Review: Learning to Human by Sims Holland
by Michael Meigs

 

Recalling Sims Holland's solo performance against the dark background of Austin's Hyde Park Theatre, I thought of Philippe Petit.

 

There's no reason for you to know who he is and what he did, so I'll tell you: on August 6, 1974 aerialist/juggler/daredevil Philippe Petit spent 45 minutes dancing and performing on a 200-foot wire cable stretched between the as yet unfinished World Trade Towers. A heart-stopping set for those who watched and even for those who saw the photos and films afterwards. In his totally illegal performance, prepared and carried out after a long night of installing the cable 1350 feet above the sidewalk, Petit celebrated life, art, and insouciance. He returned to be arrested only after rain had wet the wire and made it unstable.

 

 

Walk into the relatively dimness of the HPT, and you'll encounter a slim, dark-haired woman wearing a white coverall with glistening zips. She's barefoot, and you'll understand why as you hear her autobiography. Sims is lithe and graceful, articulate, comical, and a bit of a poet. You might not have expected a tale of a good girl who went off the deep end after high school, spending sixteen years dealing with her accumulation of addictions.

 

 

Sims laughs at herself now. She was never totally wasted; she coped, just barely, though she literally cannot remember much of what she did during that time. Holland's been performing this vividly written and precisely performed one-hour story for the past seven years. Surely it's a reminder to self and a reinforcement of her own positive behavior. Audience members may be taken aback, even alarmed, to hear of some of her self-destructive behaviors. Like Petit, she puts it all out there, celebrating her survival and demonstrating that addictive personality disorders don't have to be terminally crippling or fatal.

 

 

There's plenty of laughter and quite a lot of self-dismissive clowning in her piece. You have no idea of what'll come up next. At key moments she drops into rapid-fire verse; she often bounds up on the set pieces with energetic grace; her version of the Māori haka war dance is at once comic and a bit frightening. Sims gives our empathy a workout.

 

She was living in New York City, paradise of dysfunctionality, when a friend told her parents she was in trouble. That led to a welcome intervention and internment in a clinic that specialized in drying out alcoholics. Sims appreciated that at the time, but the spectrum of her addictions was much wider, and the 'cure' didn't last. Back to her antics.

 

If there's any weakness in this vivid, beautifully kinetic narrative, it's at the turning point. Sims did eventually find a community of support, presumably weirdos like herself. But she mentions that discovery in a scant passage almost ninety per cent of the way through her story. A happy-ever-after quickly follows; she's married now, mother of two wonderful children, obviously clear-eyed, fit, with a terrific sense of humor. If we in the audience were somehow fellow victims of addiction (and after all, aren't we, to some extent?), her path to swift emergence from those sixteen years of hell offers little counseling for the rest of us.

 

Except, perhaps, to see that escape may be possible, if only we have the self-awareness and sense of humor of Sims Holland.

 

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Learning to Human
by Sims Holland
Sims Holland

September 18 - October 4, 2025

Hyde Park Theatre, Austin