Brian James Polak

I Survived Theatre School

Intro: speaking up for yourself, sharing your wins, jealousy
Let Me Run This By You: Boz explains how she maintains having many close friendships, when Boz called an ex 89 times in 4 hours, What About Bob?
Interview: We talk to Brian James Polak (host of the Subtext Podcast!) about taking a circuitous route to playwriting, Marymount University, Keane, NH, opting for a philosophy major, do you need to be reflected by your parents?, being an RA, when his college guidance counselor told him to go to a trade school, early adulthood financial naïveté, Meisner, improv, Jeremy O. Harris, posthumous playwriting.
FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited):
1 (8s):
And Jen Bosworth from me this and I'm Gina . We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand it. 20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all. We survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet? Hello? How are you today? Well, I'm better than yesterday in terms of my, I really spoke up for myself and with my friend and for podcast listeners. I think we did not record this cause we were just having a meeting, but we did record it, but not on a podcast format.

1 (49s):
Anyway, the point is I had a friend that had sort of tried to, or did set a boundary in a really messy way that I did not receive, but, and then I, I was proud of myself. I just called and I like, I it's interesting as I get older, I don't have a charge on things like I wasn't charged about it. I was like, listen, I mean, I was charged about it when I talked to you because that's what you do when you talk things out. But like I just listed, I totally appreciate that you have this issue and you don't want to hear me talk about certain things. Cause that was the whole thing is that she said, you know, it basically comes down to jealousy and envy and I get those things a hundred percent.

1 (1m 33s):
Believe me, if you listen to the podcast, you know, that like all of my theater school experience and until like maybe four years ago was spent basically living in one state of constant, less than feeling and envy. So I don't, but I'm trying not to do that anymore and I'm working on it. So anyway, I just said like, Hey, like here's the thing. If you need to set a boundary, which it sounds like you do to not hear about certain wins of mine, I just need you to know that that's gonna really affect our relationship. And also I've spent, and this is the core I whittled down. I'm trying lately to whittle down to the core issue. And so, because it just saves a lot of time in conversations.

1 (2m 15s):
Like literally it same with pitching, same with anybody like whittle it down. What are you really saying? And what I'm saying is I spent my whole life not feeling like I wasn't allowed to celebrate my wins, which started in my family of origin. I don't want to do that anymore. It's painful. It'll kill me. It lead to depression, anxiety. I'm not doing it anymore. So I said, if we need to take a break in general from chatting for, well, great. I'd much rather do that. Then, then me censor myself. I'm not, I'm not going to do that with people on my free time. Like, I feel like we have to do that in, in professional settings all the time. Or like as adults in, in the world.

1 (2m 56s):
Right. We can't go around saying, I mean, when you can't and you end up in an institution or a jail, so, so, and, and she was totally receptive and was like, oh yeah, I was shocked just because that's not been my experience with people, not her, but people and oh yeah. And myself. And so we're going to, we're going to give it a shot to, to try it again. And then I just said like, literally, I'm not going to look. I everyone's got to do what they need to do, but like, I, I, I L I am not willing to, yeah. Not share to, to hide from people I'm supposedly supposed to be close with.

1 (3m 37s):
Like, I just, it's just not working. It doesn't work out. If it worked out, I would have continued doing what I did my whole life. Well,

2 (3m 46s):
It works out if you're in a people pleasing relationship where all you can get out of it is the satisfaction in any given moment of telling the person exactly what they want to hear. But of course we've long discovered that that is not a great long-term solution because it leads to all of the aforementioned maladies. So good for you.

1 (4m 6s):
Thank you. And, and, and not only does it lead to, you know, certain inevitable death, really it, once you, once I know the, in my heart, it doesn't work. I can't in good faith, keep people pleasing because I don't have the evidence anymore that it actually does anything other than create depression. Like I have that visceral experience. So I, I, I'm not the kind of person, I don't think many people are sociopath aside or psychopaths that like, can pretend. So I I'm like not going to pretend anymore that I can function that way. It's just, it's just a waste of everybody.

2 (4m 45s):
Yeah. And I'm, I'm about to say the world's least profound thing, but it's been profound for me cause I'm just like really getting to it, which is the thing that you run out of steam for, with the people pleasing is just simply the fact that in the effort to please other people, you, you don't please yourself. And so it'd be like trying to fill your gas tank with like Daisy pedals, you know, because somebody wants you to fill it. And it's like, okay, well maybe it'll get somewhere for awhile. But at the end of the day, you still need gas. Like you still need to meet your own needs. You still need to be in charge of your own. I mean, that's it, you need to meet your own needs.

2 (5m 25s):
And so the, the thing that ends up always underneath the people pleasing is, oh, I haven't met my own needs. And funny thing, the needs didn't disappear just because I wasn't, you know, because I chose not to meet them. That's been my thing recently of like, I don't know how I was previously formulating my lack of willingness to take care of myself. I think I was formulating it as like being heroic in some way or being tough in some way, which it just completely isn't, it's just being afraid to like, engage with me and that's, Hey everybody, it's only you at the end.

2 (6m 9s):
So might as well get cozy with you now and figure out how to meet your needs now. So agree. And she received it well. So like, that's the best possible outcome.

1 (6m 21s):
Yeah. She totally received it. Well, we're going to give it a shot, you know, because I talked to you and then I talked to my other friend and my other friend, it just, everyone talks from where they're coming from. My other friend was like, oh, you need to just cut her off. Like you can't ever talk to her again. She's crazy. She's crazy. And like, you, you can't, you that's enough. And I was like, oh man, I could. But like,

2 (6m 45s):
And I can relate to that too. I mean, I can really, because of what that person is saying is like, it's so hurtful, you know? Right. Cause that that's an instinct. We sometimes have somebody hurt us. So they're dead.

1 (6m 56s):
Yeah. And they're crazy. Like write them off as bonkers and you don't have time for it. Here's the thing. I think it's all a wait and see situation. Like, you know, relationships evolve and change. And, and I don't want to like end the friendship right now. I mean, if this continued, of course, but like I give people a chance, you know? But like, yeah. It's so funny.

2 (7m 22s):
C...