« TT: Whistling past the grave | Main | TT: Kenny Davern, R.I.P. »
December 14, 2006
TT: Running interference
I just got back from a musical performed in a very small off-Broadway theater. One of my fellow playgoers, an older man seated one row ahead of me, was drunk--very, very happily so. He talked through most of the songs, then clapped loudly (and prematurely) when they were over, whooping and hollering for good measure. On more than one occasion he sang along with the performers, some of whom who were no more than fifteen feet from his aisle seat.He was, in short, a nuisance and an embarrassment, and a half-dozen of his neighbors tried without success to shut him up. So did the director of the show, an exceedingly nice woman who tiptoed down the aisle midway through the second act and shushed him, to no avail whatsoever.
Needless to say, I would have been delighted to do to this man what I was momentarily tempted to do to the talkative woman with whom I shared a tram at Storm King Art Center this summer. (Alas, I neglected to bring the necessary equipment to the theater.) Yet I found the haughty dudgeon of the playgoers who chatted about the poor fellow at intermission to be slightly out of keeping with his actual behavior. Of course he was being rude--spectacularly so--but there was something innocent about his rudeness, exasperating though it was, if only because he was so obviously enjoying the show. Once it became apparent that nothing short of a baseball bat would silence him, I gave in to the situation and decided not to let myself get bent out of shape by it. Nor did I.
On the way home I remembered a story told by Mel Tormé in It Wasn't All Velvet, his 1988 autobiography:
One night, as I crooned my little songs in the famous Sunset Strip supper club, who should walk in but John Wayne, well into his cups. Hosting a half-dozen equally inebriated cronies, he plunked down at a ringside table, and they proceeded to make my life miserable. Near the closing moments of my performance, I pleaded with the box-office giant, "Give me a break, John. After all, I don't talk through your movies." The Mocambo was an expensive watering hole, and, admire him or not, the audience was on my side. They applauded my entreaty. "I'd like to sing a fine Kurt Weill song from Knickerbocker Holiday," I announced. "Here's ‘September Song.'"
Wayne's voice boomed in that pause between announcement and musical introduction: "Oh, boy," he slurringly informed his party and the rest of the patrons, "he's gonna get me with this one!" There was a burst of laughter from the audience and one from me as well. I began to sing the tune, forcing myself to keep a straight face. On almost every line of the lyric, the hushed audience could hear huge stage whispers of "Shh-h-h-h" from the big fella, his forefinger vertically pressed to his lips--like a kid in school, exhorting his classmates to hush up and pay attention to the teacher.
I learned something that night. The Duke and his pals were totally unmalicious in their revelry. They came to the Mocambo to continue the good time that had evidently begun earlier in the evening. But the main point is: their noisy participation in that night's performance was not calculated; it was never meant to degrade or humiliate. On those singular evenings throughout the years when happy drunks have attended my shows, the memory of that John Wayne incident has helped me keep my cool.
I hope it also provides some retrospective consolation to any of the actors in tonight's performance who may happen to read this posting.
Posted December 14, 2006 12:11 PM
