and I’m glad he’s getting help. Every kid deserves a second chance, but not every kid gets a second chance,” Hank said.
For a student perspective on “Dirt,” please see High School View on page B9.