My life has been dedicated to participating in the creation of reasons and opportunities for people to gather. Ooops.
I got my Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in dramatic production. For the next twenty years I shored up a theatre habit with jobs in food service. I even started an Italian style caffè that I ran for four years or so (that I was totally unqualified to do so, didn’t stop me for a moment). I founded theatre companies, almost by habit, and created performance spaces out of whatever room or cavity or lawn would hold chairs (or pillows and rugs).
And here we are, me and millions of kindred spirits, pining over locked theatres, taverns, and diners and wondering how long we will have to wait to see the lights switched on, again. Reasons to gather.
It is speculated that Shakespeare used his time in Stratford to his, and our, benefit while waiting out London’s periodic plague summers. Most playwrights these days – or perhaps, any days – write from the love of wrighting rather than from any real expectation of production; and a script can always be passed around, even during plagues. Cooks will cook because everyone needs to eat, and if we have the luxury of overcoming boredom in cuisine, both cooks and eaters will find a way to keep exchanging talents.
But gathering?
I recently read a piece on Le Corbusier and his dream city of pre-planned, vast empty space. The article speculated that a post-virus society might go that direction to avoid the contagion invited by the over-crowded modern metropolis. I immediately remembered my days as a cater-waiter, passing trays at a densely packed bank employees’ cocktail party held in their cavernous, beaux arts lobby, with the entire party voluntarily condensed into a space the size of an executive suite. We are herders. Give us vast empty space, we will gather in a knot in a tiny corner of it, and like it just fine.
As a theatre guy, I always championed the community-building capacities of the performing arts. There is something thrilling about experiencing a cultural event as expressed by living people immediately present, with spectators, also present, and without the competitive necessity of siding with a team, or the need to conform to a belief. It is said that an audience at a concert or play will synchronize their beating hearts within a few minutes of the event’s beginning.
I betcha Zoom doesn’t do that.
I ran into Giancarlo this afternoon. In normal times, he makes sure that I am kept in apple strudel.
“You’ve lost weight!” he observed.
“Haven’t we all?
“You haven’t been eating your strudel.”
“True.”
“Call me a day ahead, I’ll have it ready by the next afternoon, and will meet you at the door or even deliver.”
That’s what the cooks are doing.
Fabrizio, the fruit and nut man, this morning struggled to speak through his mask.
“Ribracgo!”
“What?”
“Rimbgifto!”
“What?”
He mimed a piano keyboard.
“Riccardo!”
“Yes! The maestro.”
“A wonderful pianist, is Riccardo.”
“Oh, yes, wonderful.”
“Have you heard him on the accordion?”
“No.”
“Amazing. I had no idea that instrument could make such a variety of sound.”
“Some day, maybe,” he said rather sadly. “But you both order naturally-dried apricots!”
“Maybe it’s a thing with performers, you think?”
Fabrizio will pull through. He looked much less burdened this week. Movement is therapeutic.
So is gathering.
Teatro Mancinelli never announced a season this year. The non-profit that ran it had accumulated debt, and the new city administration was unwilling to prevent its dissolution by granting a subsidy. So, except for a couple of independently-booked events, the theatre has been dark since summer. From today’s perspective, it’s just as well, I guess, but a huge hole opens in my heart every time I pass. The tradition must be served – in much the same way that there must continue to be strudel. But gathering will have to wait.
At least we wait together. Meantime, folks are doing gorgeous stuff on YouTube, aren’t they? (Even alone.)
The photo is of Teatro Mancinelli in 2016.