Notes in November 7

On Crucibles & Curtain Calls, Part 3

Original Post: Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Down in the valley the valley so low

Hang your head over, hear the wind blow

Hear the wind blow dear, hear the wind blow

Hang your head over, hear the wind blow

Roses love sunshine, violets love dew

Angels in heaven, know I love you….

American Folk Song that opens the play Dark of the Moon

By the time my senior year had come around, I was spending more time in the greenroom than in my classrooms. I joined the National Thespians Society, practiced improvisation and learned scenes from my favorite classics. My girlfriend and I easily landed roles in the senior class play.  About the same time, I stopped attending classes that bored me and spent the free time in the library, reading randomly from the encyclopedia. It was like winning the lottery with every page number!

Rachel and Victor Reis, a couple who ran the Pennsylvania Playhouse, saw one of my performances and I was invited to join their company. They were putting on an adult play, Dark of the Moon, based on the legend of Barbara Allen, and I was to play the part of Barbara’s kid brother. The play opened with me onstage singing a folksong in dialect, and from there things got rowdier. There was lots of singing, dancing and screaming and the play culminated in a rape scene. Although it was a critical and popular success, I was sort of pleased that no one I knew came to the playhouse.

Graduation was approaching. I managed to get three A’s and 2 Fs as final grades, but was allowed to graduate if I committed to summer school. I committed to summer school and skipped graduation. I had applied early in the year to the drama program at Penn State—my girlfriend was going there—and, on the basis of my experience in the Children’s Theater and The Pennsylvania Playhouse­–was accepted on condition of a final audition.

Getting bad grades and having to attend summer school had already worsened the perennial bad relations at home, and when I told my dad that I wanted to go to Penn State and study theater, he went berserk. I’ll spare you the dramatic details, but it had been filmed, and if there had been an Academy Award for the portrayal of an irate, this-is-the-last-straw-parent who was totally losing it, my dad would have won it hands down.

When I think about it now, I’m not sure of my own motivation. Of all the things to do in the wide and wonderful world I was constantly reading about, did I really want to be an actor? It’s possible that it was a decision made consciously or unconsciously to mortify him; but, then again, it may have been genuine.

So I did what any red-blooded, angry, confused, obstinate and disappointed 18-year old young man did in 1958 when he had no other options, I joined the U.S. Army.