Today is the first time back to The Broad Stage since I left last summer.
I got an email from one of my programming staff still at the Broad. ‘You can’t miss HOME’ he wrote. ‘Not after everything you went through to bring it’. John and I had seen this piece performed at the Edinburgh Festival the summer before and made a deal for it to play in Santa Monica. We, the staff and I, had decided, after I found the money for underwriting, which is another entire story unto itself, to build a season of programming on the concept of home itself. What is it? What does it mean? How does it affect how we live, decisions we make? Every choice of artist we made for the rest of the season, was given a list of questions and ideas to consider. Several of them made videos we showed on-line about their own homes and what ‘home’ meant to them, how it influenced their lives and their work as artists. The whole new season was exploring the idea of home. We had no idea of course, how home and what it meant was going to be explored by the entire world as Covid 19 entered our lives.
I was nervous. I was nervous about seeing the new Executive Director again after nine months, who has been completely silent since he arrived; I had offered help during transition and my time, never acknowledged, and I was suddenly persona non grata on all things Broad. It was hard although understandable. I don’t think it would have been my hand over style, but it was his and I accepted it. Some of the board members and donors have remained ‘friends’ and John and I see them for a meal now and again when in Los Angeles. We have invited to them to Ojai for a long lunch, but no-one has taken us up on that offer.
The day of the opening of HOME we had tea with one board member who offered large sweet pastries with tea that had to eaten. John always gets a bag to take home for breakfast which is kind although not to his taste. We had to leave long before she was ready for us to go, as we were meeting another board member for an early dinner before the show. This person called as we were in the car to say her friend, yet another board member, and her ninety-four year old husband, and his nurse, were joining us too, ‘sorry’ she said.
The reception on arriving at theatre could not have been warmer. The first staff person I saw in the parking lot offered to fetch my tickets from the box office with a big hug and a face that lit up in delight as I got out of the car. The Senior Vice President, my nemesis at the college that own the Broad and its building and is one of the Broad partners, grinned at me and his wife enfolded me in a hug. He was a monster to work for once he realized that I was not going to do everything demanded by him to keep his power base fragrant and alive. A mortal enemy I thought I would never see again. Here he was smiling and shaking hands and leaning forward to kiss my cheek. I sank onto a concrete bench outside the box office, to say hello to a reporter I knew well, as this was happening. She refused my cheek as C-19 precaution (and this morning I got a long angry email from her, chastising me for my non C-19 practices ie kissing and hugging, and reminding me that she has a compromised immune system which I did not know. Oy where did that come from).
There was a never-ending stream of staff and ticket buyers who recognized both John and I and we were hugged so many times that it carried me to my seat. I had asked for aisle seats in case John needed a fast exit and we sat six rows behind my designated seats of many years. I did not recognize the usher but as I raced out to go to the bathroom before curtain, he whispered to me, ‘lovely to have you back in the theater’.
The audience loved the show. It was a different experience in our small theater of five hundred seats. The part I loved was being back in a theater. I felt I was home again. We have had almost no concert or theater experiences since we left, mostly as a way of decompressing. I use friends concert tickets with great enthusiasm when offered but these last months have been consumed by an exhaustion not imagined, and an occasional foray into Santa Monica, for John’s doctor’s visits, have been the extent of public outings. We needed the downtime. I was surprised and delighted at how right it felt, sitting there in the dark, watching great skill and talent draw the audience into the story. I was also relieved that I still had a place in the hearts of the staff and supporters of the theatre, and all the love and care I had given over nine years, came back in spades. I am not sure what I had imagined, but something much more restrained and pleasant, cool but courteous, than what I got.
As we were leaving an elegant woman, one of our wealthy donors, took me aside. “All of this is very well’ she said, ‘but when can you return?’ We laughed and asked after her husband, and she asked again. “I am not kidding” she said. As we walked down the long front stairs I wondered if anyone ever asks themselves what a woman of seventy-seven wants from her life. I had spent all these years asking our donors about themselves and their ideas and plans for their lives. I had listened to tales of family upset, distress of all proportions, and wondered how many of them, now, had a clue who we were, either John or me. Perhaps it doesn’t ever matter, all that matters is that the art and artists are supported and allowed to ask us questions we might not be able to ask ourselves. Hadn’t I told the audience for years before each opening night that ‘through Art we find Truth’?
