Little Did I Know: A Novel (29 page)

They hugged and leapt into one another’s arms and did handsprings and released enough energy to light the nation. The last couple in a lip-lock was the good doctor and Diana Cohen. He had left his station at the pit to share this crazy moment with someone who had waited for a long time to turn his frown-mustache upside down.

“All good things come to those who wait, Diana.” I mused.

Now they all had a show to do. Oh, the magic of live theater.

M
y father was born in 1921. His father, Samuel Shmorak, was a WWI hero of Russian descent who wore his many medals for bravery stoically across his chest. He married my grandmother Anne after meeting her on leave in London during a three-day pass. She married him on her fifteenth birthday and less than six months later was living in the blue-collar town of Lynn, Massachusetts, twenty miles outside the city of Boston.

Samuel was a blacksmith with arms like Popeye. He never read a book, and used to give my brother and me hate lessons: wops can’t be trusted; mick bastards are thieves; kikes (his own kind) will steal from you if you look the other way; and darkies . . . you don’t want to know. These life insights were dispensed whenever he drove down to see the family in New York, which was about four times a year. Other than to come in the house to use the bathroom or sleep, he would sit in his car for the entire visit for no other reason other than to be obstreperous.

The Depression had hit when my dad was just under ten, so he worked jobs his entire childhood like so many others of his generation. He enlisted in the army after Pearl Harbor and spent three years overseas. He was D-Day minus six. He was on a troop carrier headed to the South Pacific when Harry Truman essentially ended the war by dropping the atomic bomb on Japan. Harry probably saved my dad’s life.

He met my mom (who was born in a taxi on the way to the hospital) in 1946, on a blind date; he’d been coerced into attending the rodeo by his best friend, Norman Schletsky whose girlfriend’s girlfriend refused be the third wheel. The rodeo was on a Friday night, and my parents were married that Sunday afternoon in a very expensive service at the Mayflower Hotel in Manhattan. My mother, an affluent college girl, had been betrothed in a prearranged marriage to a rich Mexican Jew by the name of Miguel she had yet to meet. She had my dad write a Dear John letter to her fiancé on Saturday night; by the time he received it, my mom was Mrs. Shmorak. After living with that lovely new married name for less than a week, she informed my father that he either had to change it or they would have to get divorced. My father, who at the time was August Herbert Shmorak, became Herbert August. The American dream played on into the fifties.

When not dodging enemy fire in the army, my dad had produced and written many shows. His new father-in-law convinced him to give up his budding career in radio to provide a better life for his new family. He went to work for my maternal grandfather in the garment business. Lots of Jews, lots of gonefs and hondling, and all too much disappointment. He was a talented music producer in postwar radio and a frustrated, if more affluent, garment salesmen after making that unfortunate life choice. My dad always told me, “Follow your passion and money will follow.” He didn’t and it didn’t.

Nobody knows what couples are like when they’re alone. Nor does anyone really know whether their family is functioning well. Because until you leave the nest it’s the only family you know. You think it’s the way all other families relate and behave. Your home is normal, and the word “dysfunctional” never comes into play. Sammy Davis Jr. said he loved the neighborhood he grew up in, until he left it and realized it was a terrible ghetto.

When I was a kid I loved sports. They were important to my dad as well. We shared something, and it allowed him to win, because in athletics I seldom came in second. I was good at all of them: bigger, faster, and stronger than my peers. I was always the first one picked, and my identity in my early years was based on my ability to hit the ball out of sight and run over a multitude of would-be tacklers.

My father came to every ballgame I ever played. Right through high school, in any weather on any day at any appointed time. He was always there, standing alone, watching with true intent. He brought a friend once to a football game during my junior year, but I was injured in the first quarter and played sparingly throughout the remainder of the contest. That was the last time he ever brought anyone to one of my games. To my great confusion and dismay, my mother never saw me play a single game of any kind. Ever.

As a young athlete, I was vested in the ethic and philosophy of the great football coach Vince Lombardi. My coach Mr. Serpe, also Italian and also a graduate of Fordham University, threw Lombardi platitudes around as if he himself had led the Packers to victories in the first two Super Bowls. Of course I listened and made them my own.

As I grew up, I began to realize that most quotes from famous people, which initially sound so profound, begin to ring hollow when placed within the context of the life that swirls around them. Not everybody wins, even if “you leave it all on the field,” nor is a man’s character measured by “whether in his heart he found a way to win.” Sometimes the other team is luckier, has a better day, or are simply better.

I came home from college one semester to visit for a week in late February. My dad had a beautiful office on Madison Avenue that he had secured through some barter arrangement. He looked enormously prosperous in those digs, while in reality he was struggling financially and trying to figure out a way. He didn’t have less character or skill or smarts or desire than other men who traveled to the city each morning on the 8:11 to Penn Station. Throughout that week in late winter I went with him each morning to his office and watched him make dozens if not hundreds of calls to make something happen, find some light, score some points, or just get up off the mat. Yet for whatever reasons, nobody was taking his calls; his messages were never returned during the week I was there. I thought more highly of my father during those five days than ever before. He never lost his sense of humor. His eyes were alert and focused, and he listened to my daily issues as if he didn’t have a care in the world. I watched him and learned that it is easy to have character when you are winning; the true heart of a man is tested when he is flailing.

Vince Lombardi said many things that were quoted in practice, and I heard them all. I remember two:

They may not love me now, but when flushed with winning, they will love me later.

It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get back up.

And so it goes. It was about halfway through my hundred days at PBT and I had learned so many lessons. Two I will never forget. The first was that Vince Lombardi’s words offered sage advice. Although somewhat worn, they still held power and truth. The other, and more important, was that I realized my father was a good man. Flawed or mistaken at times, but good, and that is sometimes enough to win.

Not every script is a winner, but you still have to play it like it’s Shakespeare.

W
e opened
Anything Goes
less than forty-eight hours after Emily from the electric company made good on her promise to give us light. With all the parade hoopla, the light event, and the general buzz, we were sold out that night. This was terrific, but there was no joy for me that evening. The show in my opinion, not shared by the actors or audience, was shaky at best. I chalked it up to the whirlwind ride of the past few days, or fatigue, the lack of tech time on the changeover to a new show, or just a natural predictable slump. Even Ted Williams took an 0–4 on occasion. I gave specific notes after the performance and thought tomorrow would return to normal.

It didn’t.

I found it interesting and somewhat disturbing that even at our young ages, and with little to no professional experience, the actors started to behave like many of the great stars whose bios I had read across the years. They retained their zeal, but now it carried a hint of rebellion. In small, subtle ways they were saying, “I’m good. Don’t bother me with being Joe DiMaggio.” The girls were divas and the guys were . . . well, what is the equivalent of a diva? Assholes!

None of us had written the songs or lived the birth of the original Broadway material. True, I wanted commitment from everyone and I was getting it, but the focus was distorted, becoming about “me.” This was summer stock and it was supposed to be fun. Yet the notes of the previous evening went unheeded, and rehearsals that day brought unnecessary tensions, at times taking us to the precipice of verbal fisticuffs. I had little patience for it all.

On the heels of our instant celebrity, the
Patriot Ledger
, the paper covering the four corners of the Cape, assigned a big-time reporter to spend the day at the theater, to attend rehearsals and become acquainted with the company. The reporter, Marc Seconds, had seen the closing of
Cabaret
and the opening of
Anything Goes
, so he was up to speed on recent events. He was a nice-looking, midthirties professorial type wearing fashionably beaten-up jeans and a faded-pink poplin shirt. He wore his hair in a buzz cut and had thin wire-rimmed glasses. Seconds was pleasant and complimented everything he had seen so far. He also was clearly smitten with Carol Duteau, a young lady with the fabulous breasts we had cast out of Yale. It turned out Seconds was an “Eli” himself.

It is always dangerous for someone outside the rehearsal process to sit in as a guest. An actor’s instinct is to please the audience, and when a stranger is present actors often “perform” rather than use the rehearsal to prepare. They press. Jokes become forced and fail to land, pacing becomes disjointed, and beats linger long enough for a truck to drive through. Confidence diminishes. Insecurities mount, and dental surgery up your ass becomes a more attractive option then continuing.

We weren’t putting on Chekhov or Strindberg or even Arthur Miller. We were presenting a thirties fluff musical with a sensational score and a storyline as deep as a wading pool. Nevertheless, if an actor mugged for a false laugh or didn’t invest in the character’s dilemma, then it was all a sham. The audience tunes out, and what is supposed to be froth and fun becomes, well, stupid and boring.

There were three things on the punch list that morning. If we could fix them quickly we could exponentially improve on our next performance and get to work on our next show instead of reviewing the one now in performance.

Near the end of act 1 was a series of four entrances and exits that piggybacked on each other. The laughs were in the visual, a sequence of rapid-fire exits and entrances that forced the eye to follow the joke. Unless they were timed correctly, they lay like a pancake with each subsequent joke working hard to cover the failure of its predecessor.

I explained the concept, which was not difficult and had worked quite well in rehearsal. But when the sequence played in front of an audience, each entrance and exit was extended for no other reason than to get an additional titter. Now the whole thing didn’t work. It was selfish, and after thirty minutes of running the bit to no benefit, I asked harshly what the fuck was going on. No one had an answer because to give one was to admit their lack of commitment to the show and the pettiness of their actions. I told them in no uncertain terms that it sucked, and then moved on. Tension was palpable and the reporter from the
Patriot Ledger
was at the ready with a quill dipped in venom-laced ink.

The next bit of business involved our sixteen-year-old mop-headed young star, Ronny Feston. Six weeks ago he would have blown the Boston Patriots for this gig, and now he was Marlon Brando. He had a small scene in which he played a stowaway conning the show’s comedic lead in a game of craps. It was screamingly funny. Feston was adorable, and his cadence and use of his body were impeccable. He played the scene with Secunda, who amped it up. It was our version of Laurel and Hardy.

But when a gag works to perfection, less is more. Feston, though, milked it, stretching it out to the point where it was vulgar and mean-spirited and all about him. He left Secunda to pick up his shit and stopped the momentum of the escalating laughter, all but bringing it to a halt. Ronny was a kid, and perhaps he didn’t understand, so we discussed it. He still resisted. Vociferously. He wanted his laugh.

I explained that Jerry Lewis had written that “comedy is a man in trouble.” Once a character’s jeopardy is gone, the dilemma is no longer funny. Feston remained adamant. Rather than have a confrontation, I called a ten-minute break.

I was livid and called Jojo over for a talk. “What is this bullshit? You’re the fucking stage manager and this stuff has been rehearsed and set. We don’t have time or energy to play fucking Stanislavsky this afternoon. All of a sudden they get some laughs and some kudos and they think they’re fucking Charlie Chaplin. You end it now. You tell that little imp that if this continues, he can call his mom to pick him up and take him home yesterday.”

I said all of this in front of Marc Seconds; he was taking notes so fast his pen seemed propelled by nuclear power. I pulled Jojo out of his earshot and added, “You want this shit in the paper? Fix this, damn it!”

It was clear that Jojo wasn’t too pleased with me. “Five minutes,” she shouted. “Company on stage in five minutes.” Then she pulled Feston off to the left wing and ripped him a new face.