At this very moment I wish I was sitting in the Fiction Center---pre pandemic, ofcourse, reading whatever I wanted and taking the whole scene in. A flash image; I am happy and stimulated. But of course, this is not the case. I am home, beginning a long holiday weekend, kind of bummed out. Nothing happening medically until Monday the 25th, so it is all a waiting game. Just tried to look at a documentary about the life of August Wilson, on the film at Lincoln Center web site, but there is a block on the screen where it should come out. That happened with an attempt at seeing an earlier film, Martin Eden, as well. Lost my $12.00 fee which was returned to me, but any other film that I try to screen on that web site should be blocked as well.. A shame, as they have the Jewish Film festival on their site--some really interesting films there that I wanted to check out, as well as a documentary about Sammy Davis Junior called I've Got to Be Me. That is the one I really wanted to see,
I saw Davis on stage, sevearal times in 1964-65 when he starred in the musical adaptation of Golden Boy, a play by Clifford Odets. The original play was about an Italien young man with the potential to be a great violinist but who chooses instead to become a boxing champion. It takes place during the depresssion and is one of my favorite plays---the musical updated the story to Harlem in the sixties--but the plot really remained the same. The climax of the musical was a staged boxing match between Davis' character and "The Chocolate Drop" a spanish boxer danced beautifully by Jaime Rogers. Enraged because the woman he loves has chosen another man, Davis' character lets go on his adversary and kills him with his fists. I remember that, and all of it---a few times I "second acted" the musical, and at least saw it twice all the way through. After the curtain calls, Davis would say a few words---I was in the audience the night he announced that there would be no performance the next day, because he, and other Broadway stars would be joining with Dr. King as part of an event: Broadway Answers Selma. Other stars from the shows that were on Broadway at the time would be joining Dr. King in protest. That was in March of 65,
The run of the play spanned two years of my life--my one year at Yale School of Drama---a total disaster--and the next year, my first as an "adult"---on my own, working at the City Department of Welfare and trying to figure out how to channel and justify my artistic energy, so blocked and beaten down at the Drama School. It was the first year of my life that I was not a student. After Yale I had stayed in my family's apartment in the Bronx for a while, but the family atmosphere could not contain my restlessness;-I left and found a small room in a "single room occupancy" hotel on 94th street between West End Avenue and Riverside Drive. An ended relationship with a woman whom I was close to at Goucher College two years earlier, did not help. A sense of despair permeated my existence. I remember an afternoon when the radio played Yesterday, by the Beatles, endlessly. I took an acting course, but could not get into it much. I was pretty much adrift.
At some point things worked themselves out. A trip to Baltimore for a final encounter with the young woman, at least gave me some closure for the relationship. I began to do more in the acting class, my teacher, Milton Katselas was encouraging, I started going to the opera a lot, and actually had a nice romance with a scene partner---which, of coure, ended once we had performed the scene--- but nevertheless, made me feel alive and valuable with a woman.
And that is it--time to return to the present long weekend. The Met is streaming an opera by Strauss called Capriccio---might check it out---some basketball or football bets? Maybe. will report soon.
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