Light the Lights!

Today, a friend's email reminded me of going to see off and off-off-Broadway plays many, many years ago and how exciting it could be. In particular, I remembered seeing two different productions of "Modigliani" in two different venues, one of which was somebody's living room. At least one of those productions had Jeffrey DeMunn and one had Ethan Phillips, who was later on Star Trek:Voyager as Neelix. I've probably still got the programs from those shows, I wonder if anyone else made it to become working actors, like those two.

I was also reminded of how much I miss going to the theater. And, just in case I wasn't sure about that, I turned on the TV for a few minutes this afternoon and came in at about the halfway point of South Pacific at Carnegie Hall. I've always loved the music for the show, though I've long hated Josh Logan's filmed version (no, it doesn't help to know he was in a manic phase when he made that movie). I even sort of bought into Reba McIntire's Nellie Forbush, though the thickness of her accent was a bit jarring.

But it was Brian Stokes Mitchell's amazing rendition of "This Nearly Was Mine" that pushed me over the edge--I was sobbing. And I cried at the end, too, but it wasn't the emotions of the play that moved me, or maybe it was a little...in fact, at the end, I wasn't sure why I was crying, except for an incredible longing for the years I spent going to see wonderful, amazing shows, and even the awful, dreadful things I sat through (Kate Hepburn's last play or "The Little Prince") were worth the price of being able to see all the good plays with great performances (or sometimes vice versa). And a longing to be going there again, but knowing that the Broadway of today is not the kind of Broadway that I remember or would necessarily want to be a part of or a witness to.

This all follows on the heels of seeing a PBS show called Broadway: The Golden Age. A lot of wonderful performers talk about what it was like back in the 40s and especially the 50s and 60s--a lot of that time, I was seeing some of those plays myself. But the best part of that documentary was that the producer managed to dig up Laurette Taylor's screen test for some movie studio--I finally got to see her! Hear her! Watch her act! For only a few seconds, less than a minute, but, oh, what a wonderful, wonderful, EXCITING few moments! I had been hearing about Ms. Taylor more than 30 years ago, about how she had been the best there ever was. And everyone interviewed in the doc who had had the chance to see said exactly that. And they--oh, yes, I am jealous, I am--had gotten to see her again and again and again. That small, tiny clip made me realize what they were all talking about--she was...amazing. Which doesn't seem to do her justice, but it's all I can come up with.

All of this is to say that, when I heard "This Nearly Was Mine" and watched the curtain calls again later on, I think I was crying for a lost time, a time that I loved. I hope that nostalgia isn't all I have left, but I miss the acting, I miss the joy and passion of it all. Maybe I'll be able one day to have at least a taste of it again.