I Loved To Teach

Vincent Mathews was a challenge both in the English classroom and onstage. He required absolute perfection of himself. When he was Capt. Von Trapp in that school’s production of The Sound of Music, he told me that he had reserved five hours on Sunday to go over his lines. “Vince,” I said, flabbergasted, “You have known all of your lines for three full weeks.”

“I know, Mr. Rhoades, but Marla and I went to Footlight Musicals in Indianapolis on Friday and to Indy Civic Theater’s show on Saturday, and in both shows actors for whom the programs showed many credits backtracked repeatedly on their lines. I am not going to do that.”

And Vincent’s whole person changed as he studied that role. His carriage was military and commanding. Even in class he sat on the edge of his seat with his rigid back never touching the seat, exactly as I had once seen a cadet sit on our living room furniture when he came to visit.

After the show the principal offered this assurance: “Vincent Mathew’s is a professional!”

“No,” I said, “but he’s very good for a high school kid.”

“You’re wrong, Jack. At Ball State University my wife and I attended every professional show that came to Emans Auditorium for four years. The difference between an amateur and a professional is that when a professional is onstage, you know there is no way he is gonna make a mistake.”

“By that definition Vincent is certainly a pro,” I acknowledged.

“You’re dern right.”

*        *        *

When former students reminisce, I hope they will remember how often I said, “Touch him” or “Touch her.” We are rearing a generation of people who only know how to touch in a sexual manner or in violence. My desire for my kids was to have an open avenue to show kindness and express personal affection that is full of respect. It is appalling to ask a group to write or speak about someone they admire and have so many say, “I don’t admire anyone.” Say what?? I also think the sure mark of an amateur onstage is avoiding the touch or cringing to the touch.

To add poignancy to an emotional moment in my first production of Brigadoon at Lapel, I asked Tommy to use his index finger to brush a tear gently from Fiona’s eye (when there wasn’t a tear.) It became a tender moment, indeed in performance there was a tear and he wiped it away with two fingers as he sang “I’ll be yours from this day on.” Margaret leaned over and said, “You told him to do that, didn’t you?”

One night a photographer from the Shelbyville, Indiana, paper came to get a picture for a story. Vincent and Mary Pence were through posing and we went right into their love scene. I always warned actors in advance when it was time to begin the kissing so that when it came time to kiss for the first time, there would be no hesitation, although it would be fine to underplay it. “If you just do it tonight, we will go right on, and there will be no opportunity for harassment.”

But this was not the first time, and I was polishing the technique I wanted them to use. I used my hands to represent the two heads as they came together, parted, turned, came together again and held as the lights faded and she gently laid her head upon his chest and gazed into his eyes. They did it well the first time, but I made a few suggestions and called out, “Let’s try that again. Quiet, please.” And immediately they performed the operation even better than the first time. “Okay,” I said. “I think that’s really good. Now do it once more for the lighting cues, then we’ll go back to the lead-in and finish the scene.” And without hesitation (because they both had a fine-tuned sense of moving an audience and knew how good this had to be to convince), they did that love scene perfectly. The photographer watched all this without moving to leave. As they went back to set the scene, he moved to my side and just said, “You do know this is incredible, don’t you?”

*        *        *

Vincent–I loved that brilliant kid whose life and mind were so important in defining me and what I was myself capable of doing. He was the best I had encountered, and I would be sure to recognize that drive whenever I encountered it thereafter. I was certain he had the capacity to surpass the finest actors of the century. At Depauw University, where he majored in drama his freshman year, he was the only member of the freshman class with a 4.0 at the end of the year, and he was the first student ever to get an “A” in acting from that difficult professor who gave him “B’s” at first because he believed no one was good enough for an “A”.

After his first appearance on the college scene, the director (same guy) took me aside to tell me that Vince was the best-prepared student actor he had ever encountered. They frightened him, I believe, when they asked him why he didn’t go to New York right then. “You will find work,” they said. Vincent was the consummate scholar, and he changed his major, changed colleges and stayed in school. I firmly believe that if a person CAN do anything other than theater, he should. When he told me he had decided to study medicine, I told him that I believed that to be the most praiseworthy of all professions.

Vincent had told me once as we worked on scenery that he had visited Depauw and found everyone studying all weekend. “Every other person I met was a valedictorian. I’m not going there.” He then told me that he had sent a deposit to nearby Franklin College.

I told him I had not felt it was my place to influence his decisions, but I had hoped he would not go there because Rick Culver was there and was partying too much to make good grades. I knew they spent a lot of time together on weekends. Vince assured me he was the designated driver and was not a “bad influence” (ha) on Rick as a certain substitute teacher had said. I asked Vince if he had ever heard of positive peer pressure. “Rick should be getting straight “A’s” over there.”

Imagine my surprise near the end of our second semester when Rick Culver came through the doors at the far end of the gym and hollered, “Hey, Mr. Rhoades, I have something I want you to see.” What he showed me that day was his final grade card with those straight “A’s” I had suggested.

Imagine even more how I must have felt about fifteen years later when I saw that Judge Richard Culver, now living in Greenfield, was passing my door. Then he backed up and blinked his eyes as he looked at my newly set-up little-theater classroom. I could hear him thinking, “Wow, wouldn’t Mr. Rhoades have loved a classroom like this!” Then he discovered me standing at the lectern in front of my class. He came in and shook my hand. Then he put his arm around my shoulder—he was as tall as I was short—and addressed the class: “Kids, I am Judge Culver. Some of you have come before me. (Heads nodded) I wouldn’t normally just walk in and interrupt a class in this way, but this man is the greatest teacher I ever had. I would not be a judge today if it weren’t for him. In fact, I’d probably be in jail. (Another ha!) And just like that, he was gone. I was so taken aback that I just went back and sat at my desk to discretely dab at my eyes.

(As I sit here at my desk/coffee table, I notice a book, Croatoan, by Richard D. Culver.  It was sent to me by my son John, who still lives in Greenfield.  It is inscribed to him, so I imagine he expects me to return it when I have finished reading it.  I should mention that I didn’t teach him to write, I taught him in speech class, and I taught him to act—he did some fine stuff for us—but it was probably Ruby Nay who taught him to write well.)

Be Sociable, Share!

•