U.C.L.A. 1943

Whitman’s Passion / Stories Never Told

3. Music for the Theatre

written by Dana Forline Skolfield

Music for the Theatre

  After a battery of tests and passing priority “Subject A” English exams, Dana is accepted at U.C.L.A., resident in a co-op on Gayley Avenue in Westwood’s “fraternity row.”  Built in the 1930s, the co-op is a modern, pink building with lots of windows, somehow surviving among the elegant, white stucco, red style roof Spanish style fraternity houses, most of them built a decade earlier, declarations of private bastions for sons of wealthy parents.

  No fraternity life for Dana.  Dad Carl initially allows him twenty-nine dollars to pay for registration, student identity card, and as many class units he can handle—and only ten bucks for the first month’s rent at the co-op.  As he takes the paper bills out of his wallet, step-mother Alice Ruth, standing by his side, winces, and again he’s reminded of his departure from 4610, and his grandmother grumbling, “My sons never went to college.”

  In war time accelerated three-month semesters, classes at U.C.L.A.  begin on July 5, 1943, only twelve days after, at Oxy Bowl, he graduates from Franklin in euphoric splendor, singing in the chorus, “The Heavens Rebound with Praises Eternal.”  He’s seventeen—almost a year to go before he’ll get drafted.

  Major in theatre isn’t offered at U.C.L.A. and  Dad won’t tolerate “dramatics” of any kind, if he wants his support—sparse though it is.  Goaded by Franklin High’s math and science teachers, he’s been presented a three-by-five card engraved with, To support the war effort, Dana Skolfield will major in math and science in college.

  Then, just in time discovering the existence of “Campus Theatre” and drama classes available in the College of Applied Arts, so he thumbs his nose at science and math.  (His only “C” in high school had been in Chemistry.)  To satisfy his father, he’ll major in German, telling him it’s a good language to have in case he gets sent to Europe.  Carl shrugs.

  How disturbing it must have been for his dad when months later Dana is dancing on the Royce Hall stage and asks Alice Ruth to sew a tail on a pair of green tights for his role as a faun in a Bacchanal in “Campus Theatre Presents Campus Theatre.”  Carl is not pleased but he and Alice Ruth do attend the performance, driven there by his sister Alic. (His dad never learned how to drive.)

  One of the first things Dana learns as he travels the hallways of Royce Hall, is to resist greeting a Campus Theatre star twice—certainly not thrice!—on the same day.  A second greeting and especially a third, rewards him a patronizing smile, if he’s lucky; more likely a glazed-over stare, the very important person hurrying by as if on a mission of great consequence, far too subtle and profound to share with the lowly, wet-behind-the-ears, fresh out of high school amateur as they disappear into Campus Theatre’s temporary HQ, smoke-filled Room 169, just beyond the arches and the quad.  Why the boy’s only seventeen!

  How he yearns for their embrace, to tell them about Kathryn Offill, all his glorious theatrical achievements at Franklin, and difficult it is to avoid these multiple contacts in the course of a day as up and own down the hall from classes and rehearsals they come and go, makers and doers, crowding into RH 169: Ralph Freud, “Mr.  Freud” pronounced “Frood,” occasionally present, snuggled into a leather chair much too large for the room, holding court.  Nanci Jepson, skinny, flat chested dance director, haughtiest of them all, who often doesn’t say hello to anyone.  Young Kathleen Freeman, solidly rotund and jovial.  She will celebrate a long career in films—perhaps the reader will remember her as the librarian in the film, “Chances Are” harassing Mary Stuart Masterson, who’s rescued from her by Robert Downey Jr.

  Estelle Karchmer, graduate assistant, currently from L.A. City College, taut, terse, sexually taunting.  Barbara Welch, not a pretty girl, dark-haired and it seems to him, as virginal as a Girl Scout Troup Leader.  Brainard Duffield, star of Campus Theatre, considered their own John Barrymore (he drinks, heavily and acts like an actor off stage).  Dr.  Walden P.  Boyle, bit player appearing in black and white movies behind teller cages and hotel desks.  Robert Tyler Lee, spectacled, tall and remote, who will direct him in the Titanic scene from Noel Coward’s “Cavalcade” as part of “Campus Cabaret.”

  Ralph Freud, he will learn years later (at the time, Dana has no interest in personal histories), has appeared in Cavalcade in its first American production at the Pasadena Playhouse on June 6, 1934, as Robert Marryot; Robert Lee as “Art Director,” Martha Deane as Mrs.  Marryot.  With Deane, already a dance director at U.C.L.A., Freud is asked to create a theatre department.  War has delayed its full development.

  Dana is told it’s essential to learn stage movement and dance—“Dance is a big deal at U.C.L.A.,” claims a biographer of Myra Kinch.  Robert Tyler Lee, now professor of costume design, even before Ralph Freud’s tenure, has danced with Kinch at U.C.L.A.  in recitals staged by Martha Deane, head of the dance department.

  In September, on cue, Myra Kinch, fiery Terpsichore, appears in Dana’s life without fanfare with husband Manuel Galéa, small, dark, mildly mannered composer.  They’ve just finished a stint at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in Tanglewood in the Berkshires, Massachusetts.  In her class, Dana sweats in black tights and T-shirt, twisting, jumping, lifting girls—and worshiping Myra Kinch.  Who could resist her flowing auburn hair, tilted nose, and face of a wood nymph?

Myra Kinch, Unknown Dancer

  Previous to this, in late summer ’43, Dana is cast in  “Campus Cabaret” to be presented in the faculty dining hall in Kerckhoff Hall’s student union—tables, tables, chairs cleared away for their stage.  No warm foggy days at the beach, and nights rehearsing, aromas drifting up from the first floor kitchen—coffee, chicken roasting, baked apple pies invading their makeshift theatre.  Hypnotic, living in a dream world, although his Titanic scene from “Cavalcade” is directed by Robert Tyler Lee, who doesn’t think much of him as an actor.

  In performance, Ralph Freud and Martha Deane, sit at a side table as impromptu narrators, exchanging views and comments on the cabaret’s offerings—what theatre is or should be; sometimes goading each other.  They wing it without a script.  Rumor is, Freud has trouble memorizing lines, but he’s a great ad-libber.

  “Campus Cabaret” – forever enshrined in heart and mind.  Brainard Duffield as Peter Stuyvesant (Walter Huston’s role on Broadway) sings an excerpt from “To War!” from Act Two of Maxwell Anderson’s musical, “Knickerbocker Holiday.”

  And they naturally accumulate experimental scars.  .  .

  Duffield as Oswald in the final “going mad” scene in Ibsen’s “Ghosts,” Mother, give me the sun .  .  .  Freud directing in rehearsal suggesting Duffield picture his brain as a carpenter’s level bubble, his brain tilting more and more off-center as he slips away into madness.

  In satirical tones, versatile Duffield sings a song from the Great War.

Mother dear, I have just finished mess
and I’m here at the Y-M-C-A!
How I miss your tender caress,
since the day when I first marched A-WAY!
Don’t you worry, Mother darling,
for when the skies are gray,
I can always find a little sunshine
At the Y – M – C – A!

  Barbara Welch obliterates her Girl Scout shyness to sing raucously:  She met her beau on Broadway, on Broadway, on Broadway, had a love in New York town, but-a think I’ll have to turn him down .  .  .  So he took her to Chicago, Chica-go-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh .  .  .

  “Campus Cabaret” lures him into a spellbinding snare—defined at last!—enchanting dreamscape.  He belongs. 

  Not an easy journey.  Directing him, Robert Tyler Lee complains, “You’re too immature!”  Loosen up!—it’s too artificial!  Your preparation for the stage in high school doesn’t count here!  Put some passion into it!”  Dana admits to himself he’s as stiff as a board.  Relaxed—he’s not.

  A different life altogether at the Gayley Co-op—sleeping in the lower bunk in a room brightly lit on sunny days by a large window looking out on poplar and sycamore trees, sharing the room with William Moseley, spindly, richly black, who aspires to make it as an artist, water colors tacked on the wall, explaining, “These I did ‘while ago, but my daddy wants me to major in business—so that’s what it is—boring!”  When Dana tells him about his major in German as convoluted means to getting classes in acting to satisfy his own “daddy,” Moseley connects with him at once, displaying sympathy by doubling up with laughter.  They don’t become “bosom buddies” exactly.  These are not the times in which a white guy can be seen running around with one born and brought up on the other side of Avalon Boulevard. 

  Dana has visited the “other side” of Avalon during a summer vacation at his grandmother’s house—their next door neighbor, Mrs.  Owen, a devout Catholic, takes him there on a visit to a Negro family—was it to bring them food—help with the washing?  He can’t remember; might’ve been a day his grandparents were off to Murietta Hot Springs for “the waters.”  East of Avalon is a strange world for sure.  People are actually dancing and singing in the streets!

  In the fall quarter at U.C.L.A., he goes to all the football games at the L.A.  Coliseum with his co-op buddies, screaming himself hoarse, flipping stunt cards at the command of cheerleaders, one of them a real “Joe College” hawking at them to get with it for the famous “U.C.L.A. “signature” stunt.  “Watch me – flip your card as I call your number,” the handwritten signature, U – C – L – A, spreading slowly across the bleachers in blue and gold—the signature seen today on helmets of Bruin players.

  After the first Saturday game, he rendezvous with his dad and Alice Ruth in Chinatown.  His dad roots for U.S.C., U.C.L.A.’s cross-town rival—no loyalty from him—not surprising.  Goading his dad, Dana reveals he has a negro roommate, Mosley, and his dad explodes, “What? You’re rooming with a Negro?”  (At least he doesn’t use the “N” word.)

  “Yes,” Dana replies, and that’s the end of it.  No further response from his dad—as always and forever, only a shrug.

  All Co-op residents are kept running with tasks, his daily chore, except on weekends, slurping peanut butter and jelly onto bread slices, making sandwiches for everyone in the house who packs a lunch.  He’s one of a four-man production line, radio blaring, Frank Sinatra crooning, I’ll Never Smile Again (until I smile at you) On Saturday mornings, all are expected to grab a mop and bucket of suds to wash down the stairs.

  “Open Night at the Sororities!”  In front of mirrors, they groom themselves for a visit to Sorority Row—the girls allowing visits from even lowly non-frat men like them, even if some of them might be 4F.  There’s a war on, the dating pool is depleted.

  Bill Matcha, pale complexioned, red-hair guy from Brooklyn, “tentatively Jewish” he says, sings, “I laid her on the slope,” taken up by one and all as they slick themselves in front of mirrors—“the slope,” small hills covered with pine trees rising up behind the western side of sorority row on Hilldale—especially pungent pines, stirring balsamic breezes on romantically warm January nights when the hot devil winds blow off the desert from the northeast driving away cool ocean air.  (“On a clear day you can see Catalina.”  The Pacific is only four miles away, seen from any high point on campus.)

  Trekking to the sororities, he and Bill are joined by Fred Volker who’s from Monongahela, Pennsylvania.  Fred’s got “coal miner’s” lung disease, so is 4-F, unfit for service—cynical, pessimistic Fred, pale and dour beneath jet black hair and thick brows.  After the football season ends, he and Dana get a job in the Village cleaning up a dimly lit second floor geophysicist’s gloomy workshop tucked away on the second floor.  Fred leaves them at the steps of the Phi Mu Sorority.  “I’m plain worn out,” he says.

  Dorothy Supp, not beautiful, certainly not Petty Girl “pretty,” introduces herself to Dana at the Phi Mu sorority.  He’s struck by her penetrating deep-set blue eyes—a motherly look, prominent cheekbones, voice mellow.  He’s drawn to her, although her figure is—well, questionable—not heavy, exactly—not overweight, and definitely not a girl who gorges herself at the dinner table—just large; not tall, square shaped.  Later she’ll explain her weight’s a “glandular problem.”  She’s friendly and warm, a deep, velvety voice.  Is she to become “the girl I want to marry?”

  He takes her up “the slope” beneath the pine trees, but nobody gets laid.  The night is warm, desert winds are blowing.  They exchange biographies, ambitions; Dorothy is majoring in Psychology.  A hug, a kiss, (lacking appropriate passion?).  They return to Phi Mu, and the house mother asks Bill and Dana if they’re interested in being their bus boys at dinnertime.

  Yes! for a few extra bucks each week and free evening meals.  Mrs.  Cook is the cook, as soft and round as one of her dumplings, great with basics—roast beef or chicken, mashed potatoes, peas and apple pie.  Dana tries to avoid conversations about religion; Mrs.  Cook’s a fundamentalist.  “Every word in the Bible is true,” she says, “and that’s that.”  The subject doesn’t bother Bill who’s not orthodox and perhaps not even conservative in his religion.  When he and Dana see “The Song of Bernadette” at the Criterion, Bill confesses he’s fascinated by Franz Werfel, the German Jewish author of “Song of Bernadette” who, escaping to France, converted to Christianity.

  Mrs.  Cook’s best shot is to call Dana a “worry-wart” as he dawdles over the sink, meticulously slopping a dish mop cleaning the china and silverware.

  Movie debut!  Shortage of young men forces studios to scrounge for extras, offering a whopping five dollars for one’s day’s work.  Bag lunches in hand, Dana, Fred, and Bill, hitchhike to Universal’s vast outdoor lot north of Cahuenga Pass, donning muddied GI battle gear to appear in “Gung Ho” starring Randolph Scott and Noah Berry, Jr.  During a break in the shooting, Director Ray Enright spots Dana sitting beneath a tree and calls him out to act as lead stretcher bearer, carrying wounded Marines to the hospital tent.  Edited into the final cut, Randolph Scott in close up barks: “Prepare to evacuate the wounded immediately!”  Cut back to the evacuation, Dana trudging into frame.  (Awaiting the draft in Neosho the following summer, he and sister, Little Jane, see the movie.  “There you are!” Jane whispers, but he hasn’t been alert enough to catch it.)

  Second movie, a few weeks later, in “The Eve of St.  Mark” at the old Fox studios at Western Avenue and Sunset Boulevard—tramping with a mob of freshly clothed GIs in bright olive green, boarding a ship for overseas; no camera advantage this time—he’s lost in the crowd.

  But this other world will never replace the magic of Campus Theatre.

I am Wu Hoo Git,
I am tired of classics.
I long for the free air of life!

  Standing on a small platform provided by an “invisible” prop man dressed in black, opening night in Royce Hall’s small, in the round theatre in 1970, getting goose bumps speaking his first line in George C.  Hazelton and Benrimo’s “Yellow jacket,” words evoking the very heart and soul of his own longings—rebellion against his grandmother, against all crêpe hangars! longing for the free air of life!

  “Yellow Jacket,” opens on March 29, 1944, Campus Theatre’s first spring production, running through April 1, opening just three days after his sister Alice marries Leno LaBianca, thumbing her nose at the virulently anti-Catholic Skolfield family—except of course for their dad, who seems more tolerant—but then, were Carl’s children ever to know how he felt about anything?  His mother arrives in Los Angeles via Union Pacific from Neosho, Missouri, two weeks earlier, enjoying the role as happy mother of the bride, center stage at the family breakfast at Luca’s Restaurant on Wilshire, hosted by the dignified Antonio, Leno’s dad.  “After too long a stay” courtesy of Leno’s sister, Stella and husband Pete Smaldino, Jane must get back to her nest in Neosho, so misses Dana’s performance in “Yellow Jacket,” and his on and off-stage proclamation that “he longs for the free air of life.”  She never was to understand her son—not completely, so this would’ve meant nothing special to her.  Alice also misses seeing the performance.  She’s off on a brief honeymoon, soon to become camp follower, like her mother.

  From the pre-opening blurb in The Daily Bruin:

  Odd yellow makeup and luxurious eastern costumes will adorn the large cast of the Chinese comedy, with an oriental orchestra consisting of wood block, cymbal, gong and flute adding atmosphere .  .  .

  Certainly he’s reached his pinnacle at U.C.L.A., his first leading role as the idealistic, romantic Chinaman.  The Daily Bruin critiques that he’s “appealing to the girls, and especially to Betty Ebert, the charming Plum Blossom, exhibiting his acting skill by his natural portrayal.”  But his stylistic makeup hides his American juvenile identity.  No Hollywood casting director is going to see his all-American features beneath the masquerade.

  Enter Lloyd D.  Meyer appearing in “Yellow Jacket” in “the double roles of a pompous ruler in the first part of the show, switching to effeminate emperor in the second half, not necessarily reflecting the manpower shortage.”  (Yes, that’s what the reviewer said – italics are added.)  Off stage Lloyd wears glasses and his first love is singing as light baritone in church choirs—a rather unyielding, stilted voice, Dana imagines, if anything, like Lloyd’s studied and contained demeanor off stage, as if he’s protecting something hidden—denying any effeminacy that might be displayed in the “Yellow Jacket.”  Dana will have to wait until after the war to know why.

  Lloyd wants to rent a room with him at the Delta Sigma Phi fraternity house, practically deserted with most of the brothers off to fight the war.  Not a bad idea.  Making peanut butter jelly sandwiches and sloshing down stairways at the co-op has become tiresome.  With his bus boy job and work for the geophysicist, he can afford a move up.

  Lloyd, acting as big brother, takes care to guide Dana through some things he’s left behind in growing up—like male hygiene—“pull back your foreskin and keep the head of it clean,” as Dana’s father should’ve advised him when his eyes wandered over his age 11 naked body in the shower at Catalina.

  Dana is told twice—once by Estelle Karchmer, then by Wally Boyle—“I didn’t realize you could act until now,” opinions offered by neither of them for his performance in “Yellow Jacket.”  For Estelle Karchmer, the opinion is offered when she casts him for a workshop production as the Earl of Essex in a scene from Maxwell Anderson’s “Elizabeth and Essex” opposite a very sexy Queen Elizabeth.  Estelle directs “from the crotch,” sexual exuberance her specialty, challenging Dana to express it.  Apparently he passes the test.  “I didn’t know you could act until now,” she says, after the one and only performance in the 170 workshop.

  Wally Boyle plans to direct “Skin of Our Teeth” by Thornton Wilder on the Royce Hall stage, a not-too-well received play on Broadway—people walked out in the middle of the second act as on stage the actors were tearing apart scenery preparing for the coming ice age.  It starred Frederick March as Antrobus, and Wally Boyle casts Dana in the  role.

  Painting his request sardonically, as expected, Wally makes the excuse that the male acting population has been depleted by the war and that “You’re much too young for the role.”  But after the performance comes the accolade—the exact praise Estelle has offered, “I didn’t know you could act until now.” (Is this part of the “teacher of dramatics manual”?)  Fortunately Wally will remember him five years later, casting him in one of the choice roles of the season—a thrilling launch of his post-war career at U.C.L.A..

  And then a night filled with magical moments—today in memory, lingering images, sounds, embedded in  heart and soul all the days of his life, relived, listening to Aaron Copeland’s “Music for the Theatre.”

  Royce Hall stage in “Pandora” and “Campus Theatre Presents Campus Theatre.” Idolized Myra Kinch choreographs and dances the role of  Pandora.  He dances one of a dozen “Evil Spirits” chasing Pandora after she’s opened the box, pursuing her in fierce diagonal rows downstage, shafts of light tipping peaks of black, red and golden helmets.

  Kinch’s husband, Manuel Galéa, plays the music he’s composed on a baby grand piano offstage—one more sound forever embedded in Dana’s memory.

  Standing ovation for Myra, red hair flowing, brighter than two dozen roses she holds in her arms.

  Copeland’s “Music for the Theatre” empowers Nanci Jepson’s choreography for “Campus Theatre Presents Campus Theatre.” The variation lento moderato, haunts the scene – late night, dancing weary actors preparing the set for tomorrow’s show, Dana partnering cool Nanci Jepson, Copeland’s music, sorcerer working a spell as he lifts her high to pin silver stars on a sequined blue scrim.  Now rest, ready for tomorrow, falling into dreams in dimming light.  Lento moderato drifts, then fades.  all is silent.

  “Burlesque” follows, accompanying a Falstaffian spectacular with Ralph Freud as bawdy Falstaff.

  “Music for the Theatre’s” Epilogue insinuates a scene from Alison’s House by Susan Glaspell at the old Stanhope Homestead in Iowa on the Mississippi.  All the treasures of Campus Theatre now revealed, as he dances Richard Knowles, the role he’s played in the Royce Hall 170 production.

  The night of wonders ends, yet still endures.

  Closing night party at the Myra Kinch-Manuel Galéa’s wood and glass home rambling down a Beverly Glen hillside, getting pleasantly drunk on a bottle of Vodka 100 proof, recommended by Lloyd—no hangover in the morning, he says.

  He’s eighteen now and has passed the physical at Fort MacArthur, facing the draft.

  June 6, D-Day.  In the morning, German 2 grim faced Herr Hand silently marches in, flipping open a book, calling for translation—not a word about the Normandy invasion.  In shining contrast, in French 1 at two o’clock, Messieur Biencourt, large, glowing, red-cheeked cherub, is beaming.  “France, she is a beautiful woman! not like your Uncle Sam.  Soon I will see my beautiful woman again, my beloved France, my beloved Pah-ree!

  For now, U.C.L.A.  is history.  Four years later when he returns, Myra Kinch has gone back to Tanglewood in the Berkshires, teaching and choreographing works at the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, never to return to U.C.L.A..  But other sprites, wood nymphs and sorcerers, troubadours, guarding the gates of desire, will entrap him.

  Before this revelry begins, however, the war and a diversion to Michigan State beckons—and a night spent in an unimposing room in the Highland Hotel on Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood, dramatically changing the direction of his life.