Oct 8, 2006
I am surrounded by Mormons. I am playing Fagin in a production of Oliver! in Idaho Falls, Idaho, for a theatre company who are paying me more than they are paying the director. We are rehearsing in the multi-purpose room of a Montessori School. The Stage Manager chats with people during rehearsals, the director has to shout to get the orphans/pickpockets to be quiet, other adults in the room are allowed to converse during rehearsal -- at full voice -- and the dialects are truly startling.
I have wandered knowingly into Guffmania. It's research, and I'm getting paid for it, and I'm writing about it here every week, but it's like taking a spiritual and artistic cheese grater to my soul. Particularly after the delights of PCPA. True, working at PCPA left me just able to cover my rent in Livermore and, by the time I returned home after A Little Night Music, financially destitute. Also true: every company has its inherent foibles. But PCPA is a great place to work. It's organized. And Chrissy Collins, Goddess of Stage Management ... I weep for lack of Chrissy.
While I say I've wandered knowingly into Guffmania, I should specify that I did not realize precisely how bad it was going to be until I heard the word, 'Montessori'. I thought my cell phone was playing tricks. But no, it was the right word. I wondered for a moment if I could afford to just drive back to Livermore there and then. But I'd already met two board members and they are very nice people. Still, I had yet to see a contract or a check. Maybe I could talk Veronica into a little return gas money and I could just drive the 15 hours straight, hopped up on coffee and the fight/flight response.
How did I get this job? Jonathan Visser, who played Mr. Erlanson in A Little Night Music, was originally going to play this part. He got a better offer in Oregon and asked me if I was interested. I didn't really have any other offers and had been more concerned about my housing situation in Santa Maria than I had future employment. That's another story. I did hear that the Great American Melodrama was interested in me, but I didn't hear any more after their artistic director came to see ALNM, and I learned later that he had stayed after to chat with people during the photo call. So maybe my work sucks. Maybe I was supposed to court him. I don't know. But the housing here in Idaho Falls is definitely better (I'm in a hotel!), and the pay is better than PCPA, and I'd never driven to Idaho before. So that all added up to something new and different. And here I am rehearsing Monday through Wednesday evenings, with four hours Saturday morning (starting at 8:00am! WHAT THE FUCK?!) and the rest of the time I have nothing to do.
So I left on Saturday, 9/30. Spent the night in Wells, NV. Arrived in Idaho Falls at around 6:12pm on Sunday, October 1. Friday, 9/29, I sent a message to the Producer (Visser's very nice Aunt Marcia), asking where I should go when I got to town. Maybe I sent it on Thursday, I'll check that later. Point is, no response. So I worry about it and call on Saturday as I'm driving East on 580 to catch 5 North in Tracy, thence to 80 in Sacramento. Someone -- I think perhaps her son -- answers the phone. I ask for Marcia. He says, "She's busy." I tell him my name and that I'm one of the Guest Artists in Oliver!, and that I would love it if she could call me back. He says okay, so I continue merrily on my way up into the Sierras and then down into the desert and thank God the sun set so I didn't have to see Winnemucca by daylight. I figure I'll get a phone call sometime that night or the next day.
Complete silence. I even dawdle a bit in Wells, taking a long breakfast in case they've decided to hire a local Idahoan and save some money. But no message is forthcoming so I get on the road in good faith; at some point between Wells, NV and Twin Falls, ID, the battery on my phone dies. I forgot to charge it the night before.
When I arrive in Idaho Falls, I am struck by two things: 1) this is a nice little town/city, with a cool old Downtown area, and 2) I have absolutely no idea where to go. Desperately needing a bathroom, I stop at the Red Lion Hotel. I ask the clerk if he knows of a coffee shop that might be open. I'm figuring coffee shop, free internet, communication, good stuff. He says there's a Starbucks at Fred Meyer on Yellowstone.
I head to Fred Meyer, which is like Albertson's meets Target and the Wolfman.
It's a Starbucks kiosk. Not even a spot to plug my phone in. So I stand near a pay phone and fake a conversation while my phone charges at the outlet beneath the phone. It charges a little. I sip my coffee. I'm impatient. I take my phone and walk outside. Pumpkins in big cardboard boxes, a vast parking lot, a truly lovely sunset.
I head back to the Red Lion. I ask the guy if he knows of anywhere I can get free internet access. I anticipate an e-mail with all sorts of good chunky info. He points behind me: there's a 1992 Hewlett Packard on a little stand in the lobby.
"It's dialup," he says. "Slow."
"Better than nothing," I say, and sit down to a very familiar computer: this is precisely the same model I bought back when I was 19. I cost around $1,492.00! Can you believe that? This one is maybe a little faster than mine was, lacking MYST and Sim Towers.
Nothing. Neither the director nor SM have responded to my e-mails. So I write another one to the effect of, "I'm here, where should I go?" I plug my phone into the powerstrip and sit on a nearby couch to wait. An hour later, no response but my phone has enough of a charge to be useful.
I call Veronica. She says, "Honey, who the fuck are you working for that they bring you to Idaho and don't have anyplace for you to go?"
I say, "I think they're new to this."
I call Visser's Aunt Marcia. She sounds delighted and a little alarmed to hear from me. (Admittedly, in one of my e-mails of the previous week, I had asked if I should arrive Sunday or Monday. Getting no response, I stuck to our original arrangement: Sunday.) Marcia tells me she's had company all day and will call me right back with a place for me to stay. I call Veronica. Veronica offers to pay for a hotel for the night. I counsel her against this on the logic that it's better to save money.
The next time my phone rings, it's not Marcia, but a very nice woman named Annette, who does props for the shows. She gives me directions to her house. I drive out there. I meet her family.
They're Mormons. There's a lovely print on the wall of Jesus surrounded by a multi-culti gaggle of kids, with angelic presences whose names I could only guess at presiding over it all behind a misty scrim. If that's not a Mormonesque picture, I'm not an unrepentant Pagan lothario (reformed).
I'm wearing my festive Turkish hat and I have a big gold earring in my left ear. I talk a little too loudly and too much, making too many jokes. I'm nervous. They're very nice, they seem a little shellshocked. They didn't know I'd be staying there. The first they'd heard was a phone call ten minutes before I arrived. We're all smiling big friendly smiles. I concentrate very hard on not swearing. I begin to sweat.
Annette shows me the room I'll be staying in. It's their oldest son's. "He's in Brazil," she says. Is that a euphamism or is he on his mission? Maybe both. Maybe his mission is to wait in a secret room and kill earring-clad pagans in their sleep.
The room is spotless. There is absolutely no mess, anywhere. Not even in the closet. He's an award-winning musician, sportsman and a decorated Webelo, Cub and Boy Scout. There are posters on the wall, LDS ads about being nice to people and hugging grandma. He collects these the way Hillary collects Absolut ads.
It hits me as I'm changing into my pajamas: this boy is precisely the kind of boy Veronica liked to seduce when she was in High School. For the first time on this trip, I'm glad Veronica's still in Livermore. My girlfriend seducing local Mormon missionaries is the last thing I need.
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