Echoes of the 1960s

The opening night of "Walking the Volcano" went over exceptionally well. That was a great relief to me, but I suspect a much greater relief to the four-person cast -- Heather Girardi, Marya Lowry, Robert Walsh and Christian Pedersen -- and director MJ Bruder Munafo. I have only been with them a week; they've been working on the show since the beginning of the month. It's a complex piece consisting of eight scenes, each involving different characters, settings and time periods. The connecting thread is the fallout from the 1960s.

The title refers to the willingness (even eagerness) of the generation that grew up during that time to defy convention, take risks, explore freedoms and challenge the status quo. The first act features Heather and Christian in scenarios that unfold between 1964 and 1979; in the second half, Bob and Marya show us similar sorts of people dealing with the challenges of aging, trying to put their pasts into perspective and attempting to repair broken relationships. Heather and Bob have one scene together in the second act as a tough-talking, hard-living young woman and her father, a sort of shaman who now spends his days drinking and laughing at reality TV. So Heather is in five scenes, Bob and Christian each have four and Marya has three. Each new scene involves extensive costume changes (which is where I come in) and, in most cases, wigs.

I work primarily with Christian and Bob, but I have taken on the extra duty of helping Heather build up a head of steam for some of her bolder characters. For example, in the first scene she plays the rebellious daughter of an American diplomat, a rich girl who behaves badly because she knows someone will always be there to clean up the messes she makes. So, before she goes on, I'll tell her things like, "I think you could really take some lessons from Lynda Bird Johnson, little lady," or "Maybe it's time for you to go back to finishing school." That gets her temper boiling. Similarly, when she's about to go out as a Grace Slick-style rocker determined to sell her song "Basement Blues," I make a point of saying, "Ugh, that 'Basement' song is a real turkey. Nobody wants to hear that mess anymore." By the time she struts through the curtain, she's practically foaming at the mouth. Yes, she has thanked me profusely for helping her get into the mindsets of these women, and I admit I enjoy it!

I told Christian the other night that doing this must be like running a gauntlet. The actors literally have to rush into the offstage dressing rooms, where Tessa, Andrea, Alex and I quickly help them out of one set of clothes and into the next within the space of a couple minutes. If they're lucky and nothing goes wrong, they might have time to catch their breath or get a very brief drink of water. Then they're pushed back through the curtain to take on another personality, a new voice, different body language, etc. Many actors would be terrified by this kind of challenge, but this cast has truly run with it, and the performances are uniformly sharp.

The opening night audience seemed to understand exactly what author Jon Lipsky was trying to say. They also got the jokes, which was wonderful for us to hear. A post-opening night party featured various volcano-themed foods, including a towering chocolate cake with a pool of melted red sugar "lava" around it, and a cream cheese volcano drizzled with salsa.

I have spent much of the week running back and forth to the theater for technical rehearsals and previews. I had promised myself I would take it a bit easier during the weekend, so I finally caught up with "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" Saturday afternoon in Edgartown. I went to the first matinee and was somewhat surprised to find the audience was at least 70 percent adults -- people over 18 anyway -- with only a few youngsters around.

Here is a classic Martha's Vineyard moment. The two guys sitting behind me, both probably in their early 20s, had bought a large popcorn because of the "bargain" price and then realized they had much more than they needed, even for a two-and-a-half-hour movie (I've had wastepaper baskets that were smaller than the popcorn tub they were holding). So one of the two leans over my shoulder and says, "Excuse me. Would you like some popcorn? We have way too much." I would have accepted, except that I had just had a big lunch while researching a story on Skinny's Fat Sandwiches for This Week on Martha's Vineyard; suffice to say Skinny's doesn't skimp when it comes to hot pastrami, and I was completely full. But really, where else are you going to have fellow audience members ask you to share their concessions?

The Vineyard Playhouse is dark on Sundays, so I had time to visit the John Lennon art exhibit at Mansion House. Once I got through the door, I wished I had scheduled more time to look around. Dozens of Lennon's ink drawings, cartoons, sketches and illustrations were on display, ranging from caricatures of himself to erotica to beguiling, whimsical pictures he created for his son, Sean. The presentation was underscored, naturally, with a soundtrack featuring both Lennon's solo songs and tunes with the Beatles. Talk about someone who truly embodied the spirit of the 1960s.

Prints of the art were on sale, although I got the feeling most of the visitors were more interested in the show as an opportunity to peek into the private creations of this multi-faceted man, who poured his insights, humor and heartaches into his drawings. Say what you will about his relationship with Yoko Ono, but there's no denying it was real love: The tenderness and passion he felt for her practically radiates from the portraits he drew of the two of them.

Looking at the work, I was startled to think it's been almost 30 years since Lennon's murder. How vividly I remember December 8, 1980 and the chill I felt when I first heard the news (on WLAV-FM, in fact) that Lennon had been shot to death. As much as I roll my eyes over the drawn-out, show-bizzy melodramatics surrounding Michael Jackson's passing, I try not to ridicule the people who are genuinely torn up over his death. While Jackson didn't mean much to me -- I love his work with the Jackson 5 and the "Off the Wall" and "Thriller" albums, but by the mid-'80s I felt he was already turning into a parody of himself and nothing he produced afterward really connected with me -- I remember being crushed by the loss of Lennon and I'm sure Michael's mourners feel something similar.

Will the real lobster roll please stand up?

Remember that lobster roll I showed you last Friday? Please forget it. It's nothing but a fake, according to the good people at Grace Church in Vineyard Haven, which serves up hundreds of lobster rolls every Friday evening (almost 600 last Friday, according to their sales chart on the wall).

"Some people make them with lettuce and stuff like that," one of the hosts told me. He made a sour face. "These are the real thing." One of his co-workers seconded that sentiment: "These are the best lobster rolls you'll find on the island," she said, proudly.

They are certainly worth waiting all week to get your hands on: It's a fresh-baked bun (sort of similar to a hot dog bun, but slightly more spacious and with more of a curve to it) that's overflowing with shredded lobster. There may have been a touch of mayonnaise mixed in to hold the meat together, but if there was, I couldn't tell. No celery. No lettuce. No shallots. None of the other "inauthentic" fillers used to pad out lobster rolls at other places.
The sale starts at 4:30 p.m. every Friday during the summer, and I was glad I showed up early: Within 15 minutes, there was a quickly growing line of hungry people.

Just down the street from the church is a bed and breakfast known as The 1720 House. It's an attractive building in its own right, but what really caught my attention as I was walking past was the driveway. At first glance, it looked like chopped-up tree bark scattered all over the place. Who'd use something like that on a driveway, I wondered? Well, not the people at The 1720 House anyway. Upon closer inspection, I realized the driveway was actually covered with ground-up shells, which, considering the property's close proximity to the beach, would surely be easier to come by than gravel.

By the way, the weather here has been so gloomy that islanders seem to feel a compulsion to apologize for it. "It's never like this, really!" one man assured me. Another told me this was "not like June at all." It's not as if I was planning to blame the natives for the seemingly inescapable gray clouds and frequent bursts of rain, although it's reassuring to hear that this is merely a fluke. A little sunshine would definitely be welcome sometime soon.

Here's something that happens to me regularly when I am out of town: I am stopped on the street by other out-of-towners who seem to think I'm either a local or Mr. Information. It's occurred several times in London (and boy, are the tourists surprised when they hear my very American accent!), in New York, in Los Angeles, in Toronto. So why shouldn't it happen here? And today it did. An apparently thirsty gentlemen asked me where he could find a good wine store in Vineyard Haven. Aha! A trick question! "Vineyard Haven is a dry town," I explained. "You'll have to go to Oak Bluffs or Edgartown. But both of them have several liquor stores." He nodded and went on his way and I felt really proud of myself for a few seconds for being able to give accurate instructions. If anyone needs to know where to find alcohol on the island, please track me down and I'll set you straight.