Epilogue: the Tale of the Five Cab Drivers
It was the Fall semester production at the small community college where I teach in Southern California. I was the only theatre instructor, so I wore the various hats of producer, director, set designer, lighting/sound designer, teacher, mentor, and slave-driver. I had selected Harvey by Mary Chase, which is a wonderful American comedy from the mid-twentieth century. The play is published by Dramatists.
Because I teach at a school which has is about 80% Hispanic, I came up with a crazy idea to produce Harvey as a bi-lingual production. In my script analysis, I selected several scenes which could be performed in Spanish. One of the scenes I selected was what I referred to as the Cab Driver scene.
Late in the play, after Elwood P. Dowd has finally agreed to accept the injection of the drug which will prevent him from seeing Harvey, the Cab Driver comes in for a very short scene. He has been waiting in front of the sanitarium and has not yet been paid. He enters the reception room to ask Elwood’s sister, Veta Louise, for his payment. She can’t find her coin purse, and no one else on stage at that point has any money, so he knocks on the doctor’s office door to have Elwood come out and pay the Cab Driver. I needed the dialogue with Veta Louise to be delivered in English, but I figured I could have the dialogue between Elwood and the Cab Driver in Spanish.
I sent a letter to Dramatists, explaining my bi-lingual idea and asking for permission to proceed. Meanwhile, I went ahead with auditions, seeking bi-lingual actors for the scenes I wanted in Spanish.
I had several young men in my acting class who auditioned for the play. I cast Juan. Juan was a little older than the average students, and he had a quiet demeanor which brought a nice contrast with the character of Veta Louis. There was another young man, Nestor, who had talent, but he was a little young for the role. (I kept Nestor in mind, and assigned him a position as an assistant stage manager, just in case any problem arose with Juan.)
About three weeks into blocking rehearsals, I was ready to work with Juan. He came to several rehearsals. We still had not yet heard back from Dramatists, so I had Juan working with the text in English and in Spanish. But then Juan missed a rehearsal.
Juan showed up at my office the next day. His mother had been admitted to the hospital for what appeared to be a lengthy stay. He needed to stay home and take care of his younger sister. He apologized for leaving the play, and he informed me that he was dropping the class. I wished him well. Then I called my stage manager to call Nestor.
As it turned out, Nestor had been somewhat offended when he hadn’t been cast in the first place. He didn’t really like the idea of being an assistant stage manager. He’d gone on with his life and stopped coming to rehearsals. My stage manager made several attempts to reach him, but was not successful.
But there was another student in the acting class who had developed a friendly relationship with the other students. When I announced that I was without a Cab Driver, several students suggested that I take a look at Nelson. Nelson was called and quickly accepted the role. He didn’t mind coming to rehearsals and sitting around for an hour and a half while I worked with the other actors. He was glad to be a part of the show.
Finally, the response from Dramatists arrived. They had checked with the playwright’s agent, and they were writing to inform me that I could not perform the requested scenes in Spanish. Even though the play itself has been translated into Spanish, Dramatists only handles the English version of the play. I was instructed to perform the play as written. (I really didn’t mind the news because the actor playing Elwood P. Dowd did not speak Spanish very well.)
Then one night, a night I’m sure Nelson now regrets deeply, Nelson brought a toy gun to rehearsal. The cast and I were taking a break. Nelson was bored from sitting around for an hour and a half, and he was anxious to get to work on his scene. And in his boredom, and while we were on break, he took out his toy gun as a joke. The problem was that I, the director/producer/teacher, looked up from across the room and saw him point the weapon at one of the other students.
There was no acceptable explanation for his having a gun in my rehearsal. The school’s policy is very clear. The nation was still mourning the September 11th attacks, and our troops were fighting in Afghanistan. I didn’t care whether it was a toy or not; it looked like a gun, it was a gun. And Nelson was asked (commanded) to leave immediately. He was fired from the production, and a report of the incident was filed with the Dean of Students.
We were then about ten days away from opening night, and I’ve already been through three Cab Drivers. I had a student coming in a few days later, to run the sound board, and I made the decision to offer him the role. He would be able to run the sound board throughout the show, go around and onstage for the Cab Driver’s scene, and get back to the booth in time for the curtain call.
Mario was scheduled to arrive Saturday morning at 8:30 a.m. for the dry tech rehearsal. The actors would be arriving at 10:00 to start the cue-to-cue rehearsal. Everything would be fine.
But Mario never showed up. We found out later that he had been called into work that day. Even though he had previously given me a firm commitment to work my sound board beginning with cue-to-cue and running through closing night, he figured he needed to go to work that Saturday instead. Okay, I fired him too.
We ended up calling in the drama instructor at one of the local high schools. He was sufficiently early in his own rehearsal schedule for the high school production that he could come to our rehearsals and performances. Manuel pulled a costume together from his own closet at home, memorized the lines (in English) overnight, and helped carry the show through closing. He also ran my sound board (since I fired Mario).
The moral of the story is . . . show up. Theatre happens every day, everywhere in American and around the world. Theatre is a community art form; the solo performance/solo production is very rare. Theatre is about working together, it’s about teamwork. Sometimes your feelings will be hurt. Sometimes you will hurt someone else’s feelings. But remember, theatre is an art form that is unique in its structure and presentation. It only exists from the opening of the curtain to the closing of the curtain, from lights up to lights out. You can be a part of it, or you can live your life apart from it.
Be there. And enjoy.