The audience applauded
vigorously and the house lights were coming up. The cast for Edgewood’s
production of Urine Town was making
its way off stage and people were starting to chat happily and head for the
doors. I sat quietly for a moment marveling again at the power of the theatre. A
couple hundred people had just spent two hours thinking they were watching a comedy
before realizing the joke is on all of us. Only the theatre can present such a bitter
pill with so much fun and laughter. I love that Cassie enjoys performing and
was part of this show. It’s hard for me to remember all of the times I have
been moved by plays either as an actor, a director, or a viewer. But I can
remember the very first time a play worked its magic on me.
Being a
farm kid in southern Wisconsin in the early 1960’s had lots of advantages, but
access to excellent theatre wasn’t one of them. Access to any performing art,
excellent or not, was limited. We had a few country western bands and the
church choir, but that was about it. I grew up doing farm chores and playing in
the woods. In school I had learned to hide my insecurity behind the mask of the
class clown. My handwriting might have been embarrassing and my clothes might
have smelled like wood smoke, but if I could make people laugh things were ok. I
had a loud voice which often got me parts in some skits and programs we did at
school and in 4-H. I even got to play the lead in our Junior High production
of The
Little Man Who Wasn’t There. I think I was a Martian who was invisible or
something. To me “a play” was a little show that made people laugh. Was I in
for a surprise.
One day during
the summer before I started high school, my older brother Glen suggested we
drive to the big city of Milwaukee to see a play. I want to remember this as a
spontaneous act, but in retrospect, Glen must have had some plan. I do remember
being excited as Glen, my mother, my sister Karen, and I packed into the car.
(I don’t know exactly why my dad didn’t go, but he wasn’t along.) Somewhere
along the way I came to understand that we were headed to the Fred Miller Theatre*
in downtown Milwaukee to see a production of Tennessee Williams’ play The Glass Menagerie. I had never heard
of Tennessee Williams or his play, but I was up for anything. The Fred Miller
Theatre was a rather small, reconverted space, but I clearly remember the stage
surrounded by the audience. (I would not know it was called “theatre in the
round” until much later.) As I said, I didn’t know anything about the play, but
when Tom Wingfield, the young writer who feels trapped by his life, stood on
stage in his pea coat and watch cap smoking a cigarette, I felt the hair on the
back of my neck stand up. I was a thirteen year old farm boy who wanted more
than shoveling manure and feeding cows. I understood when Tom shouted about
hating his job and hoping for something more. I understood how guilty he felt for wanting to leave when
others might be left behind. It was like Tennessee Williams was reading my
thoughts. When Tom comes to the end of the play and says, “ I didn’t go to the
moon. I went much further - for time is the longest distance between two places”,
I wept. I was too young to understand then, but watching The Glass Menagerie that night would change the course of my life. It
helped me understand why theatre is so valuable in our society and why studying
this art form is a worthy pursuit. It gave me the courage to tell my father – a
factory machinist and a farmer who wanted me to be a lawyer – I wanted to study
theatre in college. What a night!
I came to know Amanda, Laura,
and Tom Wingfield much better as the years went on. Also Stanley Kowalski and
Blanche Dubois and many, many others. I
even directed a production of The Glass
Menagerie at Parker High School. I tried to help my students feel the power
of the theatre the way I did so long ago. To this day I can’t walk into any theatre
without seeing Tom in coat and cap centered in a pool of light with cigarette
smoke swirling around his head. I believe he is still talking to me. We all are trying to make sense of the world
we live in and the life we are leading. How lucky I was to find Tennessee
Williams on that summer night so long ago.
*The Fred Miller Theatre would become the Milwaukee Repertory
Theatre in the mid 1960’s.
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