On Making Off: Misadventures Off-Off Broadway (21 page)

By 4 p.m., we would finish the day exhilarated and exhausted. We’d pack up our props, someone would roll a joint, and we’d march from El Bohio through the East Village to the subway station. We quickly discovered that this march was one of our best marketing opportunities.

Selling an off-off Broadway show is a guerilla exercise, and our subject matter couldn’t have been a better fit. The Yippies took their revolution to the streets, and so it was only fitting that we took our show to the streets. I’d attached two
Do It!
posters back-to-back on a stick to make what looked like a picket sign. Our image featured a shirtless Lolly with text obscuring her nipples, an army-issue combat helmet on her head, and her hand outstretched as if she were a traffic cop barking orders.

It was such a fantastic image I carried it around with me all the time. Everywhere I went—to and from Blah-Blah Big Bank, on the subway, in the park—I held this eye-catching image a foot above my head as if I had something to say. People noticed Lolly’s screaming mouth and fleshy torso and would always look back to see if they had missed any actual nudity, which, of course, they hadn’t. But it got their attention.

After rehearsal on weekend afternoons, when the East Village streets were full of people, we’d slowly wander down Eighth Street, passing a joint among ourselves and spreading ourselves out with the sign-carrier leading the way.

Timing was everything. People would see the sign, glance back for a second look, and someone would hand them a postcard. Just as they looked at the postcard, the unmistakable smell of marijuana would float past their nostrils. It was three-point advertising at its best. Point one, the sign piques their interest. Point two, they get the postcard with the information. Point three, the smell of pot attaches a memory to that postcard.

They’d put the postcard in their pocket and continue on with their day. When they got home, they’d empty their pockets, see the postcard again, remember the smell of pot, and maybe, just maybe, they’d make a point to come see what this show is all about.

Is that how it really worked? We’d never know. But it didn’t matter. Selling the show was only part of what we were doing. New York, the land of concrete and steel, gets its color from the people on the street. That spring, the color was us. We loved giving those weekend-wanderers an East Village experience they would remember.

WITCHES’ REVENGE

“
All right, everyone! Let’s get ready to do a run-through,” I said walking out of the dressing room where Dickey and I had just jerry-rigged the smoke machine. It was the final week of rehearsals. We’d moved from our apocalyptic schoolhouse-come-rehearsal-hall into the musty den that was the Under St. Marks Theatre.

“
Give us just a minute, I almost have it,” Fanny said as she speared Nick’s hand with a sharp metal object. Nick was playing John Doe, an impressionable youth who gets drawn into the revolution.

“
You almost have what?” I asked, moving in for a closer look.

“
Nick got a splinter. I’m taking it out.”

“
How did Nick get a splinter?”

“
It’s not really a splinter,” Nick said, as he winced in pain. “It’s like a rock or something.”

“
It’s a pebble,” Fanny corrected, and triumphantly held her tweezers in the air. “Got it!” she declared, and let out a high-pitched laugh.

“
All right people, places!” I shouted.

We were at a turning point for the production. In the cycle of putting on a show, there is always a magical moment when you finally bring all the elements together. For this production, it wouldn’t just be adding the lights and sound. This would be the first time we’d actually perform all the scenes in order. It would be the first time we’d see what we created. These moments can be disastrous or inspiring, and the only way to know which way it will go is to do it.

There are plenty of great characters in the play, from Jerry Rubin’s high-strung communist Aunt Sadie, a character we made entirely out of clothing, to Sunny Tits, an undercover FBI agent who wears two-foot platform shoes, flower pasties on her bare chest, and a pistol in her crotch. But the real magic happens when Harrison, as the 1980s Jerry Rubin, begins a speech about returning to his London hostel on the Tube late one night in 1963 and noticing a headline on a fellow passenger’s newspaper. Because the outside of the newspaper is upside-down, he, in true Yippie form, turns upside-down to read it. The headline announces the assassination of John F. Kennedy. As Harrison describes the scene, the rest of the cast creates a crowded subway car behind him. Jay, our guitarist, plays a haunting riff he had scored, and Tre Fleuve, our drummer, keeps time on his bongo as the cast performs synchronized headstands. Arms fall, heads lean to the side. We bend down, turn around. Heads hit the floor, and our feet turn skyward. We repeat this sequence throughout the speech and conclude with the creation of an upside-down JFK and Jackie in the convertible waving to the crowd just moments before the shots ring out.

When we finished rehearsal, there wasn’t an ounce of insecurity in the room. Everyone knew we’d created something special, and everyone knew they had a part in creating it. Two days before opening. One rehearsal left. We were certain to wow them on opening night.

I was sound asleep when my phone rang at 4 a.m. Looking back on events that woke me at 4 a.m., I can find only two. One was a call from my brother, who told me that my 17-year-old sister had given birth to a six-pound baby, when nobody even knew she was pregnant. And the other was in college when the 6.7 Northridge earthquake tossed me out of bed. So, my history of 4 a.m. wake-up calls literally consisted of one life and one death situation. Picking up the phone, I prayed for life.

“
Hello?”

“
Randy, it’s Lolly. Nick’s in the hospital.”

Well… he wasn’t having a baby.

“
What? Why is he in the hospital? What happened?”

“
I don’t know. I just got off the phone… with him. He says it’s bad? Something about…something about his arm or something?”

She was full of genuine drama. Not the artificial drama she usually possessed, but real life, situation-appropriate drama. This meant oddly placed pauses, fuzzy details, and inappropriate upward inflections, which made all her sentences sound like questions. I was going to have to get specific.

“
Did he cut his hand on a bagel?”

“
No! What are you talking about? A bagel?” I had obviously gotten too specific. But I couldn’t imagine what might have transpired in the six hours since we last saw him. He seemed perfectly fine at rehearsal. “Well, what happened to his arm? Why did he call you?”

“
I don’t know. His friends have already been there? He says… I don’t know, I didn’t really understand. It’s bad? Should we go down there? We should go down there right? I don’t know, Randy. This is bad.”

“
Yes, we should. We don’t know how bad it is yet. Let’s go down there and find out. I’ll get in a cab and pick you up.”

I hung up the phone, threw on some pants and a sweatshirt, and headed to the street to catch a cab. I was still a bit hazy, but the more I woke up, the more active my imagination got. By the time the cab stopped to pick up Lolly, I had a whole scenario worked out.

“
So listen,” I started, as Lolly threw herself into the car, still dressed from the night before. She obviously wasn’t in bed when she got the call. God, how I wished I was unemployed. “I bet he went out after rehearsal, because I think he said he was going to a bar with some friends, right? Didn’t he invite Fanny? Did she go with him?” Lolly shook her head. “Anyway, I bet he got a little tipsy and, you know those stairs leading up to his apartment? They’re real crooked like and narrow, and they have that door at the top. You know, the one with the stained glass.” Lolly nodded, enraptured in my tale. “Well, you know how it just sort of appears there, right?”

“
No, I don’t. Appears? What do you mean? The door is just there.”

“
Yes! It’s just there. You know, there isn’t a landing or anything. The door comes up to the lip of the stair. Like someone just put a door in the middle of a stairwell. Like it’s not at the top of the stairs but sort of in the middle.”

“
Yes! I know what you’re talking about. It’s kind of weird.”

“
Very weird. So that’s probably what happened.” I finished, leaning back in the pleather, looking out the window. “I can never tell at this hour, if it’s late at night or early in the morning.”

“
Um, are you gonna finish your theory? Or do you want to know the truth?”

“
Do you know what happened?”

“
No.”

“
Well…”

“
So what does this door have to do with Nick’s arm?” she asked.

I opened the window. I needed to cool my brain because it was overheating with all my imagining.

“
It’s simple. He got drunk and fell down his stairs. The door opens out over the stairs. It’s a fucking disaster waiting to happen. It’s hard enough to simultaneously open a door and climb stairs sober. I can’t imagine trying to do that drunk.”

“
That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, Randy. He goes into his apartment all the time. This can’t be the first time someone’s gotten drunk and opened that door.”

“
Well, do you have any better theories?” I asked, as the distinct smell of hospital filled the air.

“
Randy, stop playing around. What are we going to do?”

“
I don’t know, Lolly, but it’s 4:30 in the morning, and until we find out what’s happening, I suggest we keep making up stories.”

The cab pulled up to the emergency-room entrance, and we got out. I wasn’t sure what we would say. If I can’t visit a dying lover in the hospital, how was this going to play out? We couldn’t ask to see him based on the fact he’s in our play, could we? Luckily, we spotted him almost immediately in the hallway about 50 yards past the front desk. We walked in as if we worked there, and nobody stopped us.

“
Nick, what the fuck happened?” Lolly asked, entirely too loudly.

“
I can’t move my arm,” Nick replied. And indeed his arm was sort of propped up on the table next to him. Lolly gingerly poked at its flesh. “Don’t ask me why they’re making me sit in this wheelchair. I’ve been in it all night. Thanks for coming, you guys. You really didn’t have to come down here.”

He’d been crying and looked as if he was about to start again, which I didn’t want to see and, I’m sure, he didn’t want to do.

“
We’re concerned about you, Nick.” I paused and took a breath. “So what happened? Besides you not being able to move your arm, does anyone know anything?”

“
They think it’s an infection. It started with my hand, and it’s slowly been working its way up my arm. It’s been the weirdest thing. I just slowly began losing the ability to move my arm. They’ve got me on some medication, and they think they’ve stopped it, but they’re gonna keep me here for observation for a while longer.”

This sounded bad, and suddenly the tears made sense. It wasn’t physical pain, but rather a psychological torture he was enduring. I thought about asking him if it was permanent but decided against it. He probably didn’t know, and that was probably what freaked him out the most.

“
So, is this permanent?” Lolly asked. And sure enough, his eyes welled up. Most people have natural social filters that prevent them from saying everything that comes into their heads. Lolly’s filters had been clogged for some time, so she’d had hers removed entirely.

“
They don’t know yet.”

“
Why do you have to go and ask such mean questions, Lolly?” I asked. She shrugged her shoulders and placed a comforting hand on Nick’s shoulder. “So, how did you get this infection?”

“
The only thing I can think of is the pebble that got wedged into my hand during rehearsal. It was either the pebble or Fannie’s tweezers.”

“
It was the pebble,” I said. “Fannie’s tweezers are not going to have a super-bug living on them. It had to be the pebble.”

And suddenly, my presence at the hospital shifted from concerned friend to liable employer. It wasn’t like Nick was getting paid or anything, but still. I didn’t ask, but I was certain Nick, like most other 20-something artists, did not have health insurance.

Thankfully, The Beggars Group has volunteer accident insurance, which is something every small theater company should have. I always thought it a bit ridiculous that we weren’t paying people for their services, but we would spend all this money for insurance. Well, it wasn’t so ridiculous anymore. But, like most insurance policies, it wasn’t going to cover everything. We were bound to be on the hook for something. I immediately started calculating what all this was going to cost.

“
Those god-damned fucking witches!” Lolly shouted. “I can’t believe them.”

Nick and I laughed uncomfortably while we looked around at the glances Lolly was getting.

“
They put a spell on that pebble, you know. Back in the ’70s. Back when that basement theater was their Wiccan meeting place. They probably did some ritual and put a spell on a knife or something, and some of the spell got onto this pebble that was then swept to the side, only to come out 20-some odd years later to infect Nick.”

It was a fantastic, but not entirely implausible, explanation.