Past the halfway mark already?

I just realized today that, as of Friday, I will have been here for a full seven weeks. That means I am now in the second half of my time here. In some ways it seems to have gone by incredibly quickly. Believe me, since I started working at the Playhouse, the time has truly flown. We've already done six of our 22 performances, which is quite hard to believe.

People keep asking if I'm going to stay in Martha's Vineyard. Honestly, I don't want to give a firm "yes" or "no" at this point, but I have to say it seems rather unlikely. Not that I haven't enjoyed the community or the people (or the abundance of lobster). There is so much to recommend this beautiful place, both in terms of its natural beauty and the almost supernaturally easy pace of life here. I have never lived in such a comfortable, almost entirely stress-free environment and I can certainly understand why this island has been a haven for so many for so long.

But when I look at the situation realistically, I don't see myself here in the long run. My jobs are seasonal, for one thing. My housing situation is as well. And although I've met some wonderful people out here, most of them aren't going to be staying around either.

My family and most of my friends are nearly 1,000 miles away and I am reminded of that every day. I had hoped to take a break midway through my stay and go back to Michigan to attend my friend John's wedding, but it was prohibitively expensive. I hated having to tell him I wouldn't be able to make it; even though he said he understood, it was a disappointment for both of us. And that's the sort of scenario I would be facing again and again by relocating here permanently. I have written before about how tricky it is to leave the island. Figuring out how to get to Michigan for a few days -- a journey that would have involved ferries, buses, planes, rental cars and possibly even trains and cabs -- was almost hilariously complicated and the trip would have easily cost the better part of $1,000.

At the same time, I can't see myself staying in Michigan permanently. The job market is barren and it's anybody's guess when (if ever) it's going to improve. My former position is gone and even though I have heard from friends who are "sure" I could get it back, they are sorely mistaken. It won't be happening, no matter how hard they wish it.

Anyhow, all of this has been on my mind since I had to fill out some paperwork for the Playhouse this evening that asked for my "permanent address" and I realized, perhaps for the first time in my entire life, I don't have a permanent address right now. That is a disorienting thought. Does this make me a gypsy? Homeless? A wanderer?

Ultimately, of course, I will end up living wherever I get a job. Right now, I don't know where that will be. Maybe it will be Martha's Vineyard -- but I am doubtful. I only hope I have a much clearer answer in the not-too-distant future.

Rumors realized

It's been probably the worst-kept secret of the year: the vacation plans of the First Family. Even before I arrived here, I'd heard rumors the Obamas would be vacationed on the island. In the past six weeks, it's been a hot topic everywhere from Edgartown to Aquinnah. Walk through the business districts and you'll see Obama-inspired displays in window after window. Eavesdrop on conversations and you'll hear multiple theories about when they'll arrive, where they'll stay, what they'll do here and who'll be hosting them.

Today, the plans were finally officially announced. Details are still on the sketchy side, but it does look like it will happen, and that news must be glorious indeed to merchants and restaurant owners who complained about lost business all through the cold, rainy month of June.

As for what it will mean for the general public, we'll see. The traffic here is already tough to navigate -- getting in and out of Edgartown is tricky under the very best of circumstances, and finding parking in Oak Bluffs is getting increasingly challenging, even though there are hundreds of spaces available -- and putting a few hundred more vehicles on the island's narrow, twisty roads won't make things any easier.

At the same time, it's hard not to be at least somewhat excited. And what an interesting time for the Obamas to arrive, just as the African-American community on the island is up in arms about a highly critical piece by Touré in New York Magazine that paints a most unflattering picture of snobbery among the Vineyard's black residents. Among the most controversial points in the feature is a quote from a "Vineyarder who’s part of black high society" who says (without putting his or her name to it, of course) that the Obamas won't fit in.

"Obama is more a man of the people," the secretive source claims. "...He doesn’t seem to identify with affluent black people. His wife definitely doesn’t; she is basically a ghetto girl. That’s what she says — I’m just being sociological. She grew up in the same place Jennifer Hudson did. She hasn’t reached out to the social community of Washington, and people are waiting to see what they’ll do about that."

Read the Vineyard Gazette story on the local response to Touré's accusations.

One of the most common misconceptions about the Vineyard is that it's a playground for millionaires and billionaires and that the only "common" people here are serving drinks, selling T-shirts and scooping ice cream. That's nothing but fantasy. All sorts of people live here and vacation here and, while there is certainly opulence and wealth to spare in certain neighborhoods, not everyone is strolling around in Armani suits or driving Maseratis. The Vineyard is a celebrity magnet because the stars know they can come here and the locals will not chase them down the street or snap unflattering photos of them to sell to the tabloids. The attitude here seems to be similar to what they'd find in New York City: Even if the stars are recognized, they're not hassled -- or, if they are, it's not by residents, it's by other visitors. People may spread the word that Steve Carell is around, or Owen and Luke Wilson, but that's about as far as it goes.

Does that mean the Obamas will find peace and privacy, too? Let's face it: It's much easier for Carell and the Wilsons to sneak around than it will be for Barack and Michelle, who must surround themselves with Secret Service personnel. But it would be my suspicion that if the media was banned from coming to the island, the Obamas would probably be treated similarly to any other celebrities that vacation here: People would talk, but they wouldn't stalk.

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.

Why we fight

This has been one of those weeks when a flurry of events remind you that life is full of possibilities and revelations -- some wonderful and some terrible. The same day I got the job at the Playhouse (which has gotten off to a great start and has kept me running all week), I also heard that a friend who has already fought two battles with cancer must now gear up for one more. When she went in for a doctor's appointment to determine what was causing her painful cough, she learned she has seven new tumors scattered all around her body.
News like this instantly puts all the other problems in the world in perspective. Suddenly, my laundry list of issues (set up a post office box, buy new black shoes, see "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," etc.) looked ridiculously petty.
After a certain age, I think we all realize we are very much mortal and none of us is going to live forever. Even so, with the amazing strides medicine has made in the last 10 or 20 years most of us see ourselves living into our 80s or even our 90s; my friend is barely in her mid-50s.
The news is, of course, devastating to her. "I don't know how long I have left," she wrote in an e-mail. "My doctor just keeps staring at her shoes when I ask her."
I sent a reply immediately. "Whatever you do, do not allow yourself to give in to despair or resignation. People do come back from the edge, and a lot more often than they used to. Don't give up hope yet. Being realistic does not have to mean preparing for the worst. You have an indomitable spirit and a strong circle of support around you, as you well know. Get your rest, take it all at your own pace, keep looking for new information whenever you can and don't allow your doctors to avoid your questions. Above all else, if at all possible, envision this as a struggle you have to get through and not as the end of everything."
Perhaps this sounds hopelessly hopeful, but I was not playing Pollyanna. In conversations with doctors, therapists and healers over the years, I have heard again and again how crucially important it is to face a health crisis with a positive attitude. If you admit defeat right off the bat, it's as if you have opened up the doors of your home and said, "Come on in, burglars: I'll show you where all the valuables are."
I knew a young man who worked as a publicist in Chicago in the 1980s. He went to Ireland for a vacation, came home and realized he wasn't feeling quite right. He went to the hospital, expecting to hear he had food poisoning, or stomach trouble. Instead, when the bloodwork came back, the doctor told him he was HIV-positive and the man instantly began fearing the worst. Within a week, he was dead. Granted, this was in the late 1980s when the concept of living with HIV seemed almost like science-fiction. But who knows how much longer my friend might have had if he had chosen to put up a fight instead of literally laying down and dying?
When I was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 2002, I thought back to that particular case and what a tragedy it was, that someone so young (he wasn't even 30) let go of life so easily. I vowed I was not going to allow that to happen to me. I gave myself 10 minutes to sit at home, alone, and run through all the worst-case scenarios and get extremely worked-up and emotional. And then, at the end of the 10 minutes, I said, "Now, let's get on with it." I pushed all that melodrama and misery out of my mind (and no, it was not easy) and concentrated instead on finding out as much as I could about my disease, about the surgery I would need, available post-operative treatments, side-effects, etc. By the time I started telling my family and friends about my condition, I could also tell them about the exceedingly high recovery rate and what I would need to do. It wasn't tears and screaming and hand-wringing and making funeral plans.
I would go in to my doctors with a notebook and print-outs of information I'd picked up. One of my doctors found this very disorienting, apparently. "I've never seen anyone do this kind of thing before," he said, as I sat taking detailed notes about seminomas and their response to radiation. I replied I wanted to be as well-informed as possible so that I could make intelligent choices. He was used to people breaking down and going to pieces. "I could do that," I said. "But what's the point? The more I know, the less I feel afraid."
Well, you might say, that's all good and well for you, but not everybody can do that, especially if you've been told you have seven tumors. Of course, that's true. But you have to make an effort. You have make a commitment to get through this situation. I feel confident once my friend gets over the initial shock of her diagnosis, she'll brace herself once again for another war with cancer. She has no choice. It's truly a matter of life and death.

Behind the scenes

There is much to be said for being in the right place at the right time. On Monday afternoon, I dropped by a rehearsal of "Shrew," the production of Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew" that is being staged at Tisbury Amphitheater, a marvelous natural stage nestled in the middle of the woods just beyond Vineyard Haven. I was there to take some pictures and set up interviews for a story I'm doing for next week.

Midway through my visit, MJ Bruder Munafo, the Vineyard Playhouse producer and artistic director dropped by and came over to sit with me. We'd run into each other several times during my ushering stints. She was curious if I would be willing to help out as a dresser for the new show she's about to open, "Walking the Volcano": It's a series of eight short plays focusing on the lives of various people who grew up in the 1960s and how they adjusted (or failed to adjust) to the changes in the next four decades. The various characters are played by four actors -- two men, two women -- and they have to completely transform themselves from one scene to the next, which requires quick changes of clothing, wigs, shoes, etc. The dresser is essential to pulling off these overhauls. You have to know exactly what your actor needs next and how to make the change as smoothly and efficiently as possible, so the job involves keeping a watchful eye on the wardrobe and making sure everything is in place and easily accessible when it's needed.

I decided to take the job. It's a challenge, certainly, but an enjoyable one. After running through a few changes on Monday night with Christian, the actor I'm working with in Act One, I went through the entire show a couple of times on Tuesday, assisting both Christian and Bob, who takes over in Act Two. The brief running times of the plays (most of them are about 10 minutes) does not allow for much fooling around and you have to prepare as much as possible in advance, but the day went surprisingly well, I thought. (Christian and Bob told me they were happy as well, which is even more important.)

If you don't work in theater, you would be surprised to find out how much a play develops in the final days before the opening. Even yesterday, one day before we start public previews, costumes and makeups were still being modified (a jacket that's too small was thrown out, easily attached sideburns for one of Christian's characters were brought in, etc.). Sometimes the tweaking continues even after the show has opened: When I was in "Class Reunion," a largely improvised comedy-drama at the Kalamazoo Civic five years ago, the decision was made one night to completely "rewrite" the end of my character's subplot -- and this was halfway through the run of the show! It was a smart choice because the revised finale seemed to play better for audiences, but to be told at the start of the show one night that you need to completely revamp something you've been doing for more than a month? And you're going to be trying it out in front of a sold-out house? Yes, there was a certain amount of nail-biting suspense, you might say.

So I have plenty of sympathy for Christian and Bob as they deal with costume touch-ups while getting ready for their first public preview this evening. Anyone who's done many plays will tell you that the dreaded "tech week," the time just before the show opens, is almost always the most trying time. It's been my experience that if tech week is a breeze, all those invisible, malicious theater gremlins materialize during the run to ruin your sound, play tricks with your lighting, cause you to forget your lines and make crucial props and costumes vanish at the last minute, so I'm always happy if tech week is tough. If it's not, I tend to brace myself for the crises to come!

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.

Making a splash at Mansion House

I don't think I've written much about Mansion House, the luxurious old-fashioned hotel located in the heart of Vineyard Haven, even though I visit there almost every day. No, I did not get a job as a chambermaid and I'm certainly not staying there as a guest (it costs much more than I could ever afford). About a month ago, I bought a three-month membership at their wonderful health club, which offers plenty of workout equipment and classes in yoga, aerobics, pilates, etc. The real attraction for me, however, was the facility's incredible 75-foot-long indoor pool, which I have been visiting regularly.

Why swim inside when you're on an island, surrounded by water? Hmmm. Head down to the beach, dip your feet in the water and see how eager you are to get in and swim for half an hour. Although the waves are slightly warmer now than they were a month ago, they are too chilly for my taste and besides, I don't do much swimming in the kind of shallow water you find at the beaches (there are copious amounts of seaweed drifting through the currents here, for one thing, and there's nothing like getting seaweed in your hair or in your face to send you running from the water).

The Mansion House pool, on the other hand, is maintained at a steady 83 degrees, just warm enough that you don't shiver or shriek when your tummy first touches the water. It's also chlorine-free: I don't know the exact name of the system they use to keep the pool clean -- they call it "Spring Water" in their literature -- but it involves using salt water instead of eye-stinging, swimsuit-bleaching chlorine to keep the pool clean. So it's sort of like swimming in the ocean, without the distractions of unpleasant plants, rocks or mysterious sea creatures brushing up against your legs. Remember that "Jaws" was filmed in this very neighborhood, so having something brushing up against you in the water can spark all sorts of gruesome memories.

The only downside to the Mansion House experience is that downtown Vineyard Haven has a very limited amount of parking spaces and finding one anywhere near Mansion House is about as common as finding a $1000 bill on the sidewalk. Many days I am forced to park several blocks away in the neighborhood district, and I could swear I get more exercise walking to and from the health club than I actually get inside. Even so, if the weather is nice, it's hard to complain about such "inconveniences."

I was also surprised to see that Mansion House will soon be hosting "Come Together," an exhibit of artwork from John Lennon. It opens this Friday as a benefit for the Island Food Pantry. The artwork is also for sale, and I'm sure there will be something in my price range (ha!). Well, perhaps not, but I can afford the $2 admission fee, so I guess I have another good reason to keep on battling the Vineyard Haven traffic.