The Columbia Community Players were snowed out the first weekend of their production of Michael Cristofer’s The Shadow Box in the early eighties, and this was probably a good thing since I was so exhausted from rehearsing every night after working all day. But during the second weekend, after our very last performance, something unforgettable happened.
Laurence Bory, who later became one of my directing mentors, had boldy cast me as Agnes, the daughter of a dying woman, in an intense play about three terminally ill patients set in a hospice. I hadn’t a lick of acting experience, only an expressive intelligence and an experienced director with the confidence to guide me to a respectable performance. An odd place to start a lightweight perhaps, but this one delivered me to a lifelong passion as no light comedy could have.
It wasn’t the thrill of performing or the strokes or even the terrific new friends who were so much fun to work with – it was a single person who spoke to me once in my lifetime for a very brief moment who did it.
Want to imagine a scary audience? Think about performing your first show in a raw play about death to a hospice network – that final Sunday matinee performance had sold out to a group from Howard County and I was as terrified as I have ever been.
The show went very well. My character took over when the lights came up and (as always) I forgot who was in the audience. But after the curtain call and all the accolades, slipping away from the after-show reception to take one last look from the audience’s perspective at the stage in solitude wasn't going to happen. Emotionally and physically exhausted (community theater is very hard work), I had absolutely no plans to spend my life loving this art form, and wanted to say farewell to the set in a private moment in my own way.
But, a nice-looking man from the audience (he looked a little older than me but not by very much) followed me.
“I saw from the program that this was your acting debut. Is that really true?”
“Yes. This is my first show.”
“How did you do it? Have you lived this experience? Did you lose someone close to you?”
“No. I did nurse my mother once when she was very sick, but the miracle happened and she recovered.”
“Well, the miracle didn’t happen for me. My mother died a few months ago and you expressed every emotion I’ve struggled with since beautifully. Thank you. It helps.”
I realized in the second that our liquid eyes met while thanking him for coming to the show that this art is more important than any of the players who flock to bask in the stage lights. What started with a playwright’s words and morphed through layers of the interpretations of diverse egos really meant something to this one person. And over the past thirty years, at least one person has always been out there somewhere and one person has always been enough.
Although The Shadow Box is currently out of print, it won a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award for the Broadway production in 1977. The screenplay, directed by Paul Newman, received a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Emmy. Cristofer’s done a lot of acting in his own right and directed some big names in film since. See www.imdb.com/name/nm0188165/ if you’re curious.
For me, theater isn’t so much about acting or directing anymore as it is really about audience. It’s about life, both real and imagined. And for now, it’s about watching both.
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