Marlon Brando and Tennessee Williams – 1948

Oh! for a Muse of Fire

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  The Theatre Arts Department Ralph Freud longed to establish in 1943 now offers majors in Theatre, Film, and Radio-Television with an enrollment exceeding three hundred fifty and a faculty which includes, in addition to Wally Boyle, Eddie Hearn, lean, dour, seldom smiling Technical Director, as intimidating (to me) as a Western movie villain, perhaps because the only role I got out of him in those three years at U.C.L.A. was one line as the Priest in “Twelfth Night.”

  William Melnitz, refugee from Max Reinhardt’s theatre in Berlin, fleeing Germany and the Nazis, finds his way to U.C.L.A., first as German professor, teaching German, remembering him in 1943 German 1 class, his high, shrill voice rings out through the decades: Hier kommt der Tell! Hier kommt der Tell! (Wilhelm Tell, that is). Today, Melnitz is memorialized by the Melnitz Theatre.

  In 1949, Henry Schnitzler, son of Artur Schnitzler, famous Viennese playwright,  makes his entrance—an intense man, spitting out directions pizzicato. He will cast me in two well-remembered, well-cherished roles, the Earl of Warwick (best supporting acting award) in Shaw’s St. Joan, and the droll, mocking La Fléche in Moliere’s “The Miser.”

  Ralph Freud, always a presence, but seldom directing, dropping by the dressing room below Royce Hall before and after performances, more than once goading us to engage in arguments about acting, knocking Lee Strassberg’s “method acting.” It is believed Freud has a list of those who will “make it big time on Broadway.” The question rankles, are we prepared at all for the big time? We don’t ask, we’re too enthralled, comfortably embedded in our fantasy world.

  Oh, for a Muse of Fire! and some of us there were in those halcyon days who believed we had found our Muse—The Theatre, The Theatre! No thought of the real world and how greats had made it to the top. No idea of what would be required after graduation when called upon for more than fanatic devotion and ephemeral dreams. To find success in the theatre, become a working member of the theatre community in New York, would evolve accepting rejection, abandoning any hope of security—Othello’s battle cry, “Farewell content!” Forget visions of “firesides far from the cares that are,” as the miner “fresh from the creeks” yearns in Robert Service’s “The Shooting of Dan McGrew,” anticipating Manhattan’s cold water flats, menial jobs to get enough money together to study with Sandy Meisner or Stella Adler, or perhaps talented enough to get into Lee Strassberg’s Actors’ Studio to celebrate our craft with Marlon Brando, Kim Stanley. We are three thousand miles away, “transcending the brightest heaven of invention,” exactly where we choose to be, serenely certain of natural progression from school to Broadway.

   “The White Steed” in the spring of 1948 on my return from the war and Michigan State, and summer stock on Mackinac Island, links me irrevocably with the Muse, and for Anne O’Neill and Bill Curtis, their Muse is found recording voice-overs for one of the Theatre Department’s most stirring productions that season—a dance drama of Stephen Vincent Benét’s epic Civil War poem, “John Brown’s Body” presented in Royce Hall. Anne is the voice of Melora Vilas, the daughter of a “hider” evading the war, captivating with her deep, mellow sounds—If I only had a mirror. . . Bill’s booming, thunderous voice issuing forth John Brown’s proselytizing—If it is deemed necessary that I should mingle my blood with the blood of millions in this slave country, let it be done. . .

  Robert T. Lee adapted the poem; designed and directed the pageant. (I remember him not too fondly directing me in the Titanic scene from Cavalcade for “Campus Cabaret in 1943—You’re so  stiff!). The Civil War period is depicted with Linnebach rear projections—blood-red sunsets and other evocative scenic splendors, cast on a huge backdrop scrim silhouetting dancers performing in pools of light, utilizing the whole space of the large stage.

  The department’s post-war artistry in stage design is revealed in Royce Hall. One memorable example is Eddie’s Hearn’s lighting for the summer 1949 production of John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men” in the moment before Lenny strangles the girl. A barn, huge pile of yellow hay disappearing into a high loft through which a single shaft of brilliant light pierces the opening above, creating a halo of gold around the girl’s flaxen hair. Lenny, haunted, stands outside the glow, then slowly intrudes into the girl’s light. As he’s drawn into her world, his hands circle her throat, the bright yellow shaft of light slowly dims—Lenny and the girl now in space invaded by night’s enshrouding gloom.

  In 1949 student-directed one-acts, including originals, move to a small, prefabricated building, 3G1 behind Royce  Hall. Margaret Ann Curran, leader of “The Moral Vigilance Committee” in “The White Steed,” makes her mark in Tennessee Williams, “27 Wagon Loads of Cotton.” Margaret becomes one of the department’s most durable character actresses in off-beat roles, even though not more than nineteen or twenty. Large boned Maggie, dark Irish girl, two years later would play Madame Arcati in “Blithe Spirit.” Character roles couldn’t tarnish Maggie’s appealing off stage naiveté however.

  In 3G1’s 1949 spring student director series, Maggie plays Flora, young wife of the creepy Jake, my role played with sweaty armpits, in Tennessee Williams “27 Wagon Full of Cotton,” from which the movie “Baby Doll” would be adapted. At an off-campus booze-and-cruise party, she confesses to me she can’t understand Flora getting her kicks from the flick of a horsewhip laid on by Vicarro’s horsewhip, and other masochistic delights, her pleasures voiced off stage. (Maggie doesn’t use the word “masochistic,” a word unknown to her) .

  She asks me for insights, and I do my best to enlighten her. “Well, Margaret Ann, she’s a repressed woman, unable to enjoy normal sex, so when she clutches the purse at that last scene, she’s lamenting an unfulfilled desire to have a child. . .”

  I’m not sure she gets the message, but her final moment in the play is like so many other moments in those years, unforgettable, as  she stands in a white spotlight touching her face, cradling a soft white purse in her arms, advancing slowly and tenderly to the edge of the porch, a full moon shining on her ravaged face, rocking the purse in her arms and crooning,

Rock-a-bye Baby—in uh tree-tops!
If a wind blows—a cradle will rock!
If a bough bends—a baby will fall!
Down will come Baby—cradle—an’—all!

(She laughs and stares raptly and vacantly up at the moon.) – Curtain

  “Curtain” in 3G1 means “lights fade” on a set made from stand-alone, hinged plywood flats. The Department was nearly ten years away from building a performance center; Eddie Hearn was to design it. Building a theatre or two had been delayed, partly by lack of funds, and also from Eddie’s insistence the theatre must be built to perfection, strictly matching his specifications.

  In “27 Wagon Loads of Cotton” Vicarro is played by Paul Levitt, who is without doubt, number one on Freud’s “will make it  big,” an actor on stage and off with a deep, rasping, sexy voice; curly black hair, so perhaps a candidate for the love of my life, but not a chance. He’s not especially appealing to me and likes girls, yet he is one of those rare guys in the department who’s not afraid of queers. He rooms with Curtis for a brief period. They become fast friends.

NEXT – “On the hill” in the Pilgrimage Play.