A wrap for the powerful ‘BorderLine Me’ at Staircase
Robin Zee’s show chronicles life of abuse, prostitution, addiction and the repair that followed, in final staging
Robin Zee (Zilberg) — as a person, as a human life — got shopped and shown around from an early age in just about the worst possible way and, yes, trigger warning, we mean child abuse and its gateway to sex trafficking, prostitution and their common companion, drug addiction.
What do they say? Write what you know. So Robin, after taking her self into her own hands, put her life, on show; she turned/processed her life into a show and has shopped it around since 2014, in just about the best possible way. Yes, as a theatrical creation but also as a tool (educational/motivational/navigational), mental health-wise and anywise, for others.
That show, “BorderLine Me,” familiar to so many in the city and beyond, from its many iterations — at The Staircase and other theatres and at various agencies and mental health settings — is wrapping up its eight-year “run,” on Sunday, May 28, where it started — at The Staircase, 27 Dundurn North in Hamilton.
It has been an open run for “BorderLine Me,” playing where and when there was a chance and a need for it.
The show, which Robin began developing at Tracey Erin Smith’s SoulO theatre workshop at The Staircase in 2014, deals with her struggles with such diagnoses as borderline personality (hence the title of the show), anxiety, depression and dissociative disorder.
It also recounts in detail how, when Robin was very young, her single mother mom took in boarders and one put her on his lap and wouldn’t let her go.
Later, during her time at a French Catholic school in Montreal into which her mother put her (“I was the only English Jew there” Robin says), the superintendent of the apartment building where they lived would take her to the basement.
“Not only did he sexually abuse me but he passed me to his friends,” says Robin.
In the book (2019), “BorderLine Me: Beyond the Edge,” that she developed out of the “BorderLine Me” play, she writes: “My panties down, my dress lifted up around my neck, his large hand touching me, I remember men waiting their turn.”
The ensuing years of her youth involved some back and forth between Canada and the United States, between her mother and father, with step parents and other partners mixed in. There was dating, rape, experimentation, suicide attempt, abduction. The lines were blurred between what was appropriate and what not and, Robin admits, she was difficult to live with.
No wonder.
“I was in survival mode (through all of her youth),” says Robin now. “I had no real supports. I knew another side of life.”
She ended up in the world of human/sex trafficking and spent time as a prostitute in Nevada’s Mustang Ranch and Ada McCallum’s famous Halifax brothel. Along the way she developed. She struggled with addiction.
“The play is a summary of the hell that life was from the beginning,” says Robin, who settled in Hamilton from the Kensington Market area of Toronto in 2006, after separating from her husband at the time.
The play might be a summary of that hell but it is also very much a story of recovery, of rising up out of it.
A big part of that was understanding how she ticks, how she might be affected by such “disorders’ as borderline personality, anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress, if they are even applicable to her or simply labels.
She entered rehab at 34, after being homeless for a time and addicted. The process of repair was harrowingly difficult but Robin was helped by some incredible people, she says, including a Toronto social worker named Ronnee. She replaced her rage and anger with a sadness and pain that allowed her to grieve her way forward.
She went into social services herself and graduated with honours with certification as a life skills coach and addiction and mental health counsellor.
One of the biggest steps forward she took was the aforementioned move to Hamilton. “The Jewish community in Hamilton really welcomed me,” she says. “In Hamilton I blossomed into the truest sense of myself. I grew into my own skin, scars and all.”
As she healed she wrote and her “BorderLine Me” play got staged in different places, including at 45 different social agencies, often with a question and answer period following.
Robin was recognized for her work with the Hamilton Arts Award as Performer of the Year for 2015.
Now, she says, it’s time to move on from it but not without one final hurrah, so to speak.
“BorderLine Me” at The Staircase on May 28 starts at 1:30 p.m. with doors open at 12:30.
For more and tickets ($20), staircasehamilton.com
‘‘ I was in survival mode (through all of her youth). I had no real supports. I knew another side of life.
ROBIN ZEE