{"id":1078,"date":"2015-01-25T14:38:37","date_gmt":"2015-01-25T13:38:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/siv-sketches.net\/?page_id=1078"},"modified":"2025-02-23T15:52:06","modified_gmt":"2025-02-23T14:52:06","slug":"chapter-21-part-2-mamaroneck-high-scool-theater","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/siv-sketches.net\/?page_id=1078","title":{"rendered":"Chapter 18 (Part 2) \u2013 Mamaroneck High School theater"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The program for Blood Wedding Facebook. Design \u2013 Claudia Golden<\/p><\/div>\n

At Mamaroneck High School, we had a wonderful speech and drama department, in my time run by very competent and beautiful Regina Frey. Allyn and I got the extra-curricular activity of assisting in the drama department. What a dream!<\/p>\n

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Regina Frey, our wonderful drama teacher (Facebook, MHS Theater)<\/p><\/div>\n

“We” did “The Skin of our Teeth” by Thornton Wilder, which I happen to have the program for, even though I don\u2019t particularly remember the play. I like Thornton Wilder more for “Our Town”, but Regina\u2019s productions were always first-class.<\/p>\n

We did “Rhinoceros” by Eug\u00e8ne Ionesco which I remember quite clearly. I have now learned that the initiative for doing “Rhinoceros” came from Tony Schwab’s parents. Regina was happy to follow up on their suggestion.<\/p>\n

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Rhinoceros; Pam Seton and Tony Schwab, B\u00e9renger<\/p><\/div>\n

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The production was a success.The way the actors gradually morphed from humans into rhinoceroses when they are infected by the disease “rhinoceritis” was amazing. Tony was B\u00e9renger, the one man who did not turn into a rhinoceros, but who is still more of an anti-hero than a hero. And this is amateur theater! Ionesco is very clearly using “rhinoceritis” as a symbol for fascism. The whole production was fascinating.<\/p>\n

Another memory still very present was the occasion of the tryouts for “Blood Wedding” by Garcia Lorca, probably the most gripping and sad play Regina ever produced.<\/p>\n

In the tryouts, a very bright student of mine, Joan Stern, took her seat on the candidate\u2019s chair and started reading several different lines of the Mother\u2019s in the play. We were stunned. The girl was spellbinding. There was no question about it. She was going to make the play a great success \u2013 which she did. Well, she and the other actors. Laura Solow, the wonderful musician who was also in my French 3 sophomore class, was the Bride. She was also excellent.<\/p>\n

They were all wonderful. I could hardly believe how a young girl like Joan Stern could be a natural actress the way she clearly was. Of course she had the script and she had worked on the part before the tryouts, but hearing her reading the part, almost making us feel that we were seeing the play, was astounding.<\/p>\n

I see from a Facebook site on Mamaroneck High School theater that Regina also did a couple of musicals, “My Fair Lady” being one of them. Quite a production for a high school theater group. That was the year when I had a leave of absence and I was in Paris teaching English, on the urging of my wonderful friend and colleague, Janet  Rogowski.<\/p>\n

I have found out via Facebook that my ex-husband Allyn played the Hungarian fake linguist, Zoltan Kaparthy, who had once taken lessons from Professor Higgins. This was unusual, since teachers didn\u2019t normally act in Regina\u2019s productions. But Allyn would have been a natural to play “that dreadful Hungarian”, as Professor Higgins refers to him, with his beard and long hair. He had, however, let go his seedy-looking hunting jacket for the occasion.<\/p>\n

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Das Theater am Schiffbauerdamm, East Berlin 1983, Berliner Ensemble — sign on top of the tower<\/p><\/div>\n

________________<\/p>\n

And there was “The Threepenny Opera” \u2013<\/strong> in German ”Die Dreigroschenoper'”<\/em>. My lifelong connection to Bertolt Brecht\u2019s and Kurt Weill\u2019s masterpiece began in 1946. The play’s first opening in Germany was on 31 August 1928 at the Berliner Ensemble, Theater am Schiffbauerdamm<\/em>, founded by  Bertholt Brecht, a Marxist. However, because of the rising Nazi movement, he and Kurt Weill, with wife Lotte Lenya, were wise to escape to the U.S. in 1933.<\/p>\n

\u2018We\u2019 did ‘The Threepenny Opera’ in April 1946 at our theater in Malm\u00f6 and I definitely remember certain scenes, even though I was just 13. I was in my first year of German in lyc\u00e9e,  and I learned some of the texts of my favorite songs by heart, strongly inspired by Arne of course, who spoke excellent German.<\/p>\n

More about “our” performance of “The Threepenny Opera” at Malm\u00f6 Stadsteater in 1946 in “Chapter 4<\/a> <\/strong>\u2013 My youth and the theater “.<\/p>\n

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Mr and Mrs P\u00ebachum, the beggar king and his wife \u2013 Stina St\u00e5hle and Robert Johnson. (Photo Molin)<\/p><\/div>\n

I saw the movie from 1931 before leaving Sweden for the U.S., The legendary Lotte Lenya, who at that time had a very good voice, not strong but very dramatic, was the whore and  ‘Die Seer\u00e4uberjenny’<\/a> (Pirate Jenny) and she sings my very favorite song with her very natural and seemingly unschooled voice.<\/p>\n

I even managed to find that very recording in a CD many decades later in France.<\/p>\n

My favorite excerpts<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Und das Schiff mit acht Segeln
\nUnd mit f\u00fcnfzig Kanonen
\nWird beschiessen die Stadt.
\n\u2026
\nUnd legen ihn in Ketten und bringen vor mir
\nUnd mich fragen \u201cWelchen sollen wir t\u00f6ten?\u201d
\nUnd an diesem Mittag wird es still sein am Hafen
\nWenn man fragt, wer wohl sterben muss.
\nUnd dann werden Sie mich sagen h\u00f6ren \u201cAlle!\u201d
\nUnd wenn dann der Kopf f\u00e4llt, sage ich \u201dHoppla!\u201d1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

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Mrs Peachum is telling the “whore” (Inge Waern) to keep her hands off Mack the Knife. (Photo Molin, 1946)<\/p><\/div>\n

Sadly I don\u2019t remember our beautiful Inge Waern, who was Pirate Jenny singing that song, but I do remember several other scenes. This was the beginning of my fascination for “The Threepenny Opera”. 2<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

I was delighted when Regina said they were going to do this wonderful play at the MHS Theater. More about this in Chapter 4 \u2013 My youth and the theater<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Regina told us later \u2013 we were not present at the tryouts \u2013 that she asked our number-one male lead, Tony Schwab, to play Mack the Knife. Tony said \u201cBut I can\u2019t sing\u201d. Regina just very simply replied \u201cOf course you can\u201d. The part of Mack the Knife does not really require a very good singing voice. This is of course not really an opera and it is mainly Pirate Jenny\u2019s main song that is a bit difficult to sing.<\/p>\n

Allyn and I attended many rehearsals, and we even took over for Regina once when she couldn\u2019t be there herself. We became a fixture in this play, more than in any of the other productions. Being Regina’s assistants was our outside curriculum activity, and we could not have asked for anything better.<\/p>\n

The show was a great success and even “Der Kanonensong”, which had made Tony particularly nervous, a duo between Mack the Knife (Mackie Messer) and Tiger-Brown came off very well. The two men are reminiscing about their days as soldiers in India.<\/p>\n

After the show was over, the whole cast presented Allyn and me with an LP record of the complete set of songs in English. It was a very moving gesture that we greatly appreciated. I had it until our French record player broke down in the late 80s.  Before leaving for France, we had to give my Garrard record player to our best friends, since it would not work in France on 220 volt. My Wharfedale speakers are still working beautifully and we complemented them with two of John\u2019s speakers for our bedroom upstairs.<\/p>\n

The “Threepenny Opera” was certainly the high point during my six years at Mamaroneck High School, but there was another event that sticks in my mind. Allyn and a younger English teacher colleague had the idea of performing Edward Albee\u2019s “The Zoo Story”, one of my very favorite plays by Albee, which is saying a lot. I didn\u2019t know Allyn was all that fascinated by “The Zoo Story”, but he certainly knew I was.<\/p>\n

This was in the spring of 1970 when Allan and I had separated.<\/p>\n

I suddenly learned, in fact from Allyn himself, that he was doing “The Zoo Story” with a colleague (whose name escapes me, even though he once took me to a French restaurant on the East side. I called him the over-achiever. He had even studied at Oxford.). I even sat in on a rehearsal, but of course I had no comments to make. Allyn, the former speech and drama teacher, was a pro for this kind of thing.<\/p>\n

D-Day came around and it seemed as if the entire school, teachers and all were assembled in the amphitheater Allyn had mysteriously found. An excellent venue (as the term is nowadays) for this kind of small-stage performance. The lights go up and the play begins. We are in upper Central Park and a man is sitting on a park bench, reading a paper, the only stage paraphernalia.<\/p>\n

Allyn is Jerry of course, the important part.<\/p>\n

Jerry: \u201cI said, I\u2019ve been to the zoo. MISTER, I\u2019VE BEEN TO THE ZOO!\u201d \u2026 \u201cAnd the zoo is around Sixty-5th Street; so, I\u2019ve been walking north. \u201c \u2026 \u201cGood old north.\u201d\u2026 \u201c[after a slight pause] \u201cBut not due north.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peter: \u201cI \u2026 well, no, not due north; but, we \u2026 call it north. It\u2019s northerly.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few trite questions and answers kind of strip Peter naked; he wants to go back to his reading and he is getting a bit irritated by the disturbance. Peter has said that he has two daughters, a perroquet and cats..<\/p>\n

JERRY: But you wanted boys.
\nPETER: Well \u2026 naturally, every man wants a son, but \u2026
\nJERRY: [lightly mocking] But that\u2019s the way the cookie crumbles?
\n\u2026 Oh, look; I\u2019m not going to rob you, and I\u2019m not going to kidnap your parakeets, your cats, or your daughters.
\n\u2026
\nPETER: Oh, I thought you lived in the Village.
\nJERRY: What were you trying to do? Make sense out of things? Bring order? The old pigeon hole bit? Well, that\u2019s easy; I\u2019ll tell you. I live in a four-story brownstone rooming-house on the upper West Side between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West. I live on the top floor; rear; west. It\u2019s a laughably small room, and one of my walls is made of beaverboard; this beaverboard separates my room from another laughably small room, so I assume that the two rooms were once one room, a small room, but not necessarily laughable.<\/p>\n

For “Story of Jerry and the Dog”, Allyn had found an excellent solution. It\u2019s an extremely long monologue, so he sets the entire room in total darkness, and he turns on the tape recorder where he has registered the entire speech. It was spell-binding, sitting in the dark, listening to Allyn\u2019s baritone voice telling the long story<\/p>\n

And so the play develops into the final scenes with \u201cMove over.\u201d On the bench where Jerry has finally sat down, after just standing still and then walking around. And then again \u201cMove over!\u201d, until Jerry finally manages to get Peter to kill him.<\/p>\n

At the end of the play the audience exploded in applause, that seemed to never stop.<\/p>\n

Albee has made this put-down of bourgeois mentality and ways of living into a play by having Peter kill Jerry at the end. Certainly the play is also about the emptiness, the meaninglessness of life, but I see it first of all as a denunciation of bourgeois banality. The two aspects are holding hands of course in this play. The perroquet and the knife that kills Jerry at the end. This may also be seen as a second generation existentialist play, and I prefer it by far to Sartre’s “No Exit”.<\/p>\n

When I came back from my one-year stint as an English teacher at Paris Universit\u00e9 du Sud \u00e0 Orsay,<\/em> Regina was married and she had left Mamaroneck High School. I missed her.<\/p>\n

__________________<\/p>\n

Another high-point theater event took place in the fall of 1971. Le Tr\u00e9teau de Paris<\/em>, the famous French touring theater group was going to put on a play, “Caligula'”<\/em>by Albert Camus at the auditorium of Mamaroneck High School. This was the first time I had seen a play by another theater group performed on our stage.<\/p>\n

It got to be a most unusual and fascinating theater performance, not to say unique. Due to a strike by the traffic controllers at O\u2019Hare Airport, the group nearly missed leaving Chicago in time to get to New York for a performance at our high school auditorium. Chicago was where they had last performed. However, the actors miraculously managed to get on a flight to an airport close to Mamaroneck, but all the props and costumes were left behind. That did not deter them, at least not for long. From the stage, before the beginning of the play, as we had been sitting there for quite a while eagerly waiting to find out if there was going to be a performance or not, they announced to us, the audience, what the situation was and asked us to bear with them since they would have to perform the play without props.<\/p>\n

It was simply amazing. The actors were so skillful that you almost forgot that they were not really holding the imagined props in their hands. An unforgettable performance, and for more than one reason.<\/p>\n

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Albert Camus who was rewarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1957 (Photo Wikipedia)<\/p><\/div>\n

First of all the Caligula in Camus\u2019 play does not bear much resemblance to the historical character. My memory of Camus\u2019 Caligula is of a pessimist, but an idealist, who wants to do the impossible. He is reaching for the moon. It\u2019s the passion for the impossible that stirs this Caligula.<\/p>\n

The poster that was given out at the performance was expressive of a man\u2019s wish to accomplish the impossible, and I found it extremely moving. I am not sure if the performance we saw was the same as the one at Le Th\u00e9\u00e2tre La Bruy\u00e8re in 1970, by Georges Vitaly, but the poster was certainly the same.<\/p>\n

It is one of Camus\u2019 plays that belongs to the category \u2018the theater of the absurd\u2019 \u2013 He speaks of the “utter loneliness”, which could be the characteristic of God. “To be God is to be perfectly lonely.” \u201cLe sentiment de l\u2019absurde conf\u00e8re<\/em> \u00e0 Caligula<\/em> une libert\u00e9<\/em> nouvelle, d\u00e8s lors qu\u2019il sait que sa condition est sans espoir.\u201d<\/em>. (The feeling of the absurd gives Caligula a new freedom, as he sees that his condition is hopeless — “Caligula d’Albert Camus” by Rapha\u00eblle O\u2019Brien)<\/p>\n

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Caligula reaching for the moon<\/p><\/div>\n

Camus says that Caligula is the \u201cabsurd hero\u201d (\u201cle h\u00e9ros absurde d\u2019une peinture de caract\u00e8re\u201d). Also, on the death of Drusilla, his sister and his mistress, Caligula utters the famous words \u201cLes hommes meurent et ils ne sont pas heureux.\u201d (\u201cPeople die and they are not happy.\u201d \u2013 Caligula de Camus, Act I, scene IV<\/a>)<\/p>\n

I would prefer, however, instead of attempting a scholarly analysis, to keep my own impression of the lonely emperor who dreams of reaching the moon, but in no way is an evil emperor. This was not Caligula the tyrant, but Caligula the poet. Camus himself sees Caligula differently from the impression given by the poster and also by the performance we saw in 1971.<\/p>\n

In his own words<\/a>: \u201cCaligula, prince relativement aimable jusque-l\u00e0, s\u2019aper\u00e7oit \u00e0 la mort de Drusilla, sa s\u0153ur et sa ma\u00eetresse, que le monde tel qu\u2019il va n\u2019est pas satisfaisant. D\u00e8s lors, obs\u00e9d\u00e9 d\u2019impossible, empoisonn\u00e9 de m\u00e9pris et d\u2019horreur, il tente d\u2019exercer, par le meurtre et la perversion syst\u00e9matique de toutes les valeurs, une libert\u00e9 dont il d\u00e9couvrira pour finir qu\u2019elle n\u2019est pas la bonne. Il r\u00e9cuse l\u2019amiti\u00e9 et l\u2019amour, la simple solidarit\u00e9 humaine, le bien et le mal.\u201d 3<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Continued \u2013<\/a>Chapter 19 \u2013 Paris is worth a mass<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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    \n
  1. \n

    The heartbreaking performance of Nina Simone<\/a> who sang it in 1964, transformed it to a Black Power song, completely different from the way Lotte Lenya had sung it.<\/p>\n

    There\u2019s a ship
    \nThe Black Freighter
    \nTurns around in the harbor
    \nShootin\u2019 guns from her bow
    \n\u2026
    \nAnd they\u2019re chainin\u2019 up people
    \nAnd they\u2019re bringin\u2019 em to me
    \nAskin\u2019 me,
    \n\u201cKill them NOW, or LATER?\u201d
    \nAskin\u2019 ME!
    \n\u201cKill them now, or later?\u201d
    \n\u2026 And in that quiet of death
    \nI\u2019ll say, \u201cRight now.
    \nRight now!\u201d
    \nThen they pile up the bodies
    \nAnd I\u2019ll say,
    \n\u201cThat\u2019ll learn ya!\u201d     ↩<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n

  2. More photos from the performance of “The Threepenny Opera” at Malm\u00f6 Stadsteater<\/a> in 1946 \u2013<\/strong> Photo Magda Molin ↩<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Translation \u2013 \u201cCaligula, a relatively kind prince so far, realizes on the death of Drusilla, his sister and his mistress, that the world the way it is is going is not perfect, that “people die and they are not happy.\u201d Therefore, obsessed by the quest for the Absolute and poisoned by contempt and horror, he tries to exercise, through murder and systematic perversion of all values, a freedom which he discovers in the end is not good. He rejects friendship and love, simple human solidarity, good and evil.\u201d) ↩<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    At Mamaroneck High School, we had a wonderful speech and drama department, in my time run by very competent and beautiful Regina Frey. Allyn and I got the extra-curricular activity of assisting in the drama department. What a dream! “We” … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":1026,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1078","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/siv-sketches.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/siv-sketches.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/siv-sketches.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siv-sketches.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siv-sketches.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1078"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/siv-sketches.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32608,"href":"https:\/\/siv-sketches.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1078\/revisions\/32608"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siv-sketches.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/siv-sketches.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}