Personal Days Tied Into Historic Days

I number about a dozen and a half dates as important milestones in my life. Birthdays and anniversaries of family members account for most of them. Today, for example, December 16, is special as it marks the day Ellie was born in 1981. Next month, on January 28, Gilda and I will celebrate our 47th wedding anniversary.

December 16. Separated by 44 days from January 28.

Until I read the accompanying linked article I had not realized those dates were forever tied into one of the penultimate battles of World War II. On December 16 the German army launched a counteroffensive against Allied forces in Belgium and Luxembourg. It became known as the Battle of the Bulge. The battle, which resulted in a crucial victory for the Allies in the snow covered cold terrain, is said to have concluded on January 28 (https://www.omaha.com/eedition/sunrise/articles/u-s-thwarted-hitler-s-last-gamble-years-ago/article_58648f4f-2891-5554-8d74-1555bffd3665.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=email&utm_campaign=user-share).

I’m sure most of you could find significant events on your milestone dates (for years I used to reference my March 6 birthday as the day the Alamo fell). So take a few moments to research how your lives have intertwined with history.

The Last Word: Exiting a Second Stage production of the “The Underlying Chris” last Thursday night I started a conversation with two women ahead of me. One asked me, “What was the last word of the play?” I did a double take. I was discombobulated for a moment, unable to answer.

It wasn’t that I didn’t know. It was because five days earlier at a Playwright Horizons production of “The Thin Place” I had uttered the last word of the play from my front row seat in the audience (https://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2019/12/my-off-broadway-acting-debut-telepathic.html). Could these ladies, strangers to me, have witnessed my off-Broadway acting debut? No, they were not there. I shortly regained my composure and to their amusement explained my momentary dumbfoundedness.

Front Row Events: My brush with stardom was the latest in front row happenings. At another Playwrights Horizons production at which I again was sitting in the first row, an actor with excellent elocution but unrestrained expectoration showered me with, er, spittle.

Some 50 years ago, during a Broadway performance of “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,” Rosencrantz, or was it Guildenstern, tumbled off the stage and landed in my lap. I quickly eased him back onto the stage with nary a thank you from Rosencrantz, or Guildenstern.

I, on the other hand, apologized to Dick Kniss, the long-time bass player of Peter, Paul and Mary. During a concert in Saratoga Springs, also some 50 years ago, from my front row seat I made eye contact with him and caused him to miss a beat in one of the songs. As I had a college newspaper press pass at the time I managed to go backstage after the concert and expressed my regrets.

My Off Broadway Acting Debut A Telepathic Success

I made my Off Broadway acting debut Saturday night.

In a Playwrights Horizons production of “The Thin Place,” I uttered the last word of the one-act play. Without any rehearsal or advance preparation. I hit my cue. To the utter amazement of Gilda and the rest of the audience. 

It wasn’t the first time I strutted my thespian talents. When I was 13 I played Rusty Charlie in a summer camp production of “Guys and Dolls.” I knew my lines back then as well, though, to be honest, the director asked me to silently mouth the last word of the “Fugue for Tinhorns” opening song because I could not master the desired harmony.

There was no music involved Saturday night. I simply had to project one word from my seat at the extreme right of the first row of the audience.

Wait. First, a little background on “The Thin Place.” Written by Lucas Hnath who also authored “A Doll’s House, Part 2,” “Hillary and Clinton,” and the “The Christians,” “The Thin Place” deals with the possibility of an alternative universe and paranormal communication, sometimes between the living, sometimes between the living and the dead.

A young woman, Hilda, recounts how she and her grandmother would endeavor to communicate telepathically. Sitting in an armchair on a stage devoid of anything else but a narrow table lodged between a second identical armchair, Hilda said her grandmother had subsequently died. Looking directly at me she said I somehow reminded her of her grandmother. That I looked like her.  I stroked my beard in amazement, but she just continued reminiscing about her young life with her granny and her later adult life which had become entwined with Linda, a medium who acknowledged that conjuring up the dead was a trick she performed as a less expensive but more result-oriented therapy than professional medical help to relieve the anguish her customers had from some unresolved conflict with the departed.

At the end of “The Thin Place,” sitting in the chair from which she had never moved over the play’s 90 minute span, Hilda again faced me. She wanted to demonstrate telepathy, the way she did it with her grandmother. She took a pad and marker pen out of the table drawer, wrote down a word, held it to her chest and implored me to concentrate on this unknown word that she would be trying to transmit to me, her imaginary grandmother.

I thought “meatloaf” would be an appropriate homey memory but when she looked at me and asked what I had heard in my head, just behind my forehead, I replied, too softly at first for her, let alone for the audience, to hear. Louder, I said, “Umbrella.” Turning the pad toward the audience she revealed what she had written—Umbrella. The audience gasped. The stage went dark. The audience clapped.

Immediately my 15 minutes of Off Broadway stardom began. Audience members approached me to ask, Did I really receive a telepathic message? Had I been primed by the theater staff prior to the performance to say umbrella? Was I an actor planted in the audience?

No, on all counts. Just before I was ready to say “meatloaf,” I heard a faint but distinct metallic voice say, “Umbrella.” I quickly processed my role, though to be sure I at first whispered “umbrella,” hoping Hilda could read my lips. With her encouragement I repeated aloud the last word of the play.

Seated next to me, Gilda was the most confounded. She had not heard the electronic transmission. I checked around my seat. No receiver or speaker anywhere. My seat was no different than anyone else’s.

My 15 minutes of fame was nearly up, we were already standing outside the theater when I recalled retailers have sometimes used narrowcasting technology to direct messages to workers or shoppers in specific locations so as not to alert or bother customers or staff throughout a store. Messages such as a special sale for those currently in the housewares department. Or staff should clean up a spill in aisle eight. 

The theater must have targeted a narrowcast to my seat alone. I couldn’t prove it but it is the only rational explanation. I was, after all, not Hilda’s grandmother. And though “meatloaf” would have been a much better word, I had no license to alter the playwright’s dialogue. So with a smile as my umbrella, I uttered the last word of the play.