Looking back, moving forward

by Paul Kandarian

Funny thing about going back in time: you can’t. That’s not the funny part. The funny part is how badly many of us seem to want what we just can’t have. So yeah, you can’t go back in time. But the past is something you can visit. You just can’t – or shouldn’t – live there. Last month, I was lucky enough to attend a staged reading of a new work at 2nd Act in Boston, a new entity that formed with the merger of Creating Outreach About Addiction Support Together (COAAST), a nonprofit based in Rhode Island, and Improbable Players of Boston. 2nd Act is a collective of artists, many in recovery, that uses theater, film and drama therapy to address the impact of substance abuse. We did the same thing at COAAST, but the merger allows the new nonprofit a far greater reach.

The new work that was read that night was outstanding, visceral, and heartfelt. I loved being there to watch, and it was especially gratifying seeing familiar faces from my COAAST days, like Ana Bess Moyer Bell, now executive director of 2nd Act, and Rachel Tondreault, Cam Torres, and Paul Noonan, who work at 2nd act as actors and writers.

It felt like I’d come home, honestly. I've said it before many times: my work during

COAAST's salad days (2016-pandemic) was by far the most important acting I'll ever do, bar none, and seeing the people who became family to me was surreal and sweet.

At COAAST, we did our shows for students in high schools across the South Coast and beyond, and for other groups as well, and our play about the impact of addiction on family hit home with so many in attendance. The talkbacks after our shows were exhilarating, draining, powerful, painful, as people would stand, often in tears, pouring out their hearts about loss or triumph, our space giving them the power to feel whatever they needed to feel – to heal.

I was prouder still that my son, a long-time recovering addict, joined us at COAAST back in the day to help out with presentations and to write a play with me about our journey together to recovery that played three times until the pandemic brought the world to a stop.

One time back in those days, we at COAAST were part of a public seminar at the Veterans Auditorium in Providence, and my son was invited to talk about his recovery. In rehearsal that day, I watched him from the wings, overcome with pride and sobbed like a baby, trying to hold it in. And like a good family member, Rachel came over and just held me tightly, rocking me as I wept, letting me know it was absolutely okay to let it out. There are very special people who touch our lives in a way we’ll never forget and Rachel is one of those very special people. I adore her like a daughter.

I don’t do those shows anymore. I do mostly film now – TV, movies, commercials, whatever comes along that satisfies my acting bug. I got into the game in my 50s, and had wanted to do it since I was a kid, but didn’t because I was afraid of failing the only thing I ever wanted to do. Happily, I got over that and it’s all I do now, and acting touches part of me that I embrace with every fiber of my creative soul. I miss those days of COAAST and connections made. I miss theater in general but doing it for COAAST most of all. And to step back into that realm that night in June for a short time to see other people doing this incredible work made my heart sing and ache at once. Those scant few years spent with the best people I will ever love were some of the best of my life.

I thought of all this that night, walking down the streets of the Boston’s South End on a beautiful spring night that I guess just made me pensive, but introspection can be its own reward.

Looking back in time isn't always a good thing, except when it's a great thing. And that night was.