Hello Friends,
The theatre facilitates community. When I learn that a stranger has a connection with the theatre, I find that they are no longer a stranger but a member of a community that I love dearly. No one outside of the theatre understands the complexity of executing a production and meeting someone seasoned in the theatre is like finding a kindred spirit.
I recently read John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley: In Search of America, an account of his journey across America in 1960. He took his poodle, Charley, all over the country in order to better understand the Americans he was writing about.
While camped out in North Dakota, Steinbeck met a stranger who recognized him as being a man “of the profession.” Steinbeck was taken aback and denied any real affiliation with the profession, but the stranger did not believe him and got him to admit that he had written a few plays, but they were all flops. Over coffee, they talked about the business. The stranger observed that, “It’s a hard business. But if you’re hooked, you’re hooked.”
The stranger was a traveling actor, looking for work wherever he went. Steinbeck observed that most people are scared of gypsies, vagabonds, and actors. The stranger replied by saying, “At the beginning they take me for a kind of harmless freak. But I’m honest and I don’t charge much, and after a little the material takes over and gets to them . . . I can watch the words sink in, and they forget about me and their eyes kind of turn inward and I’m not a freak to them anymore.” The stranger went on to discuss the importance of respecting an audience. “They feel that [respect] and they work with me, and not against me. Once you respect them, they can understand anything you can tell them.”
Although the encounter was short, it was one of the more intimate encounters Steinbeck had on his trip. The stranger respected Steinbeck and was able to captivate him. He closed their short conversation by highlighting the importance of the exit. He finished his coffee and left Steinbeck wondering about how he lived and who he traveled with and what events in his life had led to his being in North Dakota that day.
Theatre is a universal language. Steinbeck wrote that the theatre is “a profession older than writing and one that will probably survive when the written word has disappeared. And all the sterile wonders of the movies and television and radio will fail to wipe it out – a living man in communication with a living audience.”
Not everyone who has had a theatrical experience chooses to pursue it as a career. I believe, however, that everyone who has had some theatrical experience whether it be acting, singing, dancing, directing, script writing, etc., has a better understanding of their fellow-man as a result.
Live, Love, Learn,
Candice & The Write Teacher(s)
That’s a nice essay, Candice, and what Steinbeck and you say about the theater is no doubt true. But be careful about assuming that anything Steinbeck says in “Charley” about his trip or who he met is true. You can check out my book “Dogging Steinbeck” on Amazon.com. You will find that I discovered — to the shame of Steinbeck scholars and the annoyance of devoted Steinbeck/Charley fans — that most of what Steinbeck wrote in “Charley” was pure fiction. In fact, his encounter with the itinerant Shakespearean actor in little Alice, N.D., was one of his most egregious fictional scenes; he never camped under the stars in Alice, or anywhere else in North Dakota. The night he said he slept in Alice he was actually in Beach, N.D., taking a bath in a motel. If you are a teacher, a discussion of truth and fiction in a nonfiction book — and how much fiction can there be before the book is no longer credible — might make a good lesson.