Articulations

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In Memoriam: Sarah Ing

When I think of Sarah Ing, I always think of her walking across a bridge of human feet. It was something she did in a production of The Chalk Circle staged by the theatre collective Troupe Texas in 1995. When one scene called for Ing's character to cross a gorge via a rickety bridge, three of her fellow actors put their backs to the floor and their feet in the air, and Ing stepped onto them, making her way gingerly, precariously, from one upturned foot to the next. It was a wondrous moment of theatre, with the physical challenges and artists' inventiveness combining to create uncommon tension and excitement in the theatre. Ing was honored with a B. Iden Payne Award for her choreography of that show. Troupe Texas, which created strikingly original stage work, left this world too soon. And now so has Sarah Ing.

Before dawn on Sept. 8, Ing died of complications from pulmonary hypertension, a rare lung disorder that causes abnormally high blood pressure in the artery carrying blood from the heart to the lungs. She was diagnosed with the disease in 1997 and saw it progressively shorten her breath and sap her energy, but she continued to seek treatment and pursue an acting career. A change in medication last year seemed to improve her condition, but early this month her liver failed, causing chemical imbalances that put so much stress on her heart that it failed, too. She was 29.

Ing grew up in Bastrop and performed at the Bastrop Opera House. In 1991, she joined Troupe Texas and helped make that company's few productions -- Galloping by Gaslight, The Outcast In, Great Big Yonder, Torque (which she co-wrote and co-directed with Jennifer Haley), and The Chalk Circle -- among the most memorable of that decade. Later, Ing appeared in A Saga of Billy the Kid for Tongue & Groove Theatre, Scavengers and Hey-Stop-That for Salvage Vanguard Theater, and the FronteraFest 1998 piece It's an Alien Thing..., which she wrote and which featured music by Tim Westbrook, another Bastrop High grad who became her husband in May of 1998. Two years later, they moved to Los Angeles, where Ing was cast in several independent films, including The Right Girl and Barefoot on Broken Dreams.

Ing wrote about her illness on the Web -- www.phcentral.org/features/060102ing.html and www.phcentral.org/emotional/diary/sarahi.html -- and her accounts illuminate her struggle with PH. But even more they reveal the spirit, generosity, and courage that distinguished Ing onstage and in life. In the program for Great Big Yonder, a "Short History of Troupe Texas" includes this note: "May 1992: Jennifer H. and Sarah jump from a 40-foot branch into the Frio River, inspiring key sequence in next play." It's a fitting remembrance for Ing: fearless and inspiring. She will be missed.

A memorial service will be held Saturday Sept. 21, 2pm, at the Bastrop Opera House. A wrap party will follow at Sarah's Bastrop home, 1005 Pine, eight blocks east of the courthouse. In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to: Pulmonary Hypertension Association, 850 Sligo #800, Silver Spring, MD 20910.