In having a year to teach, believing it would be my last, I had let down many of the barriers which, as a young teacher, I had erected to protect myself and my actors. I felt I had made certain that other students in my classes could in no way discern any partiality toward these actors. If anything, I was harder on them than on others. Sometimes, outstanding freshman students had been accustomed to preferential treatment from teachers who loved their determination and brightness. These scholars found it hard to adjust to the manner of my treatment—I wanted to spare them the jealousy of classmates. A sensitive person can feel the resentment when one person gets too much praise. My praise for the gifted was subtle and personal (as was my criticism or condemnation of the others), whereas praise for the less motivated might have seemed lavish. I recall a situation in which an athletic boy who generally did quite well had a cheat sheet between his legs during a test. After I saw it, I strolled up another aisle and came down from behind, reached over and quietly wrote on his paper, “I can see that.” I waited until I was grading to put the “F” on the paper.
Later, years later, I was to teach for seventeen years with his brother. I never regretted that I had not made a public example of that boy and caused him to suffer humiliation.
I had also determined to avoid deeply personal relationships with students. I’m sure it saved me many hassles. But in 1974, after a summer at a drama workshop program in which we students did all the production work for an established Crawfordsville, Indiana, theater group’s seven plays in seven weeks, I was a changed man. The staff at Wabash College had been at times cruel and very impersonal. It fortifies the opinion that there are often negative change factors.
It was the first summer for this program that was funded by Eli Lilly, and, after seven successful productions from which I learned a great deal, they had a final session in which they asked for feedback. We let them have it, remembering that four participants (we were all teachers who directed high school plays) had exited the first week in disappointment and frustration, and if I was any measure of judgment, most of us were homesick.
On the second day I had been sent above the stage (three stories up a spiral staircase in the stage-right wing, walking precariously on rafters to reach a rope on the other side of the stage. I was to release some needed prop suspended there for storage. As I reached the rope, the professor waiting onstage explained that he had a phone call and left me up there in the staggering heat from the lights below for about twenty minutes. I felt quite faint and really feared falling. On the third day I was sent alone to the experimental theater in which the “house” consisted of bleachers on three sides. This arena was used on alternate weeks for shows such as Butterflies Are Free. Many of the pins used to adjust height were missing from the bleacher legs (I think they could only have been removed on purpose to give me this miserable job.) Again and again I lifted the weight of the bleachers above with my back while I replaced the missing pin. My strained muscles bothered me for a week. Each evening I served as stage manager for the first production, Roar of the Greasepaint, Smell of the Crowd.
Anyway, at the evaluation session they explained their strategy for putting us “in our places.” One of the young profs said they had decided to “make them eat shit.” I, on the other hand, had, after my initiation, been put in a leadership position as the teacher with the most theatrical experience, and I found most of my colleagues eager to work and able to excel. I lavished praise on them.
Before the first mainstage rehearsal for the final show, Carnival, I sensed that the scenery had hit a snag and was at a standstill. At midnight of that rehearsal, I placed myself in the row above the scenery guru, feet at the level of his shoulders. The auditorium had deep stadium seating so that I had a clear view of his clipboard. I could see that the designs were incomplete. That was all I needed. I really wanted to get to the library for children’s books, but there wasn’t time. (No internet yet, alas) I looked through the West Lafayette Sunday newspaper ads and found a Circus of Values full-page ad. I began to sketch and adapt the circus wagon to “Cirque de Paris” for Carnival. I had made it a point to help the very fine artist who was responsible for producing the great set-ups for the lobby. She worked alone, unheralded, in the basement room below the stage. I knew she would help me if I asked. Then I approached the man-in-charge about where we would start when the cast left the stage. He said something like, “Do you have any ideas?”
I said I thought I had a couple of good ideas for the front circus wagon and the advertising banners. He said, “Be my guest.” That day I worked alone on the front wagon, painting the wheels and laying out the lettering, just getting it started. The next morning I beat the others up and hit the library for lettering styles appropriate to “Siamese Twins,” “the Strong Man,” “Harem Girls,” and “the Sword Swallower.” I showed the choices to Mary, the artist downstairs who said, “Let’s go for it!” In return, I helped her set up the lobby that week.
I had cut the heavy canvas and penciled in the letters, and in less than ten minutes each, she had figures sketched. I stapled the canvases to the scenery frame that passed through the floor stage left as you moved it up and down. I mixed the paint and asked for volunteers to paint these while I worked on the wagon. They worked so carefully that even I was surprised at the manner with which they brought the canvases to life. I lavished praise on them, and work began to be fun—often so much fun that we worked until 3a.m. As these things progressed, the second wagon floundered. It was ugly. Then I was approached with, “I think the style of the two wagons really has to match. Could you do the wheels on the other wagon too?”
“Certainly. And what about the figure of Marco, the Magnificent? Wouldn’t it be great to have the face of our Marco there?”
“Go for it!” I got a wallet photo, and Mary went for it—she sketched, I painted. Portraits were easy for her. But she insisted upon doing her sketching when no one else could see that she was the artist because she was stepping beyond her responsibilities. Maintaining secrecy working on the banners had been easy—I had taken them briefly to her basement workroom. This was more difficult; we had to work onstage during a lunch break. But when the face was added to the poorly formed body of Marco, it became recognizable and passable.
