Friday, June 22, 2007

Building the Campfire

So, last summer, this group at 46-10 Village sat around for two hours each Tuesday night, (we met at night because I had a full teaching load at NYU during the days), and in the semi-circle formed in room 301 (the home "activities room"), I got to know what these older people were made of....all they asked me to do was give their Drama Group some direction, suggest what to do, how to do it, do improv exercises, scenes, etc.etc. These marvelous 10 or so people didn't know exactly what they wanted to do, but they knew they wanted to do something, and here I was, on a salary suddenly, charged with the task of planning the group's journey...it felt, at that time, more like a burden than fun....especially since I had absolutely no idea who these people were, where they had come from in their lives, and , most of all, where they were in their physical lives: just how sick and old were these people?

I'd never worked with people in their "declining years" before, and the only experience I'd ever had with groups of old folks was in my Momma's home in Chicago, where I often volunteered to help serve meals and feed the more disabled ones of the community...I found that actually helping them made me feel less sad...BUT with the 46-10 group, this was not the case....this was a sharp, funny, talkative, clearly motivated group of seniors, and they had actually hired me to guide them, not take care of them! They wanted me to be their teacher! In fact, on the wall of the elevator, faithfully every week, was a printed sign that said: 7:00 in Room 301... COME TODRAMA CLASS WITH EVALYN BARON!!! , So there it was in black and white (or fuschia and green, really): I was the teacher of the acting class!! SO, how to best teach them things became my weekly focus! I was clearly not equipped for this, I thought...But they needed me, I'd said yes...and so...off we went...into:

Stacks and stacks of material I had printed up: scenes from Shakespeare, Neil Simon, Eugene O'Neill, two-handers they had all gotten from a library book, monologs from my files, Shakespearean pieces writ large (so they could see them to read them), appealing to their sense of the familiar...the famous speeches that everyone knew...they attacked everything I brought them with relish,,,and even though Marte would consistently forget her hearing aid (all the while complaining it was Shakespeare's fault not hers...Shakespeare was boring!) I just used her inability to hear as the definitive lesson in stage projection and taught them it was their job to all talk loud enough for Marte to hear them even if she did forget her hearing apparatus!!! It became their mission to do so!

And on we continued...even though Warren had to be consistently reminded to get down to 301 . He has no short term memory ,(a problem for this wonderful singer who used to be part of the Village Light Opera Company of Manhattan), and will promise at 6:45 in the elevator to be in Room 301 at 7:00 and then promptly forget about it)...and even though we had a romance bloom and fade during those months, making a couple of the actors behave like we all do when love affects us,...and even though Ruth Selman had to deal with the constant hospitalization of her darling husband Jerry, ...and despite the vacation absences of the amazing woman we call "Big Ruth" , (which is silly since she stands 5 feet or less but she is taller than Ruth Selman, so....) and the marvelous Harry, a delightful and articulate man who I consider the romantic lead of our troupe...despite lethargy, a fascinating energy graph that would baffle learned minds, and challenging personality proclivities, (Lucille, one of my favorites of all time, also with no memory but an insistently loud and steely voice and frayed-around -the-edges heart of gold), and with the terrific contributions of Joan , Peggy, and Martin, we soldiered on, and added full-length plays to our reading repertoire: A MIDSUMMER NIGHTS DREAM and BRIGHTON BEACH MEMOIRS....let me add here that Joan is an attractive woman of a certain age, whose daughter and son-on-law live nearby, and whose sharp mind, true talent for reading and sense of humor kept me going more often than not...Peggy is a gorgeous woman, filled with life and never without a beautiful presentation of face and fashion to light up everyone's day, though she herself is pretty much confined to a walker and a life of constant pain..Martin , a tall and slender man, handsome and craggy, began coming because of Joan and continued on with the group as he realized he actually loved it for himself...he would only let his ferocious anger show when he lost his place and lost understanding of what was going on...as soon as I realized that, I structured my approach so he never felt wrong and so that no one else ever felt that who they were or where they were in their lives was a handicap......in fact, these people taught me how to work with them by being their unavoidable true selves...I have learned more from them than I ever felt I could learn from anyone ever...

I had such fun telling them (and gratefully reminding myself) that even the most professional star on Broadway is filled with handicaps and personal quirks and shortcomings that limit their approach to the work...just ask the stars themselves! WE ALL START FROM WHERE WE ARE...it is our job (and art) to overcome it, use it to TELL THE STORY of the words in front of us..etc....they seemed heartened by these small insights into the real world of theater.
That what made their strivings comparable to the work of professionals is that it is Theater and we are all merely human. The desire to do it, the passion is exactly the same everywhere and on every stage in the world, in every stage of Life.

So, our little humble campfire had been built, was flickering with light and this time last summer, we had all begun to huddle around it willingly, familiarizing ourselves with its warming light. It drew us surely, into the Fall and Winter months. A theatre troupe was born.



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