To the Editor:
Cumberland Times-News
— Today’s kid-adjusters would have had a field day with me when I was in school, if for no other reason than the fact that my attention span was not very good. As the years have passed, it hasn’t gotten any better.
On the other hand, my dad — the Keyser High School principal — said I never seemed to have any trouble paying attention to things that interested me. The problem came from things that bored me and, as he also observed, they were in many cases things that would have bored him.
It has become increasingly difficult for me to sit through a movie, a TV show or a ballgame on TV, even if I’m interested in it. I keep wanting to flip around every 15 minutes or so to see if anything else is going on. That’s why I tape most of what I watch ... so I can leave it when I feel like doing so.
However, if I’m there to see it in person, it becomes a different story. I’ve never been bored at a football, basketball or baseball game I’ve attended. Likewise, if I go to live theater, I’m wide awake and wide-eyed from beginning to end.
Maybe that’s because when you’re there to see it yourself, there’s far more to keep you occupied than if what you see is limited to what the director wants you to see, presented on a flat screen. You can watch everybody and everything when it’s live.
I once was an actor — the star, no less — in a senior class school play called (believe it or not) “Bachelor of the Year.”
My role was that of an unmarried high school principal who was the love interest of every young unmarried female teacher in the school. If I had picked the girls who played them, I couldn’t have done a better job. Unfortunately, in this case, the art wasn’t an imitation of life ... at least, not to my knowledge.
One day during rehearsal, someone played waltz music over the loudspeakers. A burst of inspiration that came from I have no idea where caused me to grab the hand of one of the girls (someone I’d been in love with since Sunday school) and waltz her around around the stage.
We made two or three orbits with the same grace you might expect from Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, absolutely knocking out everybody who was watching us. I’d never waltzed before that day and, much as though I’ve tried, I’ve not been able to do it again.
My friend Charlie Smith called me the other day and asked if I’d like to go to the dress rehearsal of “Beauty and the Beast” at the Church-McKee Arts Center of Potomac State College in Keyser, W.Va.
I told him I’d see if I could make it, and as soon as I hung up the phone I asked myself why I even had to think about it.
Charlie was part of the construction crew that built and set up the stage set, and he made the plywood wheels for wagons that were used for props. People who have never done woodwork have no idea how difficult it is to cut out a perfect circle.
This turned out to be one of the best things I’ve done in a long time.
Television and movies can never compare to live theater, if the live theater is done right, and this certainly was. You don’t have to rely on Hollywood or Broadway to find incredible talent, which I actually saw for myself years ago.
The singers had amazing voices, the orchestra was of professional quality, and the actors and actresses generated an overall energy you can’t get on a movie screen or TV.
The numbers that had everyone in the cast dancing, singing, performing an intricate clanging of metal beer mugs and running and tumbling across the stage, were amazing.
So much is going on at one time, and you don’t know quite where to look, that you try to look everywhere. It’s spellbinding.
Much of the attraction provided by theater productions like “Beauty and the Beast” lies in the fact that — unlike TV and movies — they make no pretense at imitating real life. They say right out, “This is pure fantasy,” and wonderful fantasy it is. I see enough real life every day, and this was a welcome escape.
Most non-theater folks have little appreciation of how much hard work and imagination go into such productions, particularly when it comes to the sets and costumes ... the ingenuity of which can leave you shaking your head.
I could never design something that would make a pretty girl look like a salt or pepper shaker, a teapot or a sleek, sexy wolf — or turn a man into a clock and what most of us would call a candelabra whose hands look like they’re producing real flames. It’s fascinating to watch human-sized knives, forks, spoons, wardrobes and napkins frolicking around.
A connection develops between the audience and the cast members that can’t be duplicated anywhere else.
The first time I went to see one of my friend Mark Baker’s productions at the New Embassy Theater, I left with the impression that he had managed to involve me and everyone else in the proceedings. He was on the stage and out there in the audience at the same time (which was no surprise, considering he has won one of Broadway’s highest honors, the Helen Hayes Award). The cast of Beauty and the Beast had the same effect.
By the way, nobody asked me to write this. In fact, I already had something for today, but it can wait another week. “Beauty and the Beast” will have its last performance next Sunday, and if you want to be entertained in grand style, you should go see it — and bring your kids.
Performances will be Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. Call (304) 788-6863 for ticket information.
I enjoyed it so much that I told Charlie to call me when they do this again. Even if I can’t do anything else, I can help make wagon wheels.
