Robert John "Mutt" Lange. A name that represents many things depending on who you talk to: Big Record Sales. Pop Perfection. Gross Overproduction. Lifeless Radio Crap. Amazing Intuition. Unparalleled Song Doctor.
Put me in the "fan" camp. I think the man makes exquisite ear candy that bears repeated listening across decades. Two Mutt-produced records in particular are still in frequent rotation in my music collection: The Cars' Heartbeat City and Def Leppard's Hysteria. Only recently did I discover that these two records' stories are actually somewhat intertwined.
In the excellent Classic Albums documentary on Hysteria, Def Leppard and their managers discuss the fact that Mutt wasn't going to be available to produce the record due to another commitment. What that commitment was isn't spelled out onscreen – it turns out it was to The Cars. So instead Lep's management hired Jim Steinman, who had no production credits. Lead singer Joe Elliott doesn't presume to speak for the band but indicates that he thought it was a bad idea; "Todd Rundgren produced Bat Out Of Hell. Jim Steinman wrote it!" The episode was a disaster. Steinman apparently enthused about takes where the band hadn't even fine-tuned their instruments. "To a kid in Iowa, it sounds honest," he's purported to have said. Elliott says his response was, "That kid will think it sounds out of tune, Jim."
The band's management bought Steinman out of his lucrative contract and scrapped the work done with him at the helm, which meant that Def Leppard now had to sell a hell of a lot more copies of the not-yet-begun record just to break even.
Then, drummer Rick Allen was involved in the car accident that cost him his left arm.
By the time Allen was healed enough to begin figuring out how he would continue playing drums, Mutt Lange was finishing up Heartbeat City for The Cars. The record inverted the usual Cars recipe of guitar-driven rock seasoned with very pure, strident synthesizer sounds; Greg Hawkes' keyboard rig was now the centerpiece of the band's newly lush sound, with Elliott Easton's guitar adding flavor. A contemporary article about the band's experience gave a window into Lange's process. Bassist Ben Orr returned to the band's rented accommodations after a long day of working one-on-one with Mutt. Someone asked how it went. Orr replied, "Well, we started to get a bass sound today." Drummer David Robinson might have had it worse; it seems clear that all the drums on the record are derived from machines rather than his drumming.
Out of affection for the guys, and with his commitment to The Cars fulfilled, Mutt then signed on to produce Hysteria. What's interesting to me is that the experience with The Cars seems to have influenced the sound of Hysteria. It's been said that Hysteria would be a very different record if not for the hell Def Leppard went through to get it made. That's undoubtedly true, but the other side of the coin hasn't really been acknowledged; if not for Mutt's experience making Heartbeat City, where he developed some of his trademark treatments and techniques and was exposed to more synth and sampling technology by Greg Hawkes, Hysteria would have been a very different record anyway.
Listen to them back-to-back sometime and you'll see how Heartbeat City informed Hysteria and evolved the sound Mutt and the band had already established in all kinds of ways: The hyper-layered background vocals sung by Mutt himself, the impossibly heavy backbeats, the sound of the cymbals, the commonality between the bass sounds of The Cars' Ben Orr and Def Leppard's Rick Savage. . . . The list of things pioneered or perfected on Heartbeat City and then applied to Hysteria is long, and why not? Heartbeat City was a smash, spinning off numerous Top Ten singles. Since Def Leppard's ethic on Hysteria was the idea of writing a "greatest hits" record from scratch, Mutt's success with The Cars made it natural that Def Leppard would choose to apply much of what he developed while making Heartbeat City.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Monday, January 24, 2011
Open Letter to the PhotoPass/Entertainment Dept. at DisneyParks
To whom it may concern,
Please reconsider the policy of locking down Characters to PhotoPass locations in order to simply maximize PhotoPass profits. The loss of more spontaneous experiences, like riding an attraction with a Character, is detrimental to Magic in the Parks. Admittedly, these experiences are like winning the lottery - not many get to experience them, and luck plays a chief role in whether or not they happen to us, but it must be pointed out that marketing materials (videos, photographs) used to promote the Parks still trade heavily on the idea of children being surprised and hugged by their favorite characters. If this "PhotoPass locations only" policy persists, these clips and photos will be a flat lie.
Disney has always flirted with the edge, balancing delightful, surprising, no-extra-charge magic for Guests and gate-keeping/stage-managing/extra-costing everything to death for maximum profit-per-square-millimeter in the Parks. This policy crosses the line, and please don't insult us by giving us some scripted line about the fact that PhotoPass photographers are able to use _our_ cameras to "make magical moments for free" or that it isn't necessary to pay anything just to meet the characters - this isn't a misunderstanding over what costs and what doesn't, it's about an erosion of Show quality; spontaneous Character interactions, while rare, are especially memorable and irreplaceable with stage-managed "celebrity appearances" at designated locations where we line up like cattle for meanlingless, magic-lite moments with characters. A PhotoPass meet-and-greet sets up the expectation that meeting the Characters is just for photos and autographs. There's not much Magic in that. Real celebrities are often (necessarily) aloof, rushing through fan interactions and being dismissive, albeit in a reasonably gracious way. Why being this intrusive, disappointing reality into our interactions with Disney Characters? The idea that my little girls will _never_ get to ride the Carousel with Mary Poppins or the Teacups with Alice makes me very sad indeed, particularly in light of the fact that Disney promotional materials will surely continue to depict chance encounters of this type, therefore "promising" them. Remember what constitutes a promise to a child. Point at legal disclaimers all you want; they'll be no less heartbroken when Cinderella doesn't even have time to make proper eye contact. Just another sham. Is that the lesson the Walt Disney Co. wants its "future brand-loyalists" to learn at age 3-7?
My wife and I were in California Adventure a few years ago, and I was clowning around with a door graphic on a construction wall in front of the Monsters, Inc. attraction, pretending to try and open the "door" for my wife's camera. Nearby, Frozone was out walking the Park. Apparently he spotted us from a couple dozen yards away, and ran over to us, even leaving his "assistant" behind for a moment. We had a completely spontaneous, unscripted, un-stage-managed interaction with this excellent Cast Member all to ourselves, and it was a lot of fun. We snapped a photo, of course, but it wasn't about the photo. I'll go to my grave remembering that Frozone (who isn't even among my _most_ favorite characters) spotted us and came to make a moment with us. I'm a rational adult who is fully aware that the person inside the Frozone costume was just a teen/twentysomething individual working for a few dollars an hour, but he threw himself into that low-paying position with alacrity that would have pleased Walt Disney. That's the kind of magic only Disney has ever bothered to try and create. Don't destroy it by confining characters to designated meet-and-greet locations where the quality of interaction moves from truly magical to mundane. Disney characters are not merely "properties." They belong to the world because the world has embraced them. Don't make meeting them as un-special as meeting "Santa Claus" at every local mall in the country.
On the other hand, if you were to invest in and implement "interactive Mickey" on a permanent basis and expand that technology to all the other "rubberhead" Characters at designated locations, you'd have immensely improved the experience of meeting those Characters. Here's the only instance where a locked-down interaction would actually be a MAJOR bonus rather than a bummer. That technology more than lives up to the high standard of magic for which Disney is justifiably renowned. Adults and children alike are completely drawn in and awestruck by that excellent idea. (Then, let the face characters continue to roam and interact freely.)
Sincerely,
Ken Hughes
DVC member since 2001
DIS shareholder
D23 Charter Member
Friday, January 21, 2011
"Thanks For Everything, Charlie Brown!"
Here's a (rather long) piece I've had knocking around for a while. . . .
Foreword, Sept. 2010
Not too long ago I came across the cast album of the 1999 Broadway revival of “You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown!” and I bought it on the spot. Brought back memories even before I spun the CD and heard, somewhat jarringly, Anthony Rapp from “Rent” as Chuck and “what hasn’t he done” B.D. Wong as Linus; a lifetime ago I was in a children’s theatre production of the show in Santa Clara, California. Just a few days ago, in one of the “small world” moments that Facebook provides in abundance, I was sharing details about a newly-discovered and delightfully improbable mutual friendship and, in enthusing about the likeability of this person, told a story that let loose a flood of deep-stored memories that listening to the cast album hadn’t brought forward with much clarity. As these memories came into focus, I thought I’d better take a few snapshots before they receded into blur again. The scope of the story grew way beyond the original kernel. Who knows if this stuff would ever be interesting to an audience; I tend to doubt it. It may be that the only people who ever read this are those who were involved (I offered them all a read-through. I wanted to make sure I represented them kindly, correctly, and fairly, no matter where this piece ends up). Certainly my kids will read it someday. Hopefully long before I’m gone. I think the conversations this could spark could be emotionally epic journeys into my own and my childrens’ hearts.
________________
My luminous stage career, such as it’s been, began when I was cast into the teen chorus of “Bye Bye, Birdie” at what was then called the Santa Clara Junior Theatre. I’d always been a ham and loved the spotlight, but this was the first time I’d auditioned for anything anywhere. At last I could stand under real spotlights. I was hooked. I was home. Since then I’ve never been too far away from a stage; in musicals, revues, seminars, improv comedy, bands in country, R&B, rock, pop, reggae, and gospel styles, slam poetry, singing solo with my guitar in underground churches in Saigon, performing at fairs, schools, corporate events, churches, nightclubs, coffeehouses, prisons, even Disneyland once. I’ve yet to achieve any fame, or make any money at it, but I’ve had a blast.
I was fourteen at the Birdie audition, just becoming longingly aware of the allure of girls, and symmetrically aware of the soul-slashing sting they could inflict. Also emerging was the realization of my hopeless ineptitude at coping with either the allure or the sting.
One girl in particular, a cast-mate in Birdie, became the long-suffering victim of my clueless, inept, sometimes wildly inappropriate, always ineffectual attempts to convince her to return the romantic feelings I imagined I had for her. (Sample: “But. . . I like you. Like you like you.”) She had theme music in my head, and this was before “The Wonder Years” actually played theme music every time the main character’s crush appeared. Julie Crader at fourteen was blonde, pretty, possessed of a braces-saddled but wonderful smile and big, sparkling green eyes. She had the same feathered hairstyle I saw Jenny McCarthy wearing on a talk show just last week, and a personality that was equal parts shiny, happy girl and old soul. She was smart, funny, quick, and a little quirky. She had what I’ve since come to recognize as an almost standard-issue “cute girl” speaking voice, and was a skilled dancer and singer. Duran Duran was her favorite band.
For reasons known only to Julie, she would patiently sit thru hours-long telephone conversations with me, tolerate my morose lamentations that we were not yet an item, and gently deflect my endless attempts to enter grave DTR discussions. She really ought to be nominated for sainthood just for the grace she showed me during the few short years our lives intersected. I see pictures of her from that time and they must be lying; they show a slightly awkward teen where I remember a grown woman in miniature. I never kissed her, never even held her hand. And truly, I wouldn’t have known what to do if she had some miraculous sudden attraction to me and offered those gestures.
SCJT more or less had a policy of giving a part to every kid who auditioned. “You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown!” had just six roles, though: Chuck, Linus, Schroeder, Snoopy, Patty, and Lucy. And they weren’t going to do multiple casts. The auditions took place in a small, dark-paneled side room across the hall from the auditorium. The gravity of the atmosphere was unfamiliar and intimidating. Casting was based almost entirely on vocal range. It was cold, but fair: If we couldn’t cover the vocal range, we were out, sent to the auditorium to take part in the other production mounting at the time. The phrase was, “Go see Mackie.”
Mackie McClelland was a hard-looking but not unattractive woman; tall, thin, and blonde, she wore a lot of black. She seemed very glamorous to me, maybe to most of us. She had directed “Bye Bye, Birdie,” so while she was familiar, her formidable presence was undiminished by familiarity. Not at all unkind, Mackie was nonetheless a bit of a taskmaster and didn’t mince words. Nor did she ever talk down to us kids or treat us as anything less than adults. The flipside was that she expected us to act in kind. She could quell misbehavior without a word, like a stern schoolteacher.
In the audition room, the music director, Kathy Smith, was already edgy. In contrast to Mackie’s calculated distance and businesslike professionalism, Kathy was a softie. She didn’t hide her affection for us behind any kind of “professional” veneer, and she knew already that some of us were going to get hurt. Everyone was wound up tighter than a two-dollar watch. I don’t recall the exact sequence of events, but it wasn’t the first cut. After a desperately uncomfortable silence, Kathy blew out a breath and said, “Oh, my god, you guys are gonna hate me.” Another long, pregnant pause. No one breathed. Kathy was practically hiding behind the sheet music on the piano, studiously avoiding eye contact with any of us. With the expression usually worn by a parent forced to deliver the worst of news to her child, she seemed to force herself to look at each of us as she said, “Julie, and Ken, go see Mackie.”
Gutted. Reeling. Vision actually blurry. Tears or just shock? Don’t know. Looking at the floor. Blur of blonde hair and shorts-clad legs and white Keds past my right side as Julie runs sobbing, almost doubled-over, for the door. Door. Where’s the door? Gotta get outta here. Embarrassed. I’m no good. I thought I was doing pretty well. Where did I choke? Heart broken. Oh, god, she’s really upset. Now she’s leaving the building, wracked with great gasping sobs. I will never know joy again, for the world has ended.
I came back to myself sitting in a chair in the main auditorium, wondering darkly how I could possibly participate in the little kiddie show. Was it Candy Land? Whatever. Mackie approached. In the warmest tone I ever heard her use, which edged just past tepid, she said, “I know you’re disappointed, but I need you onstage right now.” I couldn’t stomach the idea. I frowned. I exhaled. I was a bit disarmed by the easing of the presence, and didn’t want to snap at her. “I don’t mean any disrespect, Mackie, but I just . . . can’t.” I got up and walked out the door, trying to keep my body language free of any sign of petulance. I wasn’t angry at her, but I didn’t want to be misunderstood and I didn’t want to appear childish.
Once in the hall, I realized I hadn’t seen Julie come back in. I worried. Empathy took over and my romantic obsession was improbably set aside, for the first and possibly only time. I needed to know she was OK, or would be OK. I went out to the loading dock, where I’d seen her headed earlier. I spotted her on the switchbacked wheelchair/loading ramp that led to the stage door, blonde head bowed, shoulders heaving. I approached cautiously, pausing several times to give her the chance to wave me off from a distance if she wanted to. She didn’t. I wanted more than anything to see her tears stop. As disappointed as I was for myself, the apparent magnitude of her hurt was breaking my heart. I stepped to her and put my hand on her shoulder, and I tried to muster the same tone of concern and safety I’d heard my mother use. “Hey. . . .”
Perhaps to her it sounded like, “Hey, baby. . .”
“Just . . . LEAVE ME ALONE!!” she screeched, batted my arm away, and ran, still sobbing.
Minutes later I was riding my silver ten-speed home, pouring all my disappointment, hurt, and confusion into going as fast as I could in top gear, as if I could outrun my feelings and leave them behind. Past Kaiser hospital, across Homestead, past the street where Kevin lived . . . did he get a part? I was sure he did. My legs began to burn. I made the right turn onto Pruneridge and I finally let up. I sat up on the seat, riding no-hands, coasting, feeling the air as I moved through it.
________________
Once or twice over the years, I’ve wondered what happened after I left the theatre and before the phone call. Maybe Kathy, choreographer Judi Jones, SCJT director Roberta Jones, and Mackie had a meeting after the day played out. Kathy might have expressed her concern about the way things had gone; perhaps she felt she’d had to be unfair to several of us. Each of them had seen some part of the aftermath, but Kathy had had to watch Julie implode. And it couldn’t have been easy. There seemed be a lot of dithering just before Julie and I were dismissed. Endless rounds of “Row, Row, Row, Your Boat” in descending and escalating keys to establish everyone’s effective vocal range, tone quality, and the blends between different pairs and groups. It seemed to take longer than the earlier cuts. There were only two female roles to begin with, and couple of other, traditionally strong performers also didn’t make the cast; Amy Mack and RoiAnn Phillips. The three girls and I must have missed getting cast by a pretty slim margin; perhaps others were strong where each of us was just adequate.
“It’s Kathy, from the Junior Theatre,” said Mom, calling me to the phone. (Mom always said, “thea-AY-ter.”) I’d retreated to my room for a couple of hours, idly looking through books and magazines, turning the radio on and then wanting silence, turning it off and then wanting to hear something other than my own thoughts, actually considering doing some homework, and trying to figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my now-ruined life. Why would Kathy be calling me at home?
I picked the phone up off the table. “Hello,” I said, flatly.
“Hi Ken,” Kathy said. She sounded as if she wanted to ask, “Are you OK?” She said instead, “We have a part for you if you’d like to be in the show.”
“Just tell me,” I replied, “that you have a part for Julie, too. She took it even harder than I did.”
Julie was offered the newly-created role of Sally Brown. (Interestingly, the 1999 Broadway revival brought Sally into things as well, but dropped Patty.) I was offered Pig Pen; the potential social stigma that came with the role was far less worrisome to me than that of not being in the show at all. My costuming and makeup were a bit of a pain; I wore army-green shorts and a T-shirt the same color, smeared with black and brown stage makeup, and dusted with talcum powder. On top of my standard-issue male stage makeup, we had to add smudges of “dirt” and my hair had to look unwashed and unruly. My legs and arms had to be smudged with black and brown makeup as well.
RoiAnn Phillips accepted the part of Violet. The RoiAnn in my memory seems far more mature than the rest of us. Above it all, but not in a haughty way. Friendly and often exuding joy, she possessed some of the stereotype qualities of “hippie” but the label wouldn’t have done her justice. Amy Mack came in as Marcy. Amy was a little younger than the rest of us, and so little did I regard her at the time that my memories of her, sadly, are few. She was fun and talented, and I liked her in that kid-sister kind of way, but in the cold social economy of teens, she was not friend material.
As Snoopy – a pretty demanding role – was Philip Newby, the youngest member of the cast, and another person who I considered beneath my station to befriend in any meaningful way. My loss, for sure: Philip took his own life in 2009. Depression. Something else I just recently learned about Philip: at age ten, inspired by the Peanuts cartoons, he and his younger sister Emily once set up a psychiatry booth at a local shopping center and charged adult passers-by 25 cents for psychiatric advice. Emily recalled in an LA Times article about Philip that people paid the quarter and played along.
Schroeder was played by Larry Dilley, an SCJT vet who I’d seen make the most of his few lines as the Mayor of Sweet Apple, Ohio in Birdie. Larry and I shared an enthusiastic appreciation for Sondheim. We once took in a local production of “Company” together, and the events of that evening, I’m sure, led my dad to be a bit concerned about my sexual orientation. Since Larry was driving age and I wasn’t, he picked me up in his car. I put on a sport coat, wanting to appear mature since the show dealt with adult themes and included a bedroom scene. Must have looked like I was dressing up for a date. Larry and I grabbed a bite to eat after the show. Years later it finally dawned on me that it was just possible Larry considered it a date. It doesn’t matter now, but if so I’m glad I was too clueless then to catch on; I’m sorry to admit I probably would have been very unkind.
Anna Muraco got the part of Patty. This was very much against type; Anna wasn’t over-the-top girly, but there certainly wasn’t much tomboy in her. She was sweet, however, and when she smiled, all of her smiled. The Muracos were heavily involved; Anna’s older brother Pete built sets, designed and operated lighting, and stage-managed show after show after show. Their younger sister Christina was also in many shows, and I have a vague recollection of Mr. and/or Mrs. Muraco making it a family act once or twice as well, in “Birdie” and maybe “Fiddler On The Roof.”
Playing Linus was Mike Borgstrom, to this day the best hoofer of his age I’ve ever seen. We were friends at school too. Mike was the one who originally encouraged me to audition for “Bye Bye, Birdie,” assuring me I’d be part of the in crowd – he’d pull some strings. Mike and Anna had probably the healthiest friendship of any two in the cast; it was tempting to think they were a pair, but frankly there wasn’t nearly enough drama between them to indicate anything other than platonic friendship.
Kevin Cornelius was cast as Charlie Brown. Wonderfully, Kevin now directs the Roberta Jones Junior Theatre, as it was later renamed in honor of the founding director. (Reams could and should be written about dear, tireless, gold-hearted Roberta – who is regarded with extraordinary fondness by the scores of people who passed under her care and teaching – but it would all be tangential to this particular story.) The role of Charlie Brown’s nominal adversary, Lucy, went to Shani Valencia.
Shani’s older brother Dax and I were thick as thieves and almost as dangerous from elementary school up through college. I was seen at the Valencias’ a lot. So Shani had been more or less stuck with me as a second annoying older brother for years. Dax was also involved here and there with SCJT, crewing a couple of shows, including “Birdie.” There’s a good story involving Dax and a fog machine on that show’s closing night, but this too would be a tangent. By this time Shani and I were beginning our own friendship and there wasn’t much pigtail-pulling anymore. It was a little weird – it changed the tenor of my frequent appearances at the Valencia home a little – but I liked it. Shani was smart, funny, and pretty. It would have taken an unjustifiable effort not to like her.
At the start of rehearsals, everyone was asked to bring in Charlie Brown collections. The strips were collected together in book form for years, and we each had a couple. Since so much of the existing script was culled from Peanuts comic strips anyway, it was natural to go right back to them for new stuff for Sally, Violet, Marcy, and Pig Pen. The show would go on around Halloween, so we incorporated some Linus/Sally Great Pumpkin material. We posited that the Peanuts gang’s school had a glee club, so we worked in a medley of “pumpkin carols” that featured the whole expanded cast. There was an exciting sense of ownership that came with all of this; we were helping shape the show, just like real actors on Broadway did with a brand-new show. I don’t remember what, if any, lines or bits of business were given to Pig Pen other than a few lines of some of the songs. I couldn’t have cared less. I was in the cast with these people who, despite our often immature interactions, understood and respected one another on that show-people level at least. And, if I’m honest, there was just the pride of having made it into the club, however nearly I missed induction.
If you’ve never seen it, “You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown” carries forward the gentle humor, wry wit, and wistfulness of Charles Schulz’ comics even better than the animated TV specials do. The show is a string of loosely-connected vignettes with no plot or through-story, much like the comic strips themselves. If there’s a central theme, it’s the small daily struggles of the human heart. Schulz, who battled depression his entire life, found poetry and humor in dysfunctional friendships (Charlie Brown and Lucy), co-dependent and mutually-enabling friendships (Patty and Marcy) nerdhood (Linus, Schroeder), megalomania and delusional behavior (Snoopy), hopelessly unrequited “love” (Sally and Linus), and we see all of it in ourselves. The brilliant songs are funny, poignant, entertaining, and ambitious. Unless you’re a hardened cynic – or the company was really bad – it’s pretty hard to walk out of any performance of the show anywhere without feeling a bit lifted.
The big-cast musical (Big Rock Candy Mountain? Teddy Bears and Baby Dolls? Who cared?) was also in rehearsals at the same time and the stage was taken up with set construction, so we staged Charlie Brown in the round on the floor of the auditorium. Choreographer Judi Jones, Roberta’s eldest daughter, taught us all about the stagecraft of working in the round – one memorable term was “vomitories,” the aisles that led from the round “stage” to areas out of sight to the audience. There was a learning curve in getting used to working to an audience that was going to completely surround us. Where are stage right and left if the audience is everywhere? Does it depend on which direction you’re facing? What’s upstage and what’s downstage? We used both clock and compass metaphors to describe stage positions. Choreography was sometimes a bit difficult to wrap our heads around, and watching other performers for cues was occasionally impossible because Judi had staged us in “freeze frame” at moments here and there to eliminate a bunch of needless and distracting entrances and exits. We learned and grew together, and because we were so few, we were close. With that came all the social intrigue typical of teens. We could knife each other with one breath and be encouraging and supportive with the next. We did plenty of both. I got teased (and advised) a lot about my going-nowhere crush on Julie. Kevin, who had brown hair, got it for using a product called Sun-in to achieve blonditude, but the stuff mostly just turned his hair a weird, unflattering orange color. Mike and Anna probably got teased about whether or not they were a couple. Shani and Kevin needled each other unceasingly; got under each other’s skin, into each other’s heads. Really gave each other the business, pretty much all the time. Anytime any of us messed up something, it became the subject of whispering by anyone who was momentarily sidelined while other actors were running through their bits. Most of it was different modes of he-said-she-said. There were no smartphones, iPods, portable video games, and the like to distract and isolate us from each other. (On the flip side, we weren’t sexting or widening the gossip circle via Twitter and Facebook, nor did we have earphones stuffed in our ears.) Downtime wasn’t plentiful but it afforded us the opportunity to spend and kill time in pairs and threes. Socially-destructive behavior was inevitable, but so was bonding.
Opening night arrived. Philip as Snoopy was brilliant, eventually earning cheers and standing ovations throughout the run. He had to sing higher, dance more energetically, and do more scenery-chewing than any of us. And he had to do it in a slightly awkward dog costume that was more like an oversized set of footie pajamas. It may have been made from exactly that, now that I think about it.
If Snoopy carried the show from a comic standpoint (he did get most of the laughs), Kevin’s Charlie Brown carried the emotional center of the show. Kev rode Chuck’s emotional rollercoaster well enough to sweep the audience up with him. This at age 14 or 15. He brought the character’s tragicomic qualities to life with exactly the right balance of pathos and comedy; crippling self-doubt, manufactured optimism, sincere but ineffective attempts at leadership. His portrayal of Charlie Brown’s quixotic relationship with his kite in “The Kite” was hilarious.
Mike’s Linus gave a tour-de-force performance of “My Blanket and Me,” a dance number with the ever-present blanket as his partner. And his pressure-induced loss of composure in “The Book Report,” where he frantically put forth a psychological profile of Peter Rabbit characters, was particularly funny. Julie’s Sally was inescapably sunny and adorable, Larry’s Schroeder was entertainingly annoyed by all things Lucy, and Shani’s Lucy was suitably imperious, condescending, and know-it-all. I remember nothing about Anna’s, RoiAnn’s, Amy’s, or my own performances.
The experience was one of few high-watermark experiences of my youth. Cathartic considering how it had begun, it was a chapter that made a huge impression on me; just thinking of these people still brings fond feelings that are stronger than I can explain. We were war buddies, as much as kids that age can be.
Now, finally, here’s the specific memory that began the unpacking of all the rest of it:
Inevitably, closing night snuck up on us. In fact I think it was a matinée. Mackie, knowing all of us pretty well by this stage, was naturally aware of both how much we all cared for each other and our inability to express it in any mature way. She sensed the gathering storm of emotion in the dressing rooms. We were all going to be devastated by having reached the end of the line. Acknowledging our rising dread of the end and the emotion we were already showing, she sternly cautioned us to stay in character. It was the highest expectation: we were professionals. Children in the audience would be confused and upset if we broke character and let our emotion show. Yet there was something perhaps too sincere about her admonition. Adding a layer of potential challenge to our composure, the show’s closing number is a little gem of a feel-good tearjerker (“Happiness”) about uncomplicated, childlike friendship and simple joys. Even trickier, the number ended with a scripted group hug, all of us smiling at one another. It was so sweet that a warning in the program for diabetics might not have been amiss.
We gave a great show. A go-for-broke spirit took hold of us. We reached the closing number. We hit our marks. We sang our parts. We smiled. We were professionals. Until. Was that someone’s voice breaking? I was turned the opposite direction in a freeze-frame, having just sung my line: “Happiness is playing the drum in your own school band. . .” the light on me was extinguished and I moved to my next mark. Was that someone else’s voice breaking, or the same voice? Why can’t I tell who it is? We coalesced the big circle, everyone raised their arms to one another’s shoulders slowly, in unison, and, as choreographed . . . hugged.
And there it was. One big tear trickling cinematically down Shani’s cheek. We all must have seen it at about the same time as we sang the last line together: “Happiness is anyone, and anything at all, that’s loved by you.” Now, not to get too musical, but this needs to be known: the score called for the cast to harmonize the entire line, with the lushest harmony coming on the word “loved,” but “you” was sung as a unison, everyone singing the same note. A charming bit of symbolism in the vocal arrangement. In my memory, we sounded lovelier in that moment than we ever had before. We had stopped thinking about notes and tone and blend and we just . . . felt it. Then our collective dam broke; the finality of the moment crashed down on us. Within seconds we were all trying like hell to stifle the sobs that were now coming; it was way too late to stop the tears. I spotted Judi down one of the vomitories holding her hands to her mouth, her eyes shining, blinking back her own tears with some effort. The orchestra played the coda, and the audience applauded. Exit cast.
But it wasn’t the end. Shani and Kevin then had to get thru the show’s little tag, where the tender heart of the show really lives. It’s a moment with Lucy and Charlie Brown in a tight pool of light at center stage, where she starts to leave but turns to Charlie Brown, offers a handshake, and says, “You’re a good man, Charlie Brown,” firmly but almost as if she’s made a slightly startling discovery. It’s a touching moment, even on the page – Chuck’s biggest critic and tormentor, the one who’s always calling him a blockhead and broadcasting his every folly and failure, validates him in spite of herself.
She’s saying, in her own prickly way, “I love you.”
But Shani was frozen. And Kevin was turning purple trying to hold himself together. (Against his orange hair it was quite a sight.)
A pause followed that seemed several minutes long, the two of them looking at each other across three feet of empty space. Shani and Kevin were living the moment written in the script even as they acted it out. And waiting was not helping them compose themselves. Silence hung tensely in the air. We probably all prayed for someone to do something. Shani couldn’t have forgotten her line, could she?
Finally, she just threw herself at Kevin, burying her face in his chest in a genuine embrace of friendship and love.
Blackout. Cue orchestra.
I think we just barely pulled ourselves together for the bows and curtain call, but once offstage for the final time, we broke into twos and threes of hugging, sobbing, and now embarrassedly giggling kids. Having been so unguarded with one another was an aberration. We tried to pretend we were cool. Mackie came backstage for the usual director’s comments, congratulations, and critique. She said she was disappointed that we broke character, but her voice was ever-so-slightly unsteady, and there was something else just under the surface, too. Had she been touched by what happened?
Drained, we trooped back to the dressing rooms to wipe off our stage makeup, change out of our costumes, gather our stuff. We said our goodbyes and see-you-at-schools. Mackie gave us each a hug, saying, “I don’t wanna cry. I don’t wanna cry.” RoiAnn approached Kathy, saying playfully thru the remnants of her tears, “I can’t let you leave without giving you one of these stupid things,” as she pulled Kathy into a hug. We left the auditorium, climbing into our moms’ cars.
I always hated leaving the theatre after the close of a show, but I always hoped for a moment alone to look back one last time at the empty stage, “where the magic took place,” as over-dramatic and mawkish as that is. There were no standing sets waiting to be struck, and the chairs had already been cleared, so all there was to see was Snoopy’s doghouse in the empty auditorium, now lit by clinical fluorescent light. Almost like it had never happened. But there had most certainly been magic, of a sort: Some talented but otherwise ordinary kids forgot to play their social games for a moment and got very real with one another in the closing number of a musical. A song, appropriately enough, about love and friendship.
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Thanks to Julie (Crader) Beebe, Mike Borgstrom, Kevin Cornelius, and Shani (Valencia) Verdon for sharing their recollections, clarifications, and illuminations. And for their friendship, especially then. (Extra special thanks to Shani for revealing to me that she did the "ugly cry" when she read the end.)
Foreword, Sept. 2010
Not too long ago I came across the cast album of the 1999 Broadway revival of “You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown!” and I bought it on the spot. Brought back memories even before I spun the CD and heard, somewhat jarringly, Anthony Rapp from “Rent” as Chuck and “what hasn’t he done” B.D. Wong as Linus; a lifetime ago I was in a children’s theatre production of the show in Santa Clara, California. Just a few days ago, in one of the “small world” moments that Facebook provides in abundance, I was sharing details about a newly-discovered and delightfully improbable mutual friendship and, in enthusing about the likeability of this person, told a story that let loose a flood of deep-stored memories that listening to the cast album hadn’t brought forward with much clarity. As these memories came into focus, I thought I’d better take a few snapshots before they receded into blur again. The scope of the story grew way beyond the original kernel. Who knows if this stuff would ever be interesting to an audience; I tend to doubt it. It may be that the only people who ever read this are those who were involved (I offered them all a read-through. I wanted to make sure I represented them kindly, correctly, and fairly, no matter where this piece ends up). Certainly my kids will read it someday. Hopefully long before I’m gone. I think the conversations this could spark could be emotionally epic journeys into my own and my childrens’ hearts.
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My luminous stage career, such as it’s been, began when I was cast into the teen chorus of “Bye Bye, Birdie” at what was then called the Santa Clara Junior Theatre. I’d always been a ham and loved the spotlight, but this was the first time I’d auditioned for anything anywhere. At last I could stand under real spotlights. I was hooked. I was home. Since then I’ve never been too far away from a stage; in musicals, revues, seminars, improv comedy, bands in country, R&B, rock, pop, reggae, and gospel styles, slam poetry, singing solo with my guitar in underground churches in Saigon, performing at fairs, schools, corporate events, churches, nightclubs, coffeehouses, prisons, even Disneyland once. I’ve yet to achieve any fame, or make any money at it, but I’ve had a blast.
I was fourteen at the Birdie audition, just becoming longingly aware of the allure of girls, and symmetrically aware of the soul-slashing sting they could inflict. Also emerging was the realization of my hopeless ineptitude at coping with either the allure or the sting.
One girl in particular, a cast-mate in Birdie, became the long-suffering victim of my clueless, inept, sometimes wildly inappropriate, always ineffectual attempts to convince her to return the romantic feelings I imagined I had for her. (Sample: “But. . . I like you. Like you like you.”) She had theme music in my head, and this was before “The Wonder Years” actually played theme music every time the main character’s crush appeared. Julie Crader at fourteen was blonde, pretty, possessed of a braces-saddled but wonderful smile and big, sparkling green eyes. She had the same feathered hairstyle I saw Jenny McCarthy wearing on a talk show just last week, and a personality that was equal parts shiny, happy girl and old soul. She was smart, funny, quick, and a little quirky. She had what I’ve since come to recognize as an almost standard-issue “cute girl” speaking voice, and was a skilled dancer and singer. Duran Duran was her favorite band.
For reasons known only to Julie, she would patiently sit thru hours-long telephone conversations with me, tolerate my morose lamentations that we were not yet an item, and gently deflect my endless attempts to enter grave DTR discussions. She really ought to be nominated for sainthood just for the grace she showed me during the few short years our lives intersected. I see pictures of her from that time and they must be lying; they show a slightly awkward teen where I remember a grown woman in miniature. I never kissed her, never even held her hand. And truly, I wouldn’t have known what to do if she had some miraculous sudden attraction to me and offered those gestures.
SCJT more or less had a policy of giving a part to every kid who auditioned. “You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown!” had just six roles, though: Chuck, Linus, Schroeder, Snoopy, Patty, and Lucy. And they weren’t going to do multiple casts. The auditions took place in a small, dark-paneled side room across the hall from the auditorium. The gravity of the atmosphere was unfamiliar and intimidating. Casting was based almost entirely on vocal range. It was cold, but fair: If we couldn’t cover the vocal range, we were out, sent to the auditorium to take part in the other production mounting at the time. The phrase was, “Go see Mackie.”
Mackie McClelland was a hard-looking but not unattractive woman; tall, thin, and blonde, she wore a lot of black. She seemed very glamorous to me, maybe to most of us. She had directed “Bye Bye, Birdie,” so while she was familiar, her formidable presence was undiminished by familiarity. Not at all unkind, Mackie was nonetheless a bit of a taskmaster and didn’t mince words. Nor did she ever talk down to us kids or treat us as anything less than adults. The flipside was that she expected us to act in kind. She could quell misbehavior without a word, like a stern schoolteacher.
In the audition room, the music director, Kathy Smith, was already edgy. In contrast to Mackie’s calculated distance and businesslike professionalism, Kathy was a softie. She didn’t hide her affection for us behind any kind of “professional” veneer, and she knew already that some of us were going to get hurt. Everyone was wound up tighter than a two-dollar watch. I don’t recall the exact sequence of events, but it wasn’t the first cut. After a desperately uncomfortable silence, Kathy blew out a breath and said, “Oh, my god, you guys are gonna hate me.” Another long, pregnant pause. No one breathed. Kathy was practically hiding behind the sheet music on the piano, studiously avoiding eye contact with any of us. With the expression usually worn by a parent forced to deliver the worst of news to her child, she seemed to force herself to look at each of us as she said, “Julie, and Ken, go see Mackie.”
Gutted. Reeling. Vision actually blurry. Tears or just shock? Don’t know. Looking at the floor. Blur of blonde hair and shorts-clad legs and white Keds past my right side as Julie runs sobbing, almost doubled-over, for the door. Door. Where’s the door? Gotta get outta here. Embarrassed. I’m no good. I thought I was doing pretty well. Where did I choke? Heart broken. Oh, god, she’s really upset. Now she’s leaving the building, wracked with great gasping sobs. I will never know joy again, for the world has ended.
I came back to myself sitting in a chair in the main auditorium, wondering darkly how I could possibly participate in the little kiddie show. Was it Candy Land? Whatever. Mackie approached. In the warmest tone I ever heard her use, which edged just past tepid, she said, “I know you’re disappointed, but I need you onstage right now.” I couldn’t stomach the idea. I frowned. I exhaled. I was a bit disarmed by the easing of the presence, and didn’t want to snap at her. “I don’t mean any disrespect, Mackie, but I just . . . can’t.” I got up and walked out the door, trying to keep my body language free of any sign of petulance. I wasn’t angry at her, but I didn’t want to be misunderstood and I didn’t want to appear childish.
Once in the hall, I realized I hadn’t seen Julie come back in. I worried. Empathy took over and my romantic obsession was improbably set aside, for the first and possibly only time. I needed to know she was OK, or would be OK. I went out to the loading dock, where I’d seen her headed earlier. I spotted her on the switchbacked wheelchair/loading ramp that led to the stage door, blonde head bowed, shoulders heaving. I approached cautiously, pausing several times to give her the chance to wave me off from a distance if she wanted to. She didn’t. I wanted more than anything to see her tears stop. As disappointed as I was for myself, the apparent magnitude of her hurt was breaking my heart. I stepped to her and put my hand on her shoulder, and I tried to muster the same tone of concern and safety I’d heard my mother use. “Hey. . . .”
Perhaps to her it sounded like, “Hey, baby. . .”
“Just . . . LEAVE ME ALONE!!” she screeched, batted my arm away, and ran, still sobbing.
Minutes later I was riding my silver ten-speed home, pouring all my disappointment, hurt, and confusion into going as fast as I could in top gear, as if I could outrun my feelings and leave them behind. Past Kaiser hospital, across Homestead, past the street where Kevin lived . . . did he get a part? I was sure he did. My legs began to burn. I made the right turn onto Pruneridge and I finally let up. I sat up on the seat, riding no-hands, coasting, feeling the air as I moved through it.
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Once or twice over the years, I’ve wondered what happened after I left the theatre and before the phone call. Maybe Kathy, choreographer Judi Jones, SCJT director Roberta Jones, and Mackie had a meeting after the day played out. Kathy might have expressed her concern about the way things had gone; perhaps she felt she’d had to be unfair to several of us. Each of them had seen some part of the aftermath, but Kathy had had to watch Julie implode. And it couldn’t have been easy. There seemed be a lot of dithering just before Julie and I were dismissed. Endless rounds of “Row, Row, Row, Your Boat” in descending and escalating keys to establish everyone’s effective vocal range, tone quality, and the blends between different pairs and groups. It seemed to take longer than the earlier cuts. There were only two female roles to begin with, and couple of other, traditionally strong performers also didn’t make the cast; Amy Mack and RoiAnn Phillips. The three girls and I must have missed getting cast by a pretty slim margin; perhaps others were strong where each of us was just adequate.
“It’s Kathy, from the Junior Theatre,” said Mom, calling me to the phone. (Mom always said, “thea-AY-ter.”) I’d retreated to my room for a couple of hours, idly looking through books and magazines, turning the radio on and then wanting silence, turning it off and then wanting to hear something other than my own thoughts, actually considering doing some homework, and trying to figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my now-ruined life. Why would Kathy be calling me at home?
I picked the phone up off the table. “Hello,” I said, flatly.
“Hi Ken,” Kathy said. She sounded as if she wanted to ask, “Are you OK?” She said instead, “We have a part for you if you’d like to be in the show.”
“Just tell me,” I replied, “that you have a part for Julie, too. She took it even harder than I did.”
Julie was offered the newly-created role of Sally Brown. (Interestingly, the 1999 Broadway revival brought Sally into things as well, but dropped Patty.) I was offered Pig Pen; the potential social stigma that came with the role was far less worrisome to me than that of not being in the show at all. My costuming and makeup were a bit of a pain; I wore army-green shorts and a T-shirt the same color, smeared with black and brown stage makeup, and dusted with talcum powder. On top of my standard-issue male stage makeup, we had to add smudges of “dirt” and my hair had to look unwashed and unruly. My legs and arms had to be smudged with black and brown makeup as well.
RoiAnn Phillips accepted the part of Violet. The RoiAnn in my memory seems far more mature than the rest of us. Above it all, but not in a haughty way. Friendly and often exuding joy, she possessed some of the stereotype qualities of “hippie” but the label wouldn’t have done her justice. Amy Mack came in as Marcy. Amy was a little younger than the rest of us, and so little did I regard her at the time that my memories of her, sadly, are few. She was fun and talented, and I liked her in that kid-sister kind of way, but in the cold social economy of teens, she was not friend material.
As Snoopy – a pretty demanding role – was Philip Newby, the youngest member of the cast, and another person who I considered beneath my station to befriend in any meaningful way. My loss, for sure: Philip took his own life in 2009. Depression. Something else I just recently learned about Philip: at age ten, inspired by the Peanuts cartoons, he and his younger sister Emily once set up a psychiatry booth at a local shopping center and charged adult passers-by 25 cents for psychiatric advice. Emily recalled in an LA Times article about Philip that people paid the quarter and played along.
Schroeder was played by Larry Dilley, an SCJT vet who I’d seen make the most of his few lines as the Mayor of Sweet Apple, Ohio in Birdie. Larry and I shared an enthusiastic appreciation for Sondheim. We once took in a local production of “Company” together, and the events of that evening, I’m sure, led my dad to be a bit concerned about my sexual orientation. Since Larry was driving age and I wasn’t, he picked me up in his car. I put on a sport coat, wanting to appear mature since the show dealt with adult themes and included a bedroom scene. Must have looked like I was dressing up for a date. Larry and I grabbed a bite to eat after the show. Years later it finally dawned on me that it was just possible Larry considered it a date. It doesn’t matter now, but if so I’m glad I was too clueless then to catch on; I’m sorry to admit I probably would have been very unkind.
Anna Muraco got the part of Patty. This was very much against type; Anna wasn’t over-the-top girly, but there certainly wasn’t much tomboy in her. She was sweet, however, and when she smiled, all of her smiled. The Muracos were heavily involved; Anna’s older brother Pete built sets, designed and operated lighting, and stage-managed show after show after show. Their younger sister Christina was also in many shows, and I have a vague recollection of Mr. and/or Mrs. Muraco making it a family act once or twice as well, in “Birdie” and maybe “Fiddler On The Roof.”
Playing Linus was Mike Borgstrom, to this day the best hoofer of his age I’ve ever seen. We were friends at school too. Mike was the one who originally encouraged me to audition for “Bye Bye, Birdie,” assuring me I’d be part of the in crowd – he’d pull some strings. Mike and Anna had probably the healthiest friendship of any two in the cast; it was tempting to think they were a pair, but frankly there wasn’t nearly enough drama between them to indicate anything other than platonic friendship.
Kevin Cornelius was cast as Charlie Brown. Wonderfully, Kevin now directs the Roberta Jones Junior Theatre, as it was later renamed in honor of the founding director. (Reams could and should be written about dear, tireless, gold-hearted Roberta – who is regarded with extraordinary fondness by the scores of people who passed under her care and teaching – but it would all be tangential to this particular story.) The role of Charlie Brown’s nominal adversary, Lucy, went to Shani Valencia.
Shani’s older brother Dax and I were thick as thieves and almost as dangerous from elementary school up through college. I was seen at the Valencias’ a lot. So Shani had been more or less stuck with me as a second annoying older brother for years. Dax was also involved here and there with SCJT, crewing a couple of shows, including “Birdie.” There’s a good story involving Dax and a fog machine on that show’s closing night, but this too would be a tangent. By this time Shani and I were beginning our own friendship and there wasn’t much pigtail-pulling anymore. It was a little weird – it changed the tenor of my frequent appearances at the Valencia home a little – but I liked it. Shani was smart, funny, and pretty. It would have taken an unjustifiable effort not to like her.
At the start of rehearsals, everyone was asked to bring in Charlie Brown collections. The strips were collected together in book form for years, and we each had a couple. Since so much of the existing script was culled from Peanuts comic strips anyway, it was natural to go right back to them for new stuff for Sally, Violet, Marcy, and Pig Pen. The show would go on around Halloween, so we incorporated some Linus/Sally Great Pumpkin material. We posited that the Peanuts gang’s school had a glee club, so we worked in a medley of “pumpkin carols” that featured the whole expanded cast. There was an exciting sense of ownership that came with all of this; we were helping shape the show, just like real actors on Broadway did with a brand-new show. I don’t remember what, if any, lines or bits of business were given to Pig Pen other than a few lines of some of the songs. I couldn’t have cared less. I was in the cast with these people who, despite our often immature interactions, understood and respected one another on that show-people level at least. And, if I’m honest, there was just the pride of having made it into the club, however nearly I missed induction.
If you’ve never seen it, “You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown” carries forward the gentle humor, wry wit, and wistfulness of Charles Schulz’ comics even better than the animated TV specials do. The show is a string of loosely-connected vignettes with no plot or through-story, much like the comic strips themselves. If there’s a central theme, it’s the small daily struggles of the human heart. Schulz, who battled depression his entire life, found poetry and humor in dysfunctional friendships (Charlie Brown and Lucy), co-dependent and mutually-enabling friendships (Patty and Marcy) nerdhood (Linus, Schroeder), megalomania and delusional behavior (Snoopy), hopelessly unrequited “love” (Sally and Linus), and we see all of it in ourselves. The brilliant songs are funny, poignant, entertaining, and ambitious. Unless you’re a hardened cynic – or the company was really bad – it’s pretty hard to walk out of any performance of the show anywhere without feeling a bit lifted.
The big-cast musical (Big Rock Candy Mountain? Teddy Bears and Baby Dolls? Who cared?) was also in rehearsals at the same time and the stage was taken up with set construction, so we staged Charlie Brown in the round on the floor of the auditorium. Choreographer Judi Jones, Roberta’s eldest daughter, taught us all about the stagecraft of working in the round – one memorable term was “vomitories,” the aisles that led from the round “stage” to areas out of sight to the audience. There was a learning curve in getting used to working to an audience that was going to completely surround us. Where are stage right and left if the audience is everywhere? Does it depend on which direction you’re facing? What’s upstage and what’s downstage? We used both clock and compass metaphors to describe stage positions. Choreography was sometimes a bit difficult to wrap our heads around, and watching other performers for cues was occasionally impossible because Judi had staged us in “freeze frame” at moments here and there to eliminate a bunch of needless and distracting entrances and exits. We learned and grew together, and because we were so few, we were close. With that came all the social intrigue typical of teens. We could knife each other with one breath and be encouraging and supportive with the next. We did plenty of both. I got teased (and advised) a lot about my going-nowhere crush on Julie. Kevin, who had brown hair, got it for using a product called Sun-in to achieve blonditude, but the stuff mostly just turned his hair a weird, unflattering orange color. Mike and Anna probably got teased about whether or not they were a couple. Shani and Kevin needled each other unceasingly; got under each other’s skin, into each other’s heads. Really gave each other the business, pretty much all the time. Anytime any of us messed up something, it became the subject of whispering by anyone who was momentarily sidelined while other actors were running through their bits. Most of it was different modes of he-said-she-said. There were no smartphones, iPods, portable video games, and the like to distract and isolate us from each other. (On the flip side, we weren’t sexting or widening the gossip circle via Twitter and Facebook, nor did we have earphones stuffed in our ears.) Downtime wasn’t plentiful but it afforded us the opportunity to spend and kill time in pairs and threes. Socially-destructive behavior was inevitable, but so was bonding.
Opening night arrived. Philip as Snoopy was brilliant, eventually earning cheers and standing ovations throughout the run. He had to sing higher, dance more energetically, and do more scenery-chewing than any of us. And he had to do it in a slightly awkward dog costume that was more like an oversized set of footie pajamas. It may have been made from exactly that, now that I think about it.
If Snoopy carried the show from a comic standpoint (he did get most of the laughs), Kevin’s Charlie Brown carried the emotional center of the show. Kev rode Chuck’s emotional rollercoaster well enough to sweep the audience up with him. This at age 14 or 15. He brought the character’s tragicomic qualities to life with exactly the right balance of pathos and comedy; crippling self-doubt, manufactured optimism, sincere but ineffective attempts at leadership. His portrayal of Charlie Brown’s quixotic relationship with his kite in “The Kite” was hilarious.
Mike’s Linus gave a tour-de-force performance of “My Blanket and Me,” a dance number with the ever-present blanket as his partner. And his pressure-induced loss of composure in “The Book Report,” where he frantically put forth a psychological profile of Peter Rabbit characters, was particularly funny. Julie’s Sally was inescapably sunny and adorable, Larry’s Schroeder was entertainingly annoyed by all things Lucy, and Shani’s Lucy was suitably imperious, condescending, and know-it-all. I remember nothing about Anna’s, RoiAnn’s, Amy’s, or my own performances.
The experience was one of few high-watermark experiences of my youth. Cathartic considering how it had begun, it was a chapter that made a huge impression on me; just thinking of these people still brings fond feelings that are stronger than I can explain. We were war buddies, as much as kids that age can be.
Now, finally, here’s the specific memory that began the unpacking of all the rest of it:
Inevitably, closing night snuck up on us. In fact I think it was a matinée. Mackie, knowing all of us pretty well by this stage, was naturally aware of both how much we all cared for each other and our inability to express it in any mature way. She sensed the gathering storm of emotion in the dressing rooms. We were all going to be devastated by having reached the end of the line. Acknowledging our rising dread of the end and the emotion we were already showing, she sternly cautioned us to stay in character. It was the highest expectation: we were professionals. Children in the audience would be confused and upset if we broke character and let our emotion show. Yet there was something perhaps too sincere about her admonition. Adding a layer of potential challenge to our composure, the show’s closing number is a little gem of a feel-good tearjerker (“Happiness”) about uncomplicated, childlike friendship and simple joys. Even trickier, the number ended with a scripted group hug, all of us smiling at one another. It was so sweet that a warning in the program for diabetics might not have been amiss.
We gave a great show. A go-for-broke spirit took hold of us. We reached the closing number. We hit our marks. We sang our parts. We smiled. We were professionals. Until. Was that someone’s voice breaking? I was turned the opposite direction in a freeze-frame, having just sung my line: “Happiness is playing the drum in your own school band. . .” the light on me was extinguished and I moved to my next mark. Was that someone else’s voice breaking, or the same voice? Why can’t I tell who it is? We coalesced the big circle, everyone raised their arms to one another’s shoulders slowly, in unison, and, as choreographed . . . hugged.
And there it was. One big tear trickling cinematically down Shani’s cheek. We all must have seen it at about the same time as we sang the last line together: “Happiness is anyone, and anything at all, that’s loved by you.” Now, not to get too musical, but this needs to be known: the score called for the cast to harmonize the entire line, with the lushest harmony coming on the word “loved,” but “you” was sung as a unison, everyone singing the same note. A charming bit of symbolism in the vocal arrangement. In my memory, we sounded lovelier in that moment than we ever had before. We had stopped thinking about notes and tone and blend and we just . . . felt it. Then our collective dam broke; the finality of the moment crashed down on us. Within seconds we were all trying like hell to stifle the sobs that were now coming; it was way too late to stop the tears. I spotted Judi down one of the vomitories holding her hands to her mouth, her eyes shining, blinking back her own tears with some effort. The orchestra played the coda, and the audience applauded. Exit cast.
But it wasn’t the end. Shani and Kevin then had to get thru the show’s little tag, where the tender heart of the show really lives. It’s a moment with Lucy and Charlie Brown in a tight pool of light at center stage, where she starts to leave but turns to Charlie Brown, offers a handshake, and says, “You’re a good man, Charlie Brown,” firmly but almost as if she’s made a slightly startling discovery. It’s a touching moment, even on the page – Chuck’s biggest critic and tormentor, the one who’s always calling him a blockhead and broadcasting his every folly and failure, validates him in spite of herself.
She’s saying, in her own prickly way, “I love you.”
But Shani was frozen. And Kevin was turning purple trying to hold himself together. (Against his orange hair it was quite a sight.)
A pause followed that seemed several minutes long, the two of them looking at each other across three feet of empty space. Shani and Kevin were living the moment written in the script even as they acted it out. And waiting was not helping them compose themselves. Silence hung tensely in the air. We probably all prayed for someone to do something. Shani couldn’t have forgotten her line, could she?
Finally, she just threw herself at Kevin, burying her face in his chest in a genuine embrace of friendship and love.
Blackout. Cue orchestra.
I think we just barely pulled ourselves together for the bows and curtain call, but once offstage for the final time, we broke into twos and threes of hugging, sobbing, and now embarrassedly giggling kids. Having been so unguarded with one another was an aberration. We tried to pretend we were cool. Mackie came backstage for the usual director’s comments, congratulations, and critique. She said she was disappointed that we broke character, but her voice was ever-so-slightly unsteady, and there was something else just under the surface, too. Had she been touched by what happened?
Drained, we trooped back to the dressing rooms to wipe off our stage makeup, change out of our costumes, gather our stuff. We said our goodbyes and see-you-at-schools. Mackie gave us each a hug, saying, “I don’t wanna cry. I don’t wanna cry.” RoiAnn approached Kathy, saying playfully thru the remnants of her tears, “I can’t let you leave without giving you one of these stupid things,” as she pulled Kathy into a hug. We left the auditorium, climbing into our moms’ cars.
I always hated leaving the theatre after the close of a show, but I always hoped for a moment alone to look back one last time at the empty stage, “where the magic took place,” as over-dramatic and mawkish as that is. There were no standing sets waiting to be struck, and the chairs had already been cleared, so all there was to see was Snoopy’s doghouse in the empty auditorium, now lit by clinical fluorescent light. Almost like it had never happened. But there had most certainly been magic, of a sort: Some talented but otherwise ordinary kids forgot to play their social games for a moment and got very real with one another in the closing number of a musical. A song, appropriately enough, about love and friendship.
________________
Thanks to Julie (Crader) Beebe, Mike Borgstrom, Kevin Cornelius, and Shani (Valencia) Verdon for sharing their recollections, clarifications, and illuminations. And for their friendship, especially then. (Extra special thanks to Shani for revealing to me that she did the "ugly cry" when she read the end.)
Aw, what the heck?
So now I'm a blogger. I know, right? "Alert the media! It's an event of international import! Somebody tell Blogger.com to prepare for the onslaught, so their servers don't crash!"
After encouraging a few writer friends to start blogs as outlets for stuff that didn't or couldn't find a home elsewhere I decided to take my own advice and create a place where I could pontificate, bloviate, or just muse (hence the title) about the past and/or events of the day, both in my own life and in the larger world.
If, for some inexplicable reason, you feel inclined to visit this spot on a regular basis (hey, 25 million Americans are unemployed at the moment - that's a lot of people who can only browse Monster.com and the like for so long before they go crosseyed), you're likely to find prose, rants, info pieces, frankly whatever I felt like posting that day. I have no intention of posting every day, however. Only when arrogance moves me to think I have something interesting to say. Topics will include Christianity, music, musicmaking, movies, Disney (Walt as well as the company), politics, and low-hanging fruit that catches my interest from time to time.
Bottom line: this blog is for me. My little vanity project. If you'd like to come along I'd be glad of your company.
Cheers,
KenFused
After encouraging a few writer friends to start blogs as outlets for stuff that didn't or couldn't find a home elsewhere I decided to take my own advice and create a place where I could pontificate, bloviate, or just muse (hence the title) about the past and/or events of the day, both in my own life and in the larger world.
If, for some inexplicable reason, you feel inclined to visit this spot on a regular basis (hey, 25 million Americans are unemployed at the moment - that's a lot of people who can only browse Monster.com and the like for so long before they go crosseyed), you're likely to find prose, rants, info pieces, frankly whatever I felt like posting that day. I have no intention of posting every day, however. Only when arrogance moves me to think I have something interesting to say. Topics will include Christianity, music, musicmaking, movies, Disney (Walt as well as the company), politics, and low-hanging fruit that catches my interest from time to time.
Bottom line: this blog is for me. My little vanity project. If you'd like to come along I'd be glad of your company.
Cheers,
KenFused
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