It was an illuminating contrast.
In the course of a few days I had experienced attending a
show – Beautiful: The Carole King Musical
performed at the cavernous Pantages
Theater in Hollywood – capacity: 2703 seats; I did not count them, I looked
it up later – and a production of Bill W.
and Dr. BOB at Theater 68 (so
named because the company’s founder had sixty-eight cents in the bank when he
established it) – capacity: 45 seats; those ones I actually counted – located in
North Hollywood, which should not be confused with the actual Hollywood, the actual
Hollywood including swarms of tourists and the stars’ names immortalized in the
sidewalk and North Hollywood,
comprised primarily of people overshooting the actual Hollywood, arriving in North
Hollywood by mistake.
At the performance of Beautiful:
The Carole King Musical I attended, the Pantages
Theater was full – we were sitting in “Row YY”, giving us visual access to
the packed auditorium in front of us, my assumption without turning around
being that “Row ZZ” was totally occupied as well.
At North Hollywood’s Theater
68, there were thirty-four attendees (again, I actually counted them), the
45-seat venue filled to about three-quarters of its capacity. (If you exclude
the two free-standing bridge chairs leaning against the back wall, should they
be needed to accommodate the “overflow.”)
Do you see what I’m getting at?
Two shows performed before audiences. So in both cases, it’s show business.
But in reality, it’s Neiman
Marcus versus The Ninety-Nine Cents
Store.
At (“ball park”) a hundred dollars a ticket, we’re talking
about one theater taking in
approximately a quarter of a million dollars per performance, as opposed to a
production, which, if you use two paper towels in the Men’s Room, you have virtually
erased the struggling theater company’s profit margin.
Am I getting my point across here?
We are talking about, although under a similar umbrella, two
remotely related varieties of the entertainment business.
And I wonder – and I am aware of this observation dripping
with condescension, which, despite my loftiest intentions, I am unable to
extricate from my thinking process and consequently from this commentary – do
the actors in this shoestring operation ever compare the two disparately scaled
productions and go…
(DEBILITTINGLY DISHEARTENED)… Geez.
I understand the energizing elation of “Let’s put on a show.” I experienced it originally at camp. More recently, visiting our tiny log cabin in
Indiana, I felt it watching the Dunes
Summer Theater rendition of The
Pirates of Penzance.
You have to believe me about this. We have seen shows on Broadway and in
London. And I’m telling you, in terms of
energy, talent and execution, that Indiana production of The Pirates of Penzance was as exhilarating as any stage show we
have ever attended.
I recall bounding over to the man we had learned was the show’s
director at intermission, bursting with enthusiasm and high praise, and learning
in the course of our conversation that, during the extended “off season”, the
director’s “day job” was laboring in a local factory.
Knowing my facial reactions as well as I do, I am certain
they betrayed the genuine agonization I felt for a clearly talented director,
relegated to doing what he was demonstrably meant
to do as a parenthetical sideline.
Directing a Gilbert and Sullivan classic in the summertime and
then returning to the “production line” in the fall? The reality ate agonizingly at my
innards. It was inconceivable to me that
that that could possibly be enough.
The thing is…
Who am I to say it’s not enough?
And who am I similarly
to say that performing in a three-quarters full 45-seat theater in North
Hollywood isn’t enough?
“Satisfaction” is a matter of attitude. Of which mine
has never once been considered “Top-of-the-Line.”
I made it to the “big time”.
And who themselves wouldn’t want to?
But – adopting an alien perspective for only this paragraph – directing
in the summer is better than not directing at all. And performing in a show playing to
thirty-five people is an exultational windfall compared to receiving the
message: “You know the part you tried
out for in that North Hollywood production?
We are giving it to somebody else.”
We happened to know one of the actors performing in Bill W. and Dr. BOB. (We actually went there to see him.)
When we approached him after the show, there was this palpable sense of
our friend’s being “lit up” by the jolt of “electricity” you get (almost
exclusively) from performing in front of an audience. The actor compared it how he felt when he was
a wide receiver for his Nebraska Cornhusker football team, the difference in
“crowd size” (thirty-five versus seventy thousand), he explained, being of
negligible consequence.
What he appreciated was the physicality of both experiences.
And you could sense its residual effects
following the show. The guy was
literally – well, not literally – “on
fire.”
It’s amazing how “Poor you” converts quickly to envy,
witnessing the rewards of an activity you have been consciously deriding.
(Exposing the wish you yourself
were onstage anywhere.)
1 comment:
I spent a number of years of my adult life performing as a solo folksinger. The largest audience I ever played for was probably at one of the folk festivals - Tonder in Denmark, or possibly one of the workshop stages at the Philadelphia Folk Festival. Figure my largest audience was maybe 2,000. My smallest was probably around five in a small folk club, but trust me that was a whole lot better than some of the middle ranges, such as the lunchtime concerts in community college cafeterias, where you might have 100 people, but they'd all be more interested in eating and talking to each other. It was the latter that were the most discouraging and demoralizing because they didn't care if you were there, and I didn't have any fellow band members, where you could shrug and just have a good time playing with each other.
Then I went into journalism and started writing for audiences of a few hundred thousand. I liked that a *whole* lot.
So, based on that: I think having an appreciative audience that cares about what you're doing can make up for a *whole* lot. I would also note that while I have less than no interest in seeing Carole King-the-musical I would *love* to see the play about Bill W and Dr Bob.
wg
(PS: samples of my former profession are at www.pelicancrossing.net/mp3s.htm)
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