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.

Vineyard Playhouse gets New York Times exposure

Over the course of the last month, I have had a terrific time helping out at the Vineyard Playhouse in Vineyard Haven. They are a great group of people and I always look forward to the evenings when I get to usher there. (The photo above is from the post-show gathering on the closing night of the Playhouse's outstanding "Fly.")

Now the New York Times has cast its spotlight on the organization. Click here to read the feature (no, the writer doesn't mention my invaluable contributions, serving lemonade and cookies and helping patrons find their seats, but that's one of the reasons print journalism is headed for oblivion, don't you think?).

Thanks to Zach for originally pointing this out.

A day of deliveries, an evening of ushering

In addition to writing for This Week on Martha's Vineyard, my co-workers and I also get to deliver the paper each Thursday. We've been paired up to cover a particular area of the island and drop off copies to the businesses that distribute it. In my case, I work with Scott to blanket downtown Vineyard Haven, which, thankfully, is not that large. Basically, it's a main street and a few spots down by the dock where the ferries come in.

There was a certain amount of suspense Thursday because the sky kept darkening and the wind would swoop in, bringing with it the threat of rain; considering we make our deliveries by hand, that would literally put a damper on things. The barista at a coffeehouse I stopped in assured me that the forecast said the rain would hold off until evening and, thankfully, she was right. Even though the overcast skies never disappeared, there was no precipatation until long after we'd finished our chores. As you can see from the photo above, readers seemed to be eagerly awaiting the issue; personally, I think my extensive list of seasonal fundraisers was a big selling point.

Thursday evening was spent at the Vineyard Playhouse, where I had volunteered to usher for the final preview of "Fly," a play by Ricardo Khan and Trey Ellis. It's a superbly performed drama based on the experiences of the Tuskegee Airmen, the African-American fighter pilots who overturned a lot of misconceptions when they went into battle in Europe in World War II. The script addresses not only the racism they faced from their white instructors on a remote base in Alabama ("This ain't 'The Wizard of Oz,'" one officer snarls at an aspiring pilot. "There ain't never been and ain't never gonna be no flying monkey.") but also the tensions between the men themselves, who came from all over America and had their own stereotypical ideas to overcome about other regions and other lifestyles. A self-assured, strutting Chicagoan in a zoot suit dismisses one of his fellow candidates as "country" until he finds out the man is actually from Harlem and trained on an airfield on Long Island that Charles Lindbergh once frequented. A flyer who comes from the West Indies and speaks with a strong accent is nicknamed "Coconut." Eventually, of course, such differences and discriminatory attitudes had to be put aside as these men prepared to work together in combat.

The Playhouse is an intimate, 120-seat venue, but director Khan and choreographer Hope Clarke use the limited space to maximum advantage, making us feel the claustrophobia the men must have experienced in those stuffy living quarters and classrooms and in those cramped planes. One of the show's many inspired touches is the use of a tap-dancing griot (a West African poet/storyteller/historian) who occasionally serves as a chorus to voice the men's unspoken feelings and anxieties, but more often enhances the mood of the moment by using his fast-moving feet to simulate the sound of an airplane engine coming to life, a stopwatch ticking away, a train chugging down the tracks, a nervous heartbeat, etc. It's the opening show of the Playhouse's summer season and I suspect it will turn into a word-of-mouth hit.

Ushering was generally a breeze (I only had to "relocate" one slightly confused gentlemen who had settled into the wrong seat -- the seat reserved for me, actually -- and needed to be directed to the other side of the house) and the Playhouse staff could not have been more cordial and helpful. One of my duties was to make the coffee that was served prior to the performance and everyone seemed to like the way I made it, which was a relief since, as many of my friends and family can attest, that is not always the case.