Tag Archives: Carol Spence

Club Nova

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Rowdy and jes’ happy to be there!

I saw a video of Mt. Washington in New Hampshire this afternoon. The wind was swirling at 110mph, the temperature was -50°, and the snow was flying in every direction like a freshly and maniacally shaken snow globe.

It was intended that I should be terrified, or at least intimidated by this.

Meh.

I’ve been in Anchorage, Alaska watching the fog freeze.

I’ve landed in Edmonton, Alberta at 1am in February in an icy glaze.

I wandered jacket-less in a 45° morning in Key West seeing signs on store doors apologizing for being closed for the first time in decades because of the “frigid conditions.”

Perhaps you’re thinking; “Yeah, that’s rigorous, but you can’t compare it to Mt. Washington today.” And perhaps you’d be right.

But…

…I’ve been to Antarctica…

…in the basement of Levas’ Restaurant in downtown Lexington in January.

Hoo boy!

It was the winter of 1985.

The unfinished basement of Levas’ Restaurant was the home of Actors’ Guild Theatre at that time and rehearsals were beginning for their next production; “Terra Nova” by Ted Tally, a dramatic retelling of the heroic, but doomed attempt by Robert Falcon Scott in 1910 to be the first to reach the South Pole.

Heroic but doomed…

One might be tempted to attach that same forecast to any attempt to recreate the vastness, harshness, whiteness, and absolute cold of the Antarctic in the basement of a Greek-leaning eatery/piano bar on Main Street in Lexington, Kentucky, an almost Southern city whose snow-removal system is longingly referred to as “April.” Keep in mind, said basement had concrete floors, square metal ceiling supports, low ceilings, and just enough space for about 30 plastic chairs for the audience. Nothing screams polar extremes like plastic chairs.

But for all those geologic and climatic and architectural obstacles, we had some things going for us.

The script was fine.

The director (Carol Spence) was committed and smart and clear. She assembled a rowdy cast and herded them expertly towards a moving end.

The landlord (Angel Levas) believed in the value of the arts but also believed in the value of good business. He resisted adjusting the thermostat of his building to accommodate the non-paying underground thespians. ‘Twas brillig indeed! The Antarctic’s proximity was a nightly given.

I recall one particular rehearsal when Carol brought in an improvisational consultant to lead us in an exercise involving the medical stages of freezing to death. We were supine on the floor in the dark and listening as he read from medical books of frostbite damage and the effects of blood flow becoming blood-fled. He crooned to us of the creeping muscular constrictions on the glide path to doom.

Why this show never became a musical plumb evades me.

White sheets were hung. Shiny white material obscured the support poles. The arctic sleds were pulled four feet and we believed they had been hauled forty miles. The plastic seats were filled with enthusiastic audiences who stood at the final curtain, though they may have been trying to get their blood flowing again.

I finally warmed up again by July.

Mt. Washington, you got nothing on me.

Curse of the Starving Class

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Yet another new/old Lexington theatre yarn.

Just to let ya know, if you’re doing a Sam Shepard play and want me to come see it, I’m busy that evening…all the evenings.

If you’d like me to do a Sam Shepard play, I’m more than likely available.

I feel the same way about Pinter, Ibsen, and Albee. I love performing them, but I’m not beatin’ down the doors to watch. It’s a mental defect I guess, but there it is. For me, Godot is simply not worth waiting for.

So, it’s 1987 and Joe Ferrell is directing Sam Shepard’s The Curse of the Starving Class for Actors Guild Lexington (usually referred to as “AGL”). This is when AGL was performing in a rickety building in downtown Lexington called the LMNOP building (usually referred to as “LMNOP” – go figger). The LMNOP moniker stemmed from its life as “Club LMNOP”, a legendary night club in its day. By 1987 this building had been rode hard and put up wet to dry. Creaked? No, it shrieked. It wobbled. It was seasonal, which is an apt euphemism for little discernible heat and air. But the rent was right and in the theatre, that usually rules (remind me to bore you with my “theatre verismo” experience one January doing Terra Nova in the basement of a downtown Lexington restaurant — all of Antarctica in a room that sat 50 people – yes, I have pictures).

Well, I was hot for this project. I had worked with Joe on Shepard’s Buried Child a couple of years earlier and it had been a very satisfying time. In that play, I portrayed a raging psychotic single-amputee who was tormented in the second act by his own brother (played by Vic Chaney) who used his own his prosthetic leg as a club against him. It was a laugh-a-minute riot. I was proud of the portrayal even though it took my knee a year to fully recover. I was hungry for another bit of fluff like that.

My previous role for Joe was as a gay, double-AK-amputee Vietnam War vet. It was intriguing to me to get an opportunity to finally do a show with Joe in which I could use all my limbs.

Oh sure, the script of Curse called for a scene with complete male nudity, but it wasn’t my character and surely Joe would find a work-around to avoid going that far in my beloved 1987 Lexington, where I was dealing with the public every day in my retail career……surely…………surely.

Well, it was a remarkable cast and crew. It included Joe Gatton, Martha Campbell, Glenn Thompson, and Carol Spence, all of whom I had worked with numerous happy times.

It also included Kevin Haggard. Kevin and I had never worked together before and we’ve not worked together since. Dammit. In Curse Kevin played my son in a strikingly (emphasis on “strike”) abusive father/son relationship. I tend to work quickly in the rehearsal process – Kevin works more thoughtfully. I didn’t know that at the time. The first two weeks of rehearsal I kicked his ass all over the stage. I feared I might kill him if he didn’t start reacting with a bit more alacrity and how was I gonna explain that to his mother.

Not to worry; from the third week of rehearsal through closing night, Kevin’s character grew every night. I was impressed and bit scared for my own well-being. By opening night I discovered in one scene Kevin had ascended the heights of our kitchen and assumed a manic 45 degree angle against the fridge. I was supine on the kitchen table at the time and chaos was eminent.

It was a fine moment.

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It was a fine moment

It was Kevin’s character that had to deal with the nude scene.

As the rehearsals proceeded, it was sometime in week three that it dawned on me that Joe was dealing with the nude scene by simply doing it as written.

Whatta concept!

What made the scene more special was that Kevin had to carry a sheep during it. This was after a first act scene in which he took his sister’s 4-H project “How to Butcher a Cow” chart, tossed it on the floor, and pee’d on it. He was an endearing character.

I was envisioning letters to the editor at least, or pitchforks and torches at worst. Didn’t happen. Instead, we played to great reviews and sold-out houses. Go figger.

About six months after the show closed, two gentlemen came to see me at work to discuss Liquor Barn’s participation in the United Way. One of the gentlemen noticed a picture on my office wall of one of my shows. He remarked; “My wife and I go to the theatre often. Last year we saw a play where a character actually pissed on the stage!” I gave him my biggest grin, shook his hand, and said; “I played that boy’s father!!”

That was the last I heard from the United Way that year.

But all in all, Curse of the Starving Class was a good experience.

  • Big audiences.
  • The building didn’t collapse.
  • I got to work with Cambo the Clown and his “Ya-Ya Juice” (another story for another time).
  • I didn’t have to deal with the sheep.

Baa-a-a-a.