{"id":250333,"date":"2017-04-17T06:00:06","date_gmt":"2017-04-16T20:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=250333"},"modified":"2017-04-17T06:00:06","modified_gmt":"2017-04-16T20:00:06","slug":"theater-becomes-special","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/theater-becomes-special\/","title":{"rendered":"When theater becomes special"},"content":{"rendered":"
The cast of The Man Who Came To Dinner that the columnist directed. (Contributed Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Those who are fortunate enough to work in the theater usually have some good tales to tell. I am not talking about amateur plays, but professionals, who often go on tour, or have a long run somewhere. This also applies to Summer Stock productions, where a hardy band of talented people put on a variety of plays and musicals.<\/p>\n

What makes these experiences special is that everybody becomes friends, hang out together after a performance, and generally have a wonderful time. <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had the pleasure to work with a few theater companies over the years. The first one was in Killarney, Ireland. I \u201cmucked in\u201d with the other actors\u2014we were all in our 20s\u2014 and we had a fantastic time because everyone got along (for the most part).<\/p>\n

Early in the morning we\u2019d gather in front of the stage, and the \u201ctea boy\u201d (Julian Erskine, who later created \u201cRiverdance\u201d) would bring us cups of hot tea to start the day. <\/p>\n

After the tea, we\u2019d build the set for the evening performance. Everybody pitched in and dragged the \u201cflats\u201d around. (A flat is a piece of scenery, about 10 feet high and three feet wide. They are then lashed together and screwed into the floor, so they\u2019ll remain stable. <\/p>\n

If there was enough time after a show, and everyone had some energy, we\u2019d \u201cstrike\u201d the set and pile the flats at the back. A young helper (there are always a few) would sweep the stage and tidy up. <\/p>\n

I think that the best part was all of us going to a pub after a show. Our \u201clocal\u201d was called \u201cThe Flesk\u201d\u2014named after the River Flesk, which ran near Killarney. Over pints of Guinness, Harp, or Double Diamond (my favorite) we would tell stories of past productions and these were always great fun. They were fun because all of the young actors had been around in various companies or productions and funny things always happened.<\/p>\n

A tale was told about a theater company that would tour the high schools and perform Shakespeare. This company was \u201cin rep\u201d which meant that sometimes they did Hamlet, another time they\u2019d perform Romeo and Juliet. Then, after the performance, the actors and director would come out to the stage, sit on the apron, and answer questions from the young audience.<\/p>\n

One day, after a performance of Hamlet, and many questions had been asked and answered, a young girl raised her hand. The director nodded to her. The girl asked, \u201cDo you think that Hamlet and Ophelia ever had intimate relations?\u201d The director thought for a moment and then said, \u201cWell, in the Chicago company they did.\u201d<\/p>\n

A tale is also told about the great John Barrymore, who continued to play Hamlet, even though he was nearly 60 years old. He had toured with Hamlet for decades, and was held in high esteem. <\/p>\n

After a performance at Yale, a cocky college student asked Mr. Barrymore, \u201cAren\u2019t you a little too old to play the role of Hamlet?\u201d Barrymore stood up and scowled at the audience.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have been playing Hamlet for more than 40 years; many times here, at Yale. Now you need to be quiet, because for all you know, I might be your father.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sometimes actors would play pranks on each other during a performance. They were not appreciated, but often an actor would get bored playing the same role night after night and wanted to have a little fun.<\/p>\n

You may not be familiar with the term, \u201cto upstage\u201d another actor. This means that an actor is doing something to draw attention to him or her, and draw focus away from the other actors and the scene.<\/p>\n

One aging actress was to sit on an upstage sofa and smoke a cigarette while her fellow actor gave a long monologue, standing downstage. What the woman did was to take a long hat-pin and put it in the cigarette. As she smoked, the ash got longer and longer. However, because of the pin, the ash didn\u2019t fall off\u2014and the audience was riveted. The downstage actor sensed something odd, and kept looking back to see what was happening, but he just saw the actress with her cigarette. <\/p>\n

When the cigarette was nearly finished and the ash was three inches long, she carefully set it into an ashtray. The audience breathed a collective sigh of relief. The actor wasn\u2019t pleased, but it was a very clever trick.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no business like show business<\/strong>
\nThe wonderful Groucho Marx once relayed this story during his one-man show at Carnegie Hall in 1972.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw an ad in The Morning World. It was from a theatrical outfit and the ad said, simply, \u201cBoy Wanted.\u201d So I ran all the way down from 93rd Street to 46th Street, ran up seven flights of stairs and knocked on the door.<\/p>\n

\u201cEventually a woman opened the door. She was quite a sight: she had bleached-blonde hair, and wore a beige slip with stains on it. She smoked a cigarette, her lipstick was smeared and she smelled like cheap booze. And, when I saw this woman, I knew that this was the profession that I wanted to enter.\u201d<\/p>\n

I once directed a production of \u201cThe Man Who Came To Dinner.\u201d It was put on by the Milford (New Hampshire) High School Junior Class, and it was one of the best productions I\u2019ve ever been associated with. But, before we got started, it needed an angle, and I found it.<\/p>\n

The play, written by George S. Kaufmann and Moss Hart, was first produced in 1939: that was the hook. I had the actors wear 1930s clothes; the boys all got haircuts and the girls had their hair bobbed. So that was the way to go: back in time, to 1939. I found some old music from the period, and\u2014and the ending tableau (they actors all freeze as the curtain closes) was framed by the music of Ben Bernie, a song called \u201cAu Revoir.\u201d \u201cUntil the next time, when\u2014possibly you will all tune in again. Keep the old maestro always in your schemes. Yowzah yowzah yowzah.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you\u2019d care to hear the song, search YouTube for \u201cBen Bernie Au Revoir.\u201d It\u2019s just swell and sentimental.<\/p>\n

The audience had been enthralled\u2014even before the play began: the programs looked old-fashioned, and we had antique cars in the bus loop out front. The local fire department contributed some gigantic searchlights, so it looked like a 1930\u2019s Hollywood premier at the high school.<\/p>\n

I did quite a few other shows, but this one remains a favorite, because the students \u201cgot it\u201d and pitched in to make it 1939 all the way.<\/p>\n

Irving Berlin had it right: There\u2019s no business like show business. (Russ Mason)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Russ Mason, M.S., wrote for a medical journal, \u201cAlternative & Complementary Therapies,\u201d for eight years. He interviewed dozens of doctors who had much to share about unconventional treatment options. These included Tibetan medicine, Chinese medicine, botanicals, and treating stroke victims with hyperbaric oxygen.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Those who are fortunate enough to work in the theater usually have some good tales…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":250367,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[56,16366,413,16367],"class_list":["post-250333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-business-3","tag-julian-erskine","tag-music","tag-river-flesk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}