In 1984, I saw “5th of July” for the first time. I was a sophomore at a college in Pittsburgh, a theater and literature major, and I fell in love. At the time I thought I was falling in love with the boyfriend I had at the time who was in the play, but over the years of getting to know Lanford Wilson and his plays, I came to understand that it was the language and the stories, the poignant and earthy insight into the human condition, that were awakening my heart in such a powerful way.
The following year I transferred to a college in New York and
saw “Talley’s Folly,” presented by students from another class. Afterward, one
of the professors critiqued the play, beginning by noting that the casting was
in his view ridiculous because the characters had been written to be much older,
with more life experience, than college age students. I hadn’t noticed the age
discrepancy because once again I was transfixed, and the actors, young though
they were, had been transformed by the music and pathos of that wonderful, lyrical
play.
When I was a senior, I was working on a project with a
graduate student who carried a canvas bag with a large circle encompassing the
word REP. I was still fairly new to New York and didn’t know anything about the
Circle Repertory Company, but something about the image led me to ask the
person who owned the bag what it stood for. She told me that her boyfriend had
been an intern with the Circle Repertory Company and that she had visited him there
and bought the bag. This was in the days before the internet made research
through online searches so effortless. It was also in the days before cell
phones, so calling for information meant using a pay phone. Somehow I found the
contact information for the company and contacted them, and was informed that
they were in the final process of accepting applications for interns for the
next season. I went in for my audition the next week, and had my first glimpse
of what that company was while I waited in the Green Room. All of the
photographs on the walls were of people and plays I had long admired, and I
didn’t dare hope that I could work with them. I graduated a few weeks later,
and went home to Massachusetts to a teaching job I had over the summer. The
letter came a month later. I had been accepted as an intern and was to start on
August 24.
Early in the first weeks at Circle Rep, one still very warm
and beautiful September afternoon as I was coming back to the office, a man
rode up in the elevator with me. When I pressed the floor for Circle Rep, he
said, “I knew you were going there. I watched you stopping traffic all down
Sixth Avenue.” I was not used to being thought of as being attractive enough to
stop traffic, and in my experience, the only time that men I didn’t know said
flattering things were when they were trying to hit on me. I smiled and nodded
stiffly, as coldly as I could, looking at his outfit of well worn jeans and
jean jacket and wondering who he was, thinking perhaps he was one of the set
builders. When we entered the office I breezed past him, while the receptionist
gave him a warm, “Hello Lanford!” I couldn’t believe what an idiot I was.
That one moment was a life lesson I will never forget. I now
understand that true brilliance is humble and does not need to announce itself,
and truly beautiful and gentle spirits often feel the need to hide their beauty
under rough exteriors. Lanford’s plays and characters are like that for me, and
they reflect the intricacies of their creator. Having the opportunity to see
them in different settings, to hear their music and his voice in a variety of
different actors and at different times in my own life has helped me to learn
and grow and deepen my perceptions of myself and others. People are so complex.
We yearn and we long and we love and rejoice. We mourn, we desire, we feel like
castoffs and outsiders. We belong, we try to belong, we cut off parts of
ourselves to try to fit in. Lanford’s plays have been a comfort and a joy to
me, helping me to understand myself more clearly while giving me an insight
into humanity as a whole.
“Burn This” premiered on Broadway during the year that I was
an intern at Circle Rep, and I had the opportunity to buy a House Seat ticket
for $12.50. I sat transfixed as I watched some of the most amazing actors I had
ever seen take over the stage and fill the entire theater with the power of a
play. Trying to describe the experience later, I could only lapse into general
descriptions of awe. “I’ve never seen anything like it!” “It was amazing!”
“What language!” Like all of Lanford’s plays, these characters were just people
that you could meet any day, but somehow with his deft touch, they became iconic,
representing archetypes that reached past the proscenium to hit the nerve
endings in every audience member’s heart in a unique way. I longed to be on
that stage and in that play, and I also longed to live the life that those
characters were living. Theirs was a life of excitement and wonder, creativity
and living art, full of deep feeling and passion. Watching their story as
written through Lanford’s eyes made me see my own existence as something
special, and helped me to appreciate that within every life is a myriad of
emotions and experiences that are mythical in scope for the person living them.
One night at a Circle Rep party, a seat opened up next to
Lanford and I sat down with him which was not something that I usually did. I
was always very shy around people I admired and considered great, and I never
wanted to invade their space or impose myself on them in any way. But sitting
with him was easy that night, and he welcomed the conversation, asking me what
I thought of a recent play that had opened, and discussing some of the
company’s current projects. It was late in the evening and he was offered a
ride home by a close friend. As he got up to go he said to me, “You are so
beautiful, not just outside, but what’s in here.” He pointed at my heart and
continued, “They’ll try to take that away from you. Don’t let them.” He turned
to his friend and went out into the night, and I sat there stunned. I had been
with the company for a number of years, but I had not ever had any big roles. I
did not think that he had even really known who I was. But here came an
affirmation of something that he had seen in me that I didn’t see in myself,
something that spoke to my deepest longing to fit in and be recognized as being
extraordinary. We all have that longing, and through Lanford’s plays we can
recognize the beauty and intricacy of each unique person and celebrate our own
experience as something worthy of attention.
Those words have come back to me again and again over the
years, sustaining me through times of hardship and struggle. In 2005 I was Born
Again, and I began another kind of transformation. Through my new spiritual
eyes I am more open to seeing the beauty of God that lives within each person.
Lanford saw that beauty and brought it to life in play after play after beautiful
play. In the words of the Spirit, he would be called a prophet, for a prophet’s
role is to enlighten, encourage and bring forth that which is holy in each one
of us into the light. If I told Lanford that, I think he might laugh, but it is
true. The Spirit of God brings transformation, and there is a Balm in Gilead to
help heal those places in us that are lost and longing and searching. When an
artist can see so deeply into the souls of so many and reach in and bring their
beauty to the light, he has transformed them and us with that beauty and
brought healing to us all.
(This essay originally appeared in the literary journal Parabasis in September of 2011)
Blessings,
Jannie Susan
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