We Think They're Our Friends

Kate and Richard

Have I told this story before?
I was living in Manhattan with my hairdresser friend who worked on Broadway (on "Cats" - you know, really tiny perm rods) and we were at the Grand Union on East 86th Street picking up some staples when we glanced, as one does, at the tabloids blaring their blather at us in fully saturated color.
Richard Burton had recently passed away and tabloid headlines were all about his messy personal life, made messier by tabloids, no doubt. The latest headline had been about Liz Taylor planning to "crash" the funeral.
Something clicked in my pointy little head. "Fred," I said, "they're talking about Kate's dad."
It was a sort of epiphany.
Fred had worked on a couple of Broadway shows that Kate Burton had been in and if she wasn't personally known by me, he certainly knew her well and talked about working with her. It occurred to me for the first time that these people we see in movies and on stage are real folk. Sure, I knew that, but this time it really sank in. They enter our lives on screen and then even our homes by way of television. We think we know them. We greedily read stories about them. We are their public and we think we own them.
I would give my neighbor some privacy over the death of her father. I'd express my sympathy. Maybe I'd take a casserole. But I'd be irate if the local paper published trashy stories about the family.
Media stars and politicians are usually fair game ...
Until you are touched by them personally. Suddenly they're off limits.

The death of Robin Williams has apparently touched a major nerve, superseding other major news events. The death of Lauren Bacall barely got any attention by comparison. But we think we know these people, that they are our friends in a way that the other tragic figures are not. The pointless violent deaths of everyone else happening at this time sicken me, but I cannot relate to them the way I can relate to someone I saw on television every week who brought me joy. My sarcastic laugh is still "Arr-arr" à la Mork.
The Kate Burton Lesson has taught me, though, that this is someone's husband, someone's dad. My casserole does not fill the void made by his death. His family deserves our sympathy and respect. He may not have been my friend, but I still feel that the tabloids and pundits who receive money for belaboring his life and death are parasites - and the ghoulish people who read or listen to them are just as bad.
Pah, what can I say? We're only human.

Jonathan Miller Is Dead Wrong

Well, let's just say, "That's his opinion."
I have always (well, at least since the 1970s) thought of Miller as a genius and a hero. Who else could make John Cleese, at the height of his cranky goofiness, into a sex symbol by casting him as Petruchio and then having him play it dead straight (save the chicken clucking instance)? Cor, that would take godlike powers! I was on tenterhooks as the crew rushed to tear off the mask and bring him back after an apparently deadly demonstration on the effects of removing the carbon dioxide feedback from the body's emergency response. I had memorized the skits in "Beyond the Fringe" and even performed in one in a college theatre class.
So when my friend Alison said they could still get tickets to "An Evening with Jonathan Miller" at Regent's College if I was still interested (it was a week after my father had died while I was in London), I said "Hell yes!"
I had pictured a large, darkened lecture hall and a tiny figure on a stage with a podium he would probably ignore. Instead, it was a small conference room in full lighting with a comfy chair and a bar at the back. Fortunately, orange juice was available because I'd tied one on the night before with Lorraine and I don't really need to do that two nights in a row.
We met Alison at the Baker Street station, because we had no idea where we were going. She led us through Regent's Park to the entrance to the college where her other friend Jonathan (no relation, or at least not one he mentioned) awaited us. The man with the reservations, Alex, showed up a bit later. Alex had apparently caused quite a stir trying to get tickets, having to call successive numbers and wheedle information out of people. The lecture was probably London's best kept secret. Then he had to call again on the day of the lecture to squeeze out two more tickets. This must have caused the organizer to come to the utterly false conclusion that this was on the behalf of two important but incognito foreign dignitaries.
Dr. Miller came in early to scout out the venue and sample the oj and I fancied he gave me a Special Smile. Later, he was dragged to our group by the organizer who introduced him to Alex and then he inquired as to who had come from the farthest away. For one awful moment I thought of Alison, who is Australian, but she's been living in London for eight years now. I believe I jumped up and down and squealed, "That's meeeeeee!" totally forgetting my long-suffering husband and channeling Dr. Dick Hertz. We had an absolutely exquisite chat where I swooned all over him and expressed my concern about the demonstration in "The Body in Question" and he allowed that four people since he did that demonstration had died as a result. About this time I totally lost consciousness and started speaking to him in an uncharacteristic southern US accent. It was one of the happiest moments of my life (that did not involve Indian food ... or my husband).
His lecture began perhaps a little far back, with his father's history and career in groundbreaking psychology. Then he decided he'd talked about himself enough and entertained questions from the small but adulatory audience. Oh, and one crank case who reminded me of the late Greenwoodlian, Dr. Marvin Chipley, only slightly more together. My husband and I sat nodding happily through Dr. Miller's views on just about everything: education is now complete bosh (hear hear!), there is no god and what a silly notion that is (amen, brother!), "concepts" are ruining theatre (oh, oh, oh! that gives me an idea!), the only things that are worth learning are the things that are difficult (took that one right to heart and planned a rant all around it). Then he expressed, cheerfully, his utter regret at having given up on his medical career and that is right where he lost me. Theatre was just too easy, and, as we heard, the easy things aren't the worthwhile ones.
I suppose he has a right to his own regrets. Far be it from me to dictate his emotions. What he is not taking into account is two-fold.
Number one: Theatre is easy for him because he did all the difficult research on it in his medical career. He studied human behavior in all its minuteness and made the lateral leap with that hard-earned background into its use in theatre thereby improving productions such as "The Taming of the Shrew" with John Cleese beyond all knowing. He managed to take an English translation of Cosi fan tutte (anathema! anathema!) and make it palatable to me who believes that any opera translation is an abomination and a true lover of opera will take the time to learn the bloody language it's in so no time will be wasted on the supertitles and the beauty of the mixture of music and the language it was written for will blaze through. Where was I? Oh.
Oh, yes, it might be easy ... for him ... now. On top of this is his ability to communicate it to the performers and amaze them with the simplicity of something that is, in fact, not simple at all. It is not even simple to be yourself when you are confronted by a group of people who are focused on everything you say or do and, if it doesn't interest them, will lose that interest in you. Much more difficult is being someone else, or one of your many other yous. Suddenly you have to think about how you are moving, the subtleties of speech, and what your next line is. After you've done this for years then, yes, it's easy.
But no, it's not trivial. And therein lies my second point.
As a neurologist or any other sort of doctor, you are limited by the number of people you can actually see as patients in your lifetime. In a much shorter spate of time, Dr. Miller has brought joy, laughter, and a vastly improved "The Taming of the Shrew" to millions. I suppose if he continued in medicine and developed some treatment, some cure, some insight into disease he could possibly reach the same amount of people. That, I think, is what we in the US call a "crapshoot."
Perhaps what he means is that theatre isn't serious. It just doesn't carry the gravitas of medicine. I take issue with that as well. I believe we are much the poorer as humans without good theatre or any of the other arts. The body keeps the mind alive, the mind keeps the body in good order, but the arts are what make us human, civilized beings who think beyond where their next curry is coming from (although I have to admit that is pretty crucial). They instruct and elevate. They are not trivial.
I've been to doctors and I've had therapy and it's all been very helpful. I, however, would just as soon have a good laugh, get totally engrossed in a good book, or somehow be taken out of myself for a short time. All this makes my life bearable. I hug the memories of his "easy" work to me and they make me smile. So all in all I'm glad Dr. Miller made the greatest mistake in his life.
That being said, Dr. M, any chance of a bunk-up?

Oh, here's another

I hope this one can be read. This is the transcription of an actual event. I was appearing the "The Mousetrap" with a group of experienced repertory people. My character was stuck in a scene where I had nothing to do or say for what seemed like twenty minutes. At that point I had a one-word line to justify my presence on stage. I spent most of that time going over that one word to make sure I didn't screw it up, which I have been known to do, only to hear that one word delivered by someone else (who was supposed to say something along the line of "But that's crazy!"). What to do?! What to do?!
Years later one of the other performers was doing a crossword puzzle and came across a clue for a six-letter word for "nonsense" that had a "p" and an "f" in it. Up until then, she thought I'd made the word up.
Hey, I'm not that good!