Turn the Page

"On a long and lonesome highway..."

The American West is filled with "lonely" highways, stretches of asphalt ribbon stretching to the horizon across sparsely populated, sagebrush studded land. I spent my childhood in the family car or pickup truck, driving for hours between small towns, mountains, lakes and other isolated places.

Some of my favorite memories from those roads, though, come not from my childhood, but my adult years before I was a wife and mother. They includes lots of time on the highway, spending hours en route between small towns, on tour with the local university theater company.

"You can listen to the engine moaning out its one note song..."

There were two dozen or so of us packed into vans and a single large truck, hauling scenery, costumes and the like to places with names like Winnemucca and Tonopah. I was 19, but not a full, or even part, time student. The university theater company was open to the community. Members like me, unenrolled at the U, were exempt from some of the requirements the students had - for instance, always having to stay after a show closed to "strike," or tear down and put away, the set, props, costumes and everything else. I held myself to the higher standard, though, expecting from myself everything required if I was being graded. It was important to me to be a "real" member of the company.

I'd spent almost two seasons with the company by the time I went on tour. I'd already watched the group go on an international USO tour and another state tour, and I was so deeply jealous of those who got to go. But, I was living on my own, working for minimum wage, and I couldn't afford the time off work or the expense of travel. I'd juggled a lot to make sure I could spend two weeks on tour before I applied to go, and I wanted it so badly I could taste it.

The show was "The Passion of Dracula," and I was crew. We'd already had a great run in the university theater. Having worked the show already didn't guarantee me a spot on tour. I had to apply and wait. When my name showed up on the list tacked to the "call board," the theater bulletin board, my best friend and I shrieked so loudly, jumping up and down and hugging, that a professor had to come out of his office and shush us.

"But your thoughts will soon be wandering, the way they always do..."

We all got a small per diem allowance from the university, designed to cover our food and other travel expenses. The professors and other faculty, of course, got paid wages as well. The other students were typical college kids whose parents footed most of their bills. Most of them lived with their parents or in dorms that their parents paid for. For them, the per diem was just a nice perk. For me, it was my only income for half a month. I had to save enough out of it to pay my rent and my half of the living expenses at the place I shared with a roommate. I'd done the math; I watched every cent like a hawk. A couple of the casinos gave us coupon books, $2 in nickels, or both, when we checked into their rooms. I hoarded them like a miser. I skipped some of the things the rest of the company did, like the night everyone else ate at a renowned Basque restaurant. Then and now, it was considered a "must do" in some of the towns we visited. I had the ham and eggs special ($1.99) in the coffee shop at the hotel/casino where we were staying. Everyone thought I was crazy, but I had to have somewhere to live when we were done.

"And you don't feel much like riding; you just wish the trip was through..."

We had no "spare" time. We'd roll into a town before lunch, put on a show of various fairy tales at the local elementary school, then go to wherever the play would be that night - usually the local high school - and set up, then eat dinner, do the show, tear it all down, pack it up, fall into bed and be up early the next morning to do it again in a different town. There was no pool time, and no nap time unless you slept in the van. It was hard work. I loved it all.

"Here I am, on the road again
There I am, up on the stage
Here I go, playing the star again
There I go, turn the page..."

I played characters like Jack's Mother in Jack and the Beanstalk in the children's show. We changed wherever there was room; once all of us packed into a broom closet to dress and undress. We performed in lunch rooms, mostly. The kids and teachers seemed to love it. These shows were freebies, designed to spread both goodwill and word of mouth. We ended every show by passing out flyers for that night's performance. The kids weren't our target "Dracula" audience, but their parents were.

We also did scenes from "Dracula" at the high schools, because they were our target audience. One scene involved our Lucy, under the vampire's spell, biting our Dracula's chest and licking up the blood while she made, well, "yummy noises" - noises indicating pleasure. It was my job to fill the squeeze bulb on the back of Dracula's brooch with stage blood, so that he could bleed on cue. Yeah, pretty racy stuff for us big city folk to be presenting to rural teens. Our Lucy and our Dracula had very different takes on this scene. He saw it as pulling her over to the Dark Side, whereas she saw it as being deeply suggestive of sex. Nobody polled the kids, but they gasped, every time.

"Well, you walk into a restaurant, strung out from the road
And you feel the eyes upon you, as you're shaking off the cold
You pretend it doesn't bother you, but you just want to explode..."

After every show, we'd have people say things like, "Thank you so much for coming to our town! We never get the opportunity to see productions like this!" They didn't just tell the actors, they'd tell all of us. Those, of course, were the folks who sought us out deliberately. Walking into a restaurant, gas station or casino could elicit a different response. We piled out of our vans, many of us in head to toe black, with shirts with the word "Passion" in large letters, and graphics of a vampire, long before they were mainstream. We felt conspicuous.

"Most times you can't hear them talk
Other times, you can
All the same old cliches
'Is that a woman or a man?'"

It was the mid 80s; popular looks included long, curled hair on men, shorn or shaved hair on women, and mullets on everyone. I don't think that any of us looked outlandish; no guyliner, no animal print leggings that I recall. I thought that we looked pretty normal. Our Dracula looked downright Mr. Rogers, wearing a sweater vest and a bow tie every day. Still, we were theater people in a town full of ranchers and cowboys. We stood out.

"And you always seem outnumbered
You don't dare make a stand..."

I remember hearing about a couple of times that minor words were exchanged, maybe when one of us physically bumped into a guy our age in flannel and boots, but we had a very strict conduct code, a tight schedule and a short leash. I only remember one particular time when I felt unwelcome. We swept into a restaurant that had offered us a discount on their buffet; they apparently did this every time the group toured. Cheap food and young people - yes, please! I remember a few horrified looks and pointed comments about how "crowded" and "noisy" we made the place. I tried to smile sweetly, hoping to demonstrate how harmless and fun we were.

"Out there in the spotlight you're a million miles away..."

There's a reason that people "talk shop" with others of their profession or hobby or vocation. No one else really understands. As an actor, you're both acutely aware of the audience, and oblivious to their presence. As a stage technician, you're a cog in a complicated machine, both independent and interconnected. Either way, you live for the work itself, but also for the reaction it elicits. Trying to describe how you feel sounds self absorbed. Others like you, though, "get" it. You don't have to explain.

"Every ounce of energy you try to give away..."

Our set was gorgeous. All the carved wood elements were actually made of styrofoam, so they were light enough to haul around. The Victorian "wallpaper" was painted on. The costumes were equally stunning. We had staircases, fancy furniture, crates and boxes of things to transform the high schools into an English mansion, and our actors into characters.

Besides the stage blood, my favorite jobs involved the wind and fog machines and flash paper.

Our wind machine was low tech, my preferred method of doing things. It was a wooden cylinder with slats attached to the round end units. Over that was stretched heavy canvas. A hand crank came out of one end of the cylinder. Turning it made a remarkably realistic wind noise. It was my job to create everything from low moaning wind to shrieking gusts.

The fog was higher tech, produced by a small machine into which I poured chemical fog juice. At certain points, I'd slide the machine close to the edge of the set and turn it on. Its motor made only a whisper, and the fog would pump out of one end. It was glorious stuff, reflecting the lights, swirling when the actors walked, filling the familiar drawing room with an otherwordly air. By the end of one scene, the air would be thick with fog. Turn off the machine, and it dissipated, like magic.

We had several large and small wooden crosses. At one point, our Van Helsing held up a dramatic, ornate cross about 2 1/2 feet long. Our Dracula would grab the cross, and it would burst into flame - truly, actual flame. Both of them would then drop the cross, and the fire would die. It was visually spectacular.

The crosses were painted to look like metal, but they were all wood - lighter, easier to fabricate, easier to rig. The large cross had a hollowed out portion on the back where we fastened a cigarette lighter, right at the junction of the beams. My job, every night, was to wind flash paper across the back of both beams, wound into a spiral and stapled. When Dracula grabbed it, Van Helsing flicked the lighter on. The flame would race along the paper, providing a fantastic, but brief, flash of real fire. It was another moment that always elicited gasps, and it made me smile, every night.

I learned to make stage blood when we opened our trunk one day and discovered that the entire gallon container had leaked, coating the inside of the packing crate, and leaving us with no blood for a fairly bloody show.

I panicked a bit, but our Lucy said, "No problem. Come with me." She whisked me off to the grocery store, where we bought light corn syrup, red food coloring, and blue dish detergent. I still make "blood" the same way, whether I'm using it onstage, for Halloween, or, as I did once, for a zombie themed promo video.

"Later in the evening, as you lie awake in bed
With the echoes from the amplifiers ringing in your head..."

I didn't know it at the time, but within a year I'd be a pregnant newlywed, living in one of the small towns where we'd performed.

The tour is such a fond memory that the smell of chemical fog, or hearing Bob Seger sing "Turn the Page," makes me instantly nostalgic.

I think that everyone who works in entertainment, whether they're a slam poet, concert violinist or lighting tech, should get the chance to tour with a show; even if it's just for two weeks, through the Nevada desert.

"Here I am, on the road again
There I am, up on the stage
Here I go, playing the star again
There I go
There I go."

Just Listen

I owe Leonardo DeCaprio thanks.

During the worst time of my life, I watched very little TV, and fewer movies. I just couldn't handle the emotional overload. I'd been an actor and stage technician since I was in junior high school, but I was currently doing no theater; I didn't even go to see my friends in their shows.

My husband tried to interest me in things. When our church asked for performers for our yearly Christmas program, he was chirpy and upbeat. "That sounds just like you!" he said.

"No. It doesn't. It sounds like someone I used to be. I'm not even sure if I'd recognize her if I met her."

Sometimes people don't know what to do, because I'm calm and articulate when they expect me to be weepy and incoherent. They don't understand how I process pain, and wonder how upset I could be if I'm still functional. They miss the point. The best description I can give is being on autopilot. I will keep functioning just fine, but there's no feeling behind it.

One day my husband called me into the living room and pointed out something on TV. He seemed excited, but a glance at the screen made my toes curl. It was an inner city scene, lots of graffiti, barbed wire and trash strewn lots. I do not react well to such circumstances when I'm at my best, and I could not imagine how anything that happened in such a place would be anything that I would want to see in my current state of mind. Every one of my nerves was rubbed raw.

"What makes you think that I would want to watch..."

He interrupted. "Listen!"

"I don't want to see..."

He was insistent. "Don't look. Listen."

Annoyed, I closed my eyes, only so I could do whatever I needed to do to get the TV turned off. Slowly, something penetrated.

The words.

Those words.

I knew those words, every one of them, by heart. I knew what was coming next, what had gone before - every syllable.

When you're in a show, you know the scenes that you're in best, naturally. You may sit through readings or rehearsals of the scenes you're not in, but they're not carved as deeply into your memory as your own scenes. During actual performances, when you're offstage you're most likely in the dressing room or "green room," the equivalent of an employee lounge. You might be joking, playing cards or chatting. You might be changing, doing your hair or using the restroom.

When you're in the booth, though, running the lights or sound, or stage managing and sitting on the headset calling cues, you see every moment of every performance. You hang on every word, because your job depends on responding correctly at the proper time.

Years before, I had been the light board operator for a production of Romeo and Juliet. I watched weeks of rehearsals, and then two performances a day for weeks. I knew every word of the show, every inflection, every pause. I was hearing them now.

I opened my eyes and stared at the screen. I watched Leonardo DiCaprio and John Leguizamo say the familiar words, in a very unfamiliar place. I like both of the actors, and I love the words (although this play is not one of my favorites). Could I handle the urban decay, the violence, the senselessness, the deaths?

I have seen Shakespeare performed by purists, who insist on period costumes and sets. I've seen his work updated in a variety of ways, including as a Wild West show. I've heard it in the original iambic pentameter and in modern English. I had never seen it like this, though - the original words in a modern setting, one that looked like Los Angeles or another familiar California setting.

It was director Baz Luhrmann's "William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet." I hadn't seen it in theaters, and it was then probably four years or so old. Truth be told, I'd avoided it. I'm always afraid that filmmakers will screw up the classics, and using a plus sign instead of the word "and" didn't thrill me. (I blame Prince; he started the whole business of substituting "4" for "for" and "U" for "you" in the 1980s, decades before texting. It still annoys me. And I don't text.)

I decided to watch for just a few minutes, to see how they'd handle things like the references to swords (answer: make it a brand name). I kept watching; how would Claire Danes interpret Juliet? Danes is an amazing actor, just luminous. I kept watching, and kept watching. I watched the entire movie. Moreover, I enjoyed it. That doesn't sound like much, but it was huge. It was the first time I had voluntarily chosen to sit through a movie in over a year. To have not only sat through it but also enjoyed it was a huge milestone.

So: thanks, Leo, John, Claire, Baz. I almost - almost - remembered what "normal" felt like. It was an indicator that, yes, things actually would get better.