Refusing to Waste Life’s Meaning

Eight years ago, Elaine Gale was the center of adoration in the wake of her provocative and daringly self-revealing one-woman autobiographical play One Good Egg. The moving and riotous meditation on fertility and frustrating relationships had enjoyed a sold-out run at Center Stage Theatre. 

The show drew the attention of a producer in Los Angeles, who was in the process of preparing to produce a six-week run that would culminate with the show landing on  Broadway. Yes, that Broadway.

Then the pandemic hit. 

After a series of defeats that included coronavirus-induced isolation, Zoom fatigue, divorce, the Covid-related death of her mother, and a bout of depression, Gale found her salvation in garbage. 

Literally.

Gale is a sixth-generation Nebraskan, former religion reporter at the Los Angeles Times, and a full professor in Communication Studies at California State University. As her difficulties mounted, Gale – who by then had relocated from Santa Barbara to Silver Lake – consoled herself by picking up trash while on walks around her neighborhood. Seeing others similarly sweeping up garbage, she posted flyers in Silver Lake to see if anyone might be interested in joining forces.

“The unicorn was the mascot because it has a built-in trash grabber,” Gale said. 

More than 40 people showed up. What was planned as a one-time event morphed  into biweekly gatherings that now boast more than 2,000 members. The group has collected more than 5,000 bags of trash over three years. 

“It really changed my life,” Gale said. “I met all these amazing people and it became a big turning point for me.”

Inspired by the experience, she started researching and studying trash, deep diving (researching, that is) garbage dumps and landfills, sustainable recycling, and the field called garbology. “I even found there’s a goddess of garbage in the Aztec tradition,” she said. 

Garbage became the metaphor for a 10-minute piece that played at Center Stage as part of the Anima Theater series earlier this year. The piece has since been expanded into a full-length show on the losses Gale suffered in the early 2020s. Now called Trash Club, the workhas its premiere back on the same stage August 6 & 7. The title is meant to be both literal and a metaphor. 

“When you get divorced, there’s all this stuff you have to decide about,” she said. “What do you keep and what do you throw away? But also what do you keep and what do you throw away interpersonally and energetically? Even an ex-husband – is it better to be friends or do you throw that connection away?”

Her mother’s death also raised unanswerable inquiries, namely “How can I live without something I can’t live without?”

But there’s lots of actual garbage that runs throughout the piece, recalling the Silver Lake club during the pandemic, the piles of discarded gloves, masks and other detritus. Excessive drinking (getting trashed, that is) also makes an appearance. 

Most important, Gale said, was her turning inwards to separate the wheat from the chaff (to mix some metaphors). 

“I needed to learn how to not trash myself, to get perspective instead of trashing my own life because things didn’t go the way I thought they would, married with two kids with a mom who would live to be 95,” she said. “I had to re-learn to appreciate what you have and not just focus on what was thrown away. Meeting people who were living on the street – for whom a piece of cardboard is a treasure, not trash – gives you a whole new perspective on gratitude.” 

As with One Good Egg, Trash Club has humor throughout and multiple moments meant to evoke laughter. Throughout the piece Gale also details her various modes and methods of healing; a narrative process director Teagan Rose describes as part storytelling, part standup, part ritual, part dumpster dive. Ultimately, the show is about bouncing back, perhaps better and stronger than ever. 

“Resilience is so important during tough times,” Gale said. “To be able to pick yourself up out of a trash pile, clean it up and keep moving, even though sometimes we want to escape and numb out, or pretend that it’s not that bad, or ignore it, or do all the things we humans to do avoid the big feelings of our lives. But steering into the skid of loss or disappointment builds compassion and strength. And that helps us contribute to others who may be going through something similar, maybe making their journey a little easier.” 

Like writing and starring in a one-woman show.