I thought List members might like to hear how the Ezra Pound play, SIXTEEN WORDS FOR WATER, is fairing in Washington State. Below is a copy of an email from the director.
Dear Billy,
We did our dress rehearsal for about 20 people. Mostly actors, so it was a stacked crowd, but an educated one. The rehearsal went extremely
well--Jim and Megan and Heidi were all DYING for an audience--and the audience seemed pretty responsive for its size, but at intermission I felt like I was diseased. Everyone got up and went to the lobby, clearly avoiding my eye. One guy came up and said, "Hey. Good to see ya. Whatcha been doin?"
How does one respond to that after putting the last nine weeks of your life on the line? "Oh, nuthin," I replied. After about ten minutes I followed the
crowd out to the lobby (feeling a little odd) and suddenly everything was different. Everyone was talking about the play and they loved it. (But don't
they have to say that?) When I went in to sit back down for the second half, another actor turned around to me and said, "Do you even know what you have here?" as the lights were going down. I said, "Yes." Another fabulous act, and at the end, they got a standing ovation-only the second one in ten years of dress rehearsals. Everybody hung around and talked forever.
Thursday night - opening night - we packed our 220-seat house. The audience was shockingly responsive. There were places where the rhythm of the show
was rather seriously impeded, because people were laughing so much. (This is good. They were on top of EVERYTHING, and diggin' the hell out of it.) At
intermission I was mobbed by people who wanted to know everything under the sun. They were blown away. Second act was just as fabulous. At the curtain call, you could see the audience twitching to stand up. (The northwest has got to have the most chicken shit audiences in the world. No one wants to
make a commitment until someone else does. Standing ovations are rare, even at the most electric performances. Anyway, when Jim stepped forward for his
individual bow, the entire audience leapt to its feet. It was fun and extremely gratifying. We had a talk-back after the show and about 50 people stayed after and all was thrilling. One of those great theatrical
experiences, where EVERYBODY feels it and is reveling in it. Ditto for Friday. Then, last night (Saturday) another rock solid performance, and the audience was right on top of it with us. The play is amazing in its ability to arrest our fascination and carry us along from moment to moment to moment without faltering. Opening night I had several people comment on the first
hour being the shortest hour of their lives.
Another great talk-back last night. Interesting connections and coincidences, too. Opening night we had a group of six people who had all worked in mental hospitals during World War II--one had been a conscientious objector. Last night one of our board members, Bruce Silverman, (he's Jewish, if you hadn't guessed) came to see it. He's a doctor who runs a
large clinic locally, and he had just been meeting with some people from some city in eastern Europe who had come to learn how to administer a clinic, and they had explained to him that the town they were from is very
poor because Stalin had seized the land that gave them a connection with the Black Sea, commenting on the fact that he was a "greedy Jew". Bruce did a
double take and said, "Excuse me? Stalin was a Jew? But look what he did to the Jews." And the guy said, "Yeah, just like Hitler. He was a Jew, too. Where do you think they got all their money?" Bruce replied, "Excuse me, I
have to go see a play about an anti-Semite." And he came with a friend of his--a psychiatrist--who had done an internship at St. Elizabeth's hospital in 1969. Both of them were "blown-away".
I can't really exaggerate how much the audiences are loving it. Today, Sunday, we had some electricity onstage like I never would've expected. Sundays are for blue-hairs, right? I thought, okay, they'll
accept it and enjoy it, and wonder what they've just seen. And I was right about the first part. Definitely an older audience. But these people, while
certainly not rowdy, were plugged directly into what was happening onstage. A GREAT talk-back with people who remember the headlines when Pound was
indicted, etc. and were dying to get their two cents worth in. How many people said to me today, "Theater doesn't get any better than this." (Or at
least a close approximation.) I'll also toot my own horn. Two statements made at the talk-back:
1: "I'm very suspicious of new plays. I'm almost always disappointed by what passes for theater these days. But because you were doing it, I came, and I think it's one of the best things you've ever produced. This is a brilliant piece."
2) "I had no interest in seeing some new modern play. I'm packing for a two-week trip to Costa Rica, and I just didn't feel like driving all the way to Olympia to see some play I've never even heard of. But then I thought, no, Harlequin always does really good work. I should probably just go. And I am SO GLAD I DID!"
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Well, you can imagine how much it pleases me to see this play bringing Pound to a much larger audience than simply those who have an interest in 20th century poetry. Those of you who have not yet read it, can do so at http://homepages.go.com/~wstoneking/index47.html The link to the script site is near the bottom of the page!
Best
Billy Marshall Stoneking
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