The Dutchman

I want to tell you a little story

To remind you

That we weren’t in a bubble

None of us

You hear stories about the theater

And it’s as if we existed outside of place and time

Like what was going on around us

Didn’t matter

Because we were in a nice little town

In the North

In New England

Where nothing bad ever happens

Except lousy weather

Hell, I think even we forgot sometimes

That we weren’t immune

To the shit happening

Outside the doors

Of the Orpheus

So you’re probably not going to hear a lot of stories

About Vietnam

And Nixon

And disco

Or whatever

We just didn’t pay attention to much more

Than what exit we were supposed to use to get offstage

And how many lines we were going to have

In the next show

That’s why when that girl…

She was working at the theater

Little nineteen-year-old thing

Rich girl, wanted to be an actress

Beau wanted nothing to do with her

But her Daddy cut the theater a check

And the new Board piped up

And even Beau had to agree

So in she came

In she came…

They had her assistant stage manage

The Dutchman

And right away

She had her eye on me

Now, I wasn’t stupid

Beau warned me about that girl

Because Beau and I were tight

I mean, he was my brother

And I don’t say that like it’s nothing

Because I had brothers

But Beau was like family to me

People say this and that about him

But all I gotta say is

He had my back

But I said—‘Beau, don’t worry.  I’m not going near that girl.’

Yeah, well

Sometimes you need to know what you’re dealing with

An elephant will leave you alone

As long as you don’t go bothering it

But a tiger’ll come after you

Just ‘cause it feels like it

And that girl was a tiger

One night, we’re out getting drunk

The group of us

And I see that girl there

Even though she was underage

I figure I’ll mind my own business

But I guess I had one too many

Because the next thing you know

I’m getting in a cab

And that tiger’s right there with me

Took me to some motel

Right outside of town

Must have paid for it

With the cash in my wallet

I remember stumbling into the room

And her pushing me on the bed

Like I was just a sack of something

She was going to unload

The next thing I know

She’s in the corner crying

Holding a blanket around herself

Mad because in my current state

I’m sure I wasn’t much good to her

She got all mad

Saying I’d made a fool out of her

And then she took off

And I went back to sleep for another few hours

The next day, I walk into the theater

And her Daddy’s sitting in Beau’s office

With his daughter crying

And even from downstairs

I could hear him yelling—

‘I want that nigger fired!’

Can you believe I was the same age you see me as now

And I’d gone my whole life

Never hearing that word?

Like I said—it’s a bubble

Now her Daddy must have known

I didn’t do anything wrong

Because otherwise he would have gone to the police

But even so—

I knew he could probably get me fired

If a white guy with money

Wants a black guy fired

Usually the reason isn’t all that important

But Big Daddy didn’t know who he was dealing with

Because he left Beau’s office

Looking pretty upset

I guess Beau told him

That he stands by the actors in his company

And that the only mistake he’s made recently

Is letting that spoiled little bitch of his

Into his theater

Legend has it he tore up the guy’s check too

But that seems unlikely

Now, if this story happened today

Or in a different place

Or whatever

In a bubble

I guess then that would be the ending

But like I said, sometimes things come along

And pop your bubble

This was 1971

Do you understand what I’m saying?

Two weeks after the little conversation in Beau’s office

I was walking to my car one night

And two guys jumped me

One had a knife

Bang

I’m out

Just like that

I’m done

Beau swore up and down

That girl and her Daddy

Had something to do with it

But there was nothing anybody could do

Those were the times

That was the reality

You spend so much time

Making believe

Pretending

Thinking the worst things that’ll happen to you

Will only happen onstage

And then the lights’ll go down

And come up

And everything will be fine

Not so, my friends, not so

Anyway, that’s my story

That’s all I have to say

The Birthday Party

The thing you had to know about Beau was

He never did anything quietly

So when he fired the Board

It was at the birthday party

They were throwing for him

At the restaurant across the street

Now, I don’t know if you know this

But some of the actors in the company were on the Board

Including my girlfriend at the time

But that didn’t stop Beau

From sacking them

I remember sitting there stunned

With a drink in my hand

And my girlfriend gasped

Which really stands out in my mind

Because, I mean, how many times in life

Do you actually hear someone gasp?

And what did Beau say?

What was the big dismissal?

He said—and I’m not kidding, he said—

‘Thank you for the lovely party.  You’re all fired.’

Then he grabbed a bottle of champagne

And walked across the street

To the theater

He wasn’t always what you’d call ‘a people person’

My girlfriend wanted me to quit the company

Demanded that I quit, actually

As soon as we got back to our apartment

She started packing a bag

Said she was going to move back to New York

Leave this shithole

And really try to be somebody

I told her it was her idea to come here

That I never wanted to be in an acting company

That I was doing really well in L.A.

And then she got the job at Orpheus

And I said ‘Okay’

Because I loved her

But that I wasn’t moving again

And starting from scratch

‘So what am I supposed to do,’ she asked me, ‘Sit around and play wife while you have the career I should have?’

I said—‘That’s funny, I don’t remember asking you to marry me.’

Well, that was it

She finished packing

And took off

A lot of couples back then were faced

With these sort of

Solomonic choices

Beau liked testing out the limits of his power

Every now and again

One year a wife got asked to stay with the company

But not her husband

One year Beau made a brother and sister choose

Which one of them would get to keep their job

He always said it was in the interest of art

But we all knew it was just in the interest of him wondering

Just how far his power extended

We all loved what we did

Maybe we loved it

More than each other

Maybe that’s how things started dissolving

That night, after Beau’s birthday party

I sat with my own bottle

Except it wasn’t champagne

Just good old whiskey

An actor’s favorite prop

I guess I should have been upset about my girlfriend

But I was too busy thinking about the next show

We were going to be doing Pinter

And I was going to have to start learning lines

It was always the next thing, you know?

The next thing and the next thing and the next

Until one day you realize

You spent most of your life

Just waiting for the next show

To open

And close

A Streetcar Named Desire

I was playing Stella

When I got knocked up

Ironically by the guy playing Mitch

This real sleazeball

That even Beau couldn’t stand

I don’t know why he kept him around

The guy playing Stanley was actually really sweet

And I liked him a lot

Even though he had a thing going

With the woman playing Blanche

Who happened to be Beau’s ex-wife

I wonder if, when Tennessee Williams was writing these plays

He knew that one day the actors performing them

Would be even more screwed up

Than his characters were

I had no intention of keeping the baby

I was living in a studio apartment

Which, back then we used to call closets

And I had just enough money to cover expenses

Because the rest had to be sent back home to Brooklyn

So my little sister could stay in a good school

People used to do that, you know

Send money back home

It wasn’t anything you got applause for

You just did it

So anyway, no baby—no way

Especially not with good ole Mitch

Who I only slept with because it was the end of the season

And I was feeling…

Jesus, who knows what I was feeling?

In the later years of the company

Whenever we’d consider doing a play

If the topic of abortion came up

It was an unwritten rule

That the character had to ultimately keep the baby

Beau hated that

But the Board insisted

Otherwise we would have become the Baby Killing Theater

So the girl always kept the baby

But I didn’t keep mine

The plan was to give it up for adoption

That seemed…fair

And then that summer

I got hit by a car

Crossing the street

And the decision was taken out of my hands

I was laid up in the hospital for awhile

My mom and my sister came in from Brooklyn

It was this big ordeal

Mitch never stopped by to see me

Not once

He only called and asked how I was

I said—‘The baby’s gone’

He said—‘Well, that’s something then, isn’t it?’

Click

Stanley came to visit though

I guess the thing with him and Blanche

Was just a showmance

There were a lot of those back then

Beau probably told him

To keep his hands off his wife

Beau never called her his ex-wife

Always his wife

In a weird way, I sort of found it sweet

And I thought Stanley was very sweet

And he thought I was…

He stayed with me

The whole time I was in the hospital

Then when I got out

He moved me into his place

And I sort of never left

That whole ordeal was…awful

But you know us theater people

We make the best out of the worst

And out of all that came a lovely little marriage

That lasted for forty-two years

Until last May

When my husband passed

I decided to come back today

Looking as I did

When we first met

I think he’d have liked that

We never could keep our hands off each other

I guess once you do Streetcar

It sticks with you

Do me a favor, would you?

Yell ‘Stella’—just once

(She waits, hears it, then--)

Thank you

That really brings me back

Long Day's Journey Into Night

The day I stopped being able to remember the lines
That’s when I quit

Cold turkey
Like the booze

The booze was easier, actually
When I think about it
If I think about it
Which I don’t
Not often

I garden now
Tell me that’s not depressing

I go to recitals of things
Children’s recitals
I don’t know the children
But they’re lovely all the same

Usually, around this time of year
If you wander into any church basement
You can see some kind of recital

My last show was Long Day’s Journey Into Night

The doped up mother

It was the only role they could give me

Maybe they thought it would be some sort of self-awakening for me

Maybe I did, who knows

It’s possible I slept right through my self-awakening

Truth is, I liked being how I was when I was an actor
It’s not like I was the only one with vices
Working in that theater

Even Beau had his vices
Except his didn’t prevent him
From getting to work on time

I didn’t particularly give a shit
About being a drunken actress

Back then, everybody thought we were all Bohemian nutjobs anyway
So what difference did it make?

But being a retired alcoholic
Just seemed…

Plus, you know
I was alone

The kids had left
And they didn’t visit

My husband was gone
Couldn’t put up with me anymore

All I had was the cat
And the garden
And the sounds of pianos
Played by unfamiliar children

So I quit

I quit it all

And I died a few days after my body
Was pure and clean

Isn’t that something?

I’m not trying to get a message across to you here
That’s not what we’re here for
We’re here to talk about the theater

Well, here’s me talking
About the theater

The theater was my addiction
Not the drinking
The drinking just kept everything that tore at me
A few feet away
So I could tend to my art

So that I could indulge
In my real addiction

Do you understand that?

No, I didn’t think you would

The Playboy of the Western World

Beau got it into his head

That he wanted to, uh

Well, what’s the word?

Bed me

He wanted to bed me

That just sounds classier

Than what he really wanted to do to me

I wasn’t interested

I find people in positions of authority

To be…well, just not my type

I like rebels

That’s why I liked the boy he had playing the lead

In The Playboy of the Western World

They found him at this local community college

And he, well, I guess the only thing I can say about him

Is that he didn’t give a shit

I mean, pardon my language

But he really didn’t

Used to sit there chewing on a toothpick

All throughout rehearsal

Even when he wasn’t onstage

Everyone told Beau he should have gotten an actor from New York

They told him we were Equity now

And we needed to start using real talent

But Beau couldn’t shake this kid

Something about certain people

Just got to him

It got to me too

There was something more, well, alive about him

Than the rest of us

Those of us that weren’t in love with him

Were deeply jealous

I think Beau might have been a little of both

Well, uh, that boy got it into his head

That he was going to have me

The same way that Beau wanted me

And I was a little more than interested, but…

I was too old for him, in my opinion

And besides, back then girls didn’t date boys

Younger than them

But he was persistent

And one night, after a show

I took him home with me

I still remember how good he looked

Sitting in my kitchen

Leaning back in a chair

Feet up on the table

Chewing on a toothpick

After that show closed

Beau intended to have him join the company

But then someone let it slip

That he and I were…

And so instead, Beau let him go

And he went

Nobody knew where

I think the theater gave him some stability

And when he didn’t have that...well, uh…

He left me a note

It said—

"You've turned me a likely gaffer in the end of all, the way I'll go romancing through a romping lifetime, from this hour to the dawning of the Judgment Day."

You know, I’ve been dead for awhile now

And I still miss that boy

I still can’t find him either

No matter where I look

It’s like he wasn’t of this world

Like he was born out of the theater

Out of the art

Out of that boundless energy

That we all try to capture

For an hour here or there

He was bigger than life

Maybe that’s what made him seem

So much more

Than just alive

Tartuffe

They tried calling our sixth season our first

Because that was the year we went Equity

But nobody really paid attention to that

Equity or not

What difference did it make?

Oh sure, we were all excited

We were going to be a real company of actors now

Not just a glorified community theater bunch

I kept praising God

For allowing me to write home to my mother

And tell her that I wasn’t just a dressed up whore

Standing out on a stage

Instead of a corner

Mama sure could turn a phrase

The whole reason Beau agreed to the switch

Was because he was sick of having people compare us

To the Mullen Street Players

Where you could watch ‘No, No, Nanette’

And eat a nice ham dinner

All for ten bucks

Beau wanted people to know

We were doing real theater

And for once

Him and the Board agreed

So things were set into motion

And by the end of the sixth season

We were professionals

Our first show as a new Equity theater was Tartuffe

Beau said he’d worked in Equity theaters before

But I think he’d forgotten how many rules there were to follow

Before that, we were used to him being in total control

But now we were all serving a bigger master

There were rules

Personally, I found it refreshing

Beau was a godless man

And I mean that in the most literal sense

Not a bad man, not in a way he could help

Just lost, detached

Removed from any sort of spirituality

Even though he thought he was the next coming

Of all nine muses

I tried to instill a proper faith into Beau

But he wouldn’t have it

Every time I’d preach to him

About the purity of true art

He’d just roll me over

And go at me from behind

While I was looking up at the crucifix above my bed

Wondering if this would get me a bigger role next season

Back then I was the Jesus freak of the company

And I didn’t mind that at all

But it did limit the number of roles I could play

You find out pretty quickly

When you’re a girl of faith in the theater

That all the fun roles

Are prostitutes and home wreckers

And all I ever got to play

Was the maid

So I started making advances on Beau

So he’d feel more comfortable

Giving me roles with a little more…meat

It worked—for a little while anyway

Nobody ever stayed in Beau’s bed for long

I don’t think he ever got over

His wife

And I guess that’s as it should be

I got used to playing nuns

And nosy neighbors

Theater isn’t the best field

For people of a strong faith

But I never could give it up

I suppose it’s because I never felt closer to God

Than when I was standing out there

Onstage