In a field like academic theater, we are rarely separated by more than one or two degrees. We make a point in connecting the dots of relationships - it's important for getting work, and we frequently comment on how small our community is. We all have stories of incidental encounters with people from our theatrical pasts. Sometimes they can be very surprising.
I was sitting near several colleagues from other schools waiting for a performance to start at our New England regional American College Theater Festival a couple of years ago. A friend pointed out that the woman sitting next to me, a collegial acquaintance for a decade and a well known theater faculty member at a major private university, had attended the University of Kansas about the same time I did. We actually passed each other by about a summer at KU, but she also attended Wichita State University. I said I had, too.
What year? It was while Richard Wellsbacher headed the undergraduate program there, about 1970. Really? Were you in any shows? Yes, I was only going part time, but I did do a show. Was it Hamlet? Yes, it was - how would you know? What did you play - was it Claudius? Yes. Well, I was your wife!
How had I not recognized her? I finally remembered that I didn't look at her very much the whole time we did that show. I was older - later 20s, and she was maybe 19. It was the second year into my marriage, and she was drop-dead gorgeous - and still is. But I am flattered and embarrassed that she remembered me better. (I am known for some habitual obliviousness.)
This was perhaps the most profound and surprising intersection of current and past lives for me. On the east coast I have had many encounters with people who have been the same places and knew the same people that I had known in the midwest, but in a slightly different time frame. One expects occasionally to meet a former graduate school classmate through professional connections. It truly is an instant bond, because we both know then what a small world our industry is.
When you come from a place like Kansas, you believe that you're somehow behind the curve and out of the mainstream. You feel like what you do doesn't matter all that much to the rest of the country. But it's a familiar world, you know how people interact, and you feel just a little intimidated by those political and media centers on the coasts. More populous and commercially significant cities in the interior have a powerful regional identity, but the coastal megalopoli are the ultimate cultural arbiters.
Now I are one. And what we felt in the heartland actually is true. When you live in the coastal centers, you don't think much about the Midwest, and when something interesting comes from there, you're a little surprised. You have a strong feeling that the values are different. The notorious red and blue divide really does exist in the lives of people.
Except maybe in Chicago. Chicago is just a coastal city on a lake.
For people in the main corridors and media centers - Boston to Washington, San Francisco to San Diego - there is a particular political, social and economic reality, and a certain picture of America that truly is different from the rest of the country. These media-rich regions have their own insulated and self-reinforced view of the world, largely unaffected by what happens in the interior - except in national elections.
That's why it is important for me to get out of New England/New York once or twice a year, whether to visit family or attend a conference. I'm always pleased to get back, but I feel it does help me keep a more honest perspective.
scenemaker
January 7, 2011
No comments:
Post a Comment