Arts & Entertainment
A journey of grief
Nurse shares her life story of searching and caring for others
‘Beautiful Unbroken: One Nurse’s Life’
by Mary Jane Nealon
Graywolf Press
$15
224 pages
(Image courtesy of Graywolf)
Wanderlust can strike any time, but what if the journey doesn’t satisfy the way you hope it will? In the new book “Beautiful Unbroken: One Nurse’s Life” by Mary Jane Nealon, you’ll read about a woman’s lifelong trip.
As a child, Mary Jane Nealon decided that she wanted to be a saint.
Her Jersey City childhood was spent poring over books about Molly Pitcher, Clara Barton and Kateri Tekekwitha. Nealon wanted to be like them, to “save somebody.” So when her father offered to pay for nursing school after graduation, she saw her chance to be a heroine.
Nealon enjoyed “doing small things for the body” and nursing was a good fit for her so later, antsy to leave Jersey City, she took a job in Charlottesville, Va. She loved caring for stroke patients and life was good, but she was back home 10 months later. Her younger brother fell sick and there was no other place she could be.
His death had a profound effect on her life. She couldn’t escape the guilt.
Still, she tried: she investigated volunteer work in Cambodia, but she got scared. Instead, she traveled to Hawaii to work and study with an antiwar poet, then she signed up to be a traveling nurse for hospitals in northern New Mexico and Savannah, Ga. She considered Florida. She considered falling in love. She considered marriage.
But home kept calling and Nealon kept returning, grief for her brother keener every time. With each new death and into each new job, she carried with her the figurative bodies she’d cared for: too-young boys with cancer, skeletal men with purple lesions and bright eyes, women with AIDS, alcoholics, Bowery residents.
She carried them because those people, achingly in and out of Nealon’s life and gone, helped her deal with the greatest loss of all.
Occasionally books are so compelling, one can bear neither to finish them nor put them down. “Beautiful Unbroken” is one of those books.
In author Mary Jane Nealon’s hands, loss is grace and there’s an awful elegance in illness. Not only does Nealon grab your heart and wring it out completely with words, she has a way with metaphors that will make you chuckle as she slams them into your gut. There’s a satisfying pain to reading this book, but continuing becomes a necessary endeavor once one starts.
“No one understood that I was a poet when I sat with the dying men,” writes Nealon in describing her dual life as AIDS caretaker and writer. But when you read this outstanding book, you’ll understand that clearly. Indeed, “Beautiful Unbroken” packs a wallop.
The 2026 Mr. Mid-Atlantic Leather competition was held at the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill on Sunday. Seven contestants vied for the title and Gage Ryder was named the winner.
(Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Theater
Voiceless ‘Antony & Cleopatra’ a spectacle of operatic proportions
Synetic production pulls audience into grips of doomed lovers’ passion
‘Antony & Cleopatra’
Through Jan. 25
Synetic Theater at
Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Klein Theatre
450 7th St., N.W.
Synetictheater.org
A spectacle of operatic proportions, Synetic Theater’s “Antony & Cleopatra” is performed entirely voiceless. An adaptation of the Bard’s original (a play bursting with wordplay, metaphors, and poetic language), the celebrated company’s production doesn’t flinch before the challenge.
Staged by Paata Tsikurishvili and choreographed by Irina Tsikurishvili, this worthy remount is currently playing at Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Klein Theatre, the same venue where it premiered 10 years ago. Much is changed, including players, but the usual inimitable Synectic energy and ingenuity remain intact.
As audiences file into the Klein, they’re met with a monumental pyramid bathed in mist on a dimly lit stage. As the lights rise, the struggle kicks off: Cleopatra (Irina Kavsadze) and brother Ptolemy (Natan-Maël Gray) are each vying for the crown of Egypt. Alas, he wins and she’s banished from Alexandria along with her ethereal black-clad sidekick Mardian (Stella Bunch); but as history tells us, Cleopatra soon makes a triumphant return rolled in a carpet.
Meanwhile, in the increasingly dangerous Rome, Caesar (memorably played by Tony Amante) is assassinated by a group of senators. Here, his legendary Ides of March murder is rather elegantly achieved by silver masked politicians, leaving the epic storytelling to focus on the titular lovers.
The fabled couple is intense. As the Roman general Antony, Vato Tsikurishvili comes across as equal parts warrior, careerist, and beguiled lover. And despite a dose of earthiness, it’s clear that Kavsadze’s Cleopatra was born to be queen.
Phil Charlwood’s scenic design along with Colin K. Bills’ lighting cleverly morph the huge pyramidic structure into the throne of Egypt, the Roman Senate, and most astonishingly as a battle galley crashing across the seas with Tsikurishvili’s Antony ferociously at the helm.
There are some less subtle suggestions of location and empire building in the form of outsized cardboard puzzle pieces depicting the Mediterranean and a royal throne broken into jagged halves, and the back-and-forth of missives.
Of course, going wordless has its challenges. Kindly, Synectic provides a compact synopsis of the story. I’d recommend coming early and studying that page. With changing locations, lots of who’s who, shifting alliances, numerous war skirmishes, and lack of dialogue, it helps to get a jump on plot and characters.
Erik Teague’s terrific costume design is not only inspired but also helpful. Crimson red, silver, and white say Rome; while all things Egyptian have a more exotic look with lots of gold and diaphanous veils, etc.
When Synetic’s voicelessness works, it’s masterful. Many hands create the magic: There’s the direction, choreography, design, and the outrageously committed, sinewy built players who bring it to life through movement, some acrobatics, and the remarkable sword dancing using (actual sparking sabers) while twirling to original music composed by Konstantine Lortkipanidze.
Amid the tumultuous relationships and frequent battling (fight choreography compliments of Ben Cunis), moments of whimsy and humor aren’t unwelcome. Ptolemy has a few clownish bits as Cleopatra’s lesser sibling. And Antony’s powerful rival Octavian (ageless out actor Philip Fletcher) engages in peppy propaganda featuring a faux Cleopatra (played by Maryam Najafzada) as a less than virtuous queen enthusiastically engaged in an all-out sex romp.
When Antony and Cleopatra reach their respective ends with sword and adder, it comes almost as a relief. They’ve been through so much. And from start to finish, without uttering a word, Kavsadze and Tsikurishvili share a chemistry that pulls the audience into the grips of the doomed lovers’ palpable passion.
Out & About
Love board games and looking for love?
Quirk Events will host “Board Game Speed Dating for Gay Men” on Thursday, Jan. 22 at 7 p.m. at KBird DC.
Searching for a partner can be challenging. But board games are always fun. So what if you combined board games and finding a partner?
Picture this: You sit down for a night of games. A gaming concierge walks you through several games over the course of the night. You play classics you love and discover brand new games you’ve never heard of, playing each with a different group of fun singles. All while in a great establishment.
At the end of the night, you give your gaming concierge a list of the folks you met that you’d like to date and a list of those you met that you’d like to just hang out with as friends. If any two people put down the same name as each other in either column, then your gaming concierge will make sure you get each other’s e-mail address and you can coordinate a time to hang out.
Tickets cost $31.80 and can be purchased on Eventbrite.
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