by Rob Kendt
InsignificantÑthat's how I felt most of last week, as the attacks
on the East Coast took their fatal toll. What could an actor's paper in Los
Angeles have to do with the catastrophe we've witnessed? It's hard to get too
worked up now about the upcoming SAG elections, or how the fall TV season may
have to adjust, or the struggle for the soul of the Actors' Gang.
I spoke to Paula Holt, who runs the Tiffany Theatres on Sunset,
about the first days after the impact. "I felt like whatever I did was
wrong," she said. "If I went out and did something, that felt wrong;
if I'd stay home and focus on the TV, that felt wrong. I'd be out with people
and I wanted to be alone, and vice versa. It's a difficult time to know where
to put your emotions." Cast and crew on Oliver Mayer's Joe Louis Blues got slowly,
painfully back to work after a few days, as we all did, since, as Holt said,
"Work is a good way to focus. And art helps heal. I hope theatres stay
open. In the long run, it's the respectful thing to do."
Evidence Room impresario Bart DeLorenzo heard something similar
from Don Oscar Smith, an actor in Chuck Mee's The Imperialists at the Club
Cave Canem, which opened on schedule last weekend. At a company meeting to
decide the show's fate, DeLorenzo said Smith "was very quiet. Afterwards
he said to me, 'The last time I had a conversation like that was in November,
1963, with my wrestling team, wondering whether we should go on with our tournament.
We asked ourselves, What would Kennedy have wanted us to do? And we decided
he'd have wanted us to go on.' "
Zoo District producer Michael Franco called to say the opening of
ZD's Uppa Creek was pushed to Sept. 21, as he'd lost friends in the attack. Theatre
LA was also hit hard: Lee Wochner, the organization's new president, lost a
family friend, Victor Saracini, the pilot on the hijacked United jet that hit
the World Trade Center, and TLA boardmember Brad Burlingame lost his brother,
Charles, the captain of the hijacked plane that hit the Pentagon. Said Wochner,
"Everyone I speak to feels that he or she has to do something. So we're
working on putting a free event together where we can all come together, and
donations will be accepted." Details weren't final at press time, but
Monday, Oct. 8, looked likely.
Did Wochner have a sense of how L.A. theatres, and theatregoers,
were reacting? WebTix, TLA's online half-price ticket service, had reached
record numbers before the attack, he said, but he expected a drop last weekend.
For himself, he confessed, "I didn't feel like seeing anything. I felt
like staying home with my wife and kids. Others may have felt their sense of
family better placed in the theatre." Still, he said, "I feel deeply attached
to the world. We're all on this planet togetherÑwe're not getting along well,
but we're all here together. And that's the theatrical experience."
It's also the most pressing imperative on the home front: bringing
people together, especially people of diverse faiths and backgrounds, as did
that stunning service at the National Cathedral last Friday. (For me the week's
most hopeful image was Dr. Muzammil H. Siddiqi shaking hands with Rev. Billy
Graham.) Interfaith dialogue was already the planned aim and theme of Cornerstone
Theater Company's upcoming Festival of Faith, Oct. 18-Nov. 18, at five
Southland religious sites (Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, and Baha'i).
The feeling of insignificance begins to fade.
But once we're together in the theatre, what do we say to each
other? What do we want to hear? Everything, in life and in art, has acquired a
new, unearned weight; much entertainment I've seen just crumbles under it. As
much as I crave a little escapism, I'm too self-conscious that I'm escaping,
which defeats the purpose. On the other hand, do I really want theatre to
challenge me at a time when just reading the newspaper brings me to tears?
All the more, I think. Last weekend I saw Jonathan Eaton's mostly
excellent Kurt Weill anthology at the Odyssey Theatre, Songplay. As a
glad-handing Jewish character, Ramon McLane handled some extra-freight moments
beautifully: the Job-like cry of "Lost in the Stars" and the sacred
"Havu L'venim," which his character explained as "a dream of a
homeland-- it's difficult," before running offstage in tears.
But the Purple Heart has to go to Melody Butui, who rendered
Brecht's grim revenge fantasy "Pirate Jenny" with cool, chilling
fury. That song's bloodlust and its bleak moral ("As they pile up the
bodies, I'll say/That'll learn ya") never rang so harshly or had an
audience paying more pained attention to the lyric.
It's time for heightened attention everywhere.
As Lee Wochner said, quoting Odyssey founder Ron Sossi: "I go
to the movies to escape; I go to theatre to delve."