The most exciting
thing about theatre, if you appreciate the nuances of live performance, is that
you can never experience the same thing twice. As the performer, every night you get to embark on a fresh
journey with your fellow cast members; to discover new things; to build a
unique relationship with each audience.
And mistakes don’t exist, only a series of unforeseen moments to respond
to. No matter what has been
rehearsed, you cannot map out the next few hours of your life. Upon the rise of the curtain, “the show
must go on…”
In February of
2004, I was in the middle of a world tour of a show that every musical theater
performer would dream of being cast in, Fosse. It was the ultimate ensemble piece,
twenty or so in the cast, featuring some of the greatest musical and dance
numbers set for both the stage and the screen by legendary choreographer and
director, Bob Fosse. And the icing
on the cake? We were in Paris for
a six-week run, and privileged to have one of the greatest Broadway stars of
all time leading us, Mr. Ben Vereen.
“What are you
doing?” Sarah, my “Steam Heat”
partner, crouched down next to me in a changing station backstage. I was sitting on the floor, with one
shoe on and one shoe off… “I am thinking about jumping onstage with Ben.” Her eyes widened as she smiled and
gasped with excitement. “Do
it!!!” She joined me on the floor,
and we both scrambled to get my other tap shoe on.
On this particular
night, about twenty minutes after “go time”, the sound system crashed right
smack in the middle of a high-energy, fast-moving number. But the entire company continued
dancing and singing without music.
(Technical difficulties happen, but never dire enough to stop the
show.) Then the curtain dropped in
front of us. So we took the cue,
and filed offstage through the wings, to rest until the problem was fixed. Mr. Vereen didn’t miss a beat. He u-turned from behind the curtain,
and swiped the emergency wireless mic from stage left. The spotlight hit him as he exploded
back onstage, a glorious reveal!
“Bon soir Paris!!!” As he
broke the fourth wall for the first time, he was met with uproarious applause. It was an interruption. But to the audience, this moment was no
faux pas. It was a gift…
“Oh… they say some people long
ago… were looking for a different tune… one that they could croon…as only they
can…”
I watched from
offstage in awe as this consummate artist opened his mouth to sing the first
line of The Birth of the
Blues. Then he signaled
for the conductor to assemble a small jazz combo from the orchestra pit, to
back him up impromptu. The crowd was thrilled…
“They only had the rhythm so…
they started swaying to and fro… they didn’t know just what to use… but this is
how the blues… really began…”
The entire
audience (including the cast and crew of Fosse)
was witnessing magic in the making, beautiful chaos. I couldn’t wipe the smile off of my face as I studied every
move and sound. Then it occurred
to me… “This is not a
classroom… There are no rules… This IS the show tonight… And ANYTHING
can happen.” I felt a boldness
rear up in me, and suddenly I wanted to be onstage WITH him. And as time passed, this urge was
growing stronger. So I waited to
see if we would continue where we left off, upon the last note of The Birth of the Blues… (applause) … (silence) … “That Old Black Magic has me in
its spell… That Old Black Magic that you weave so well…” The band
followed his voice into another jazz standard, and I bolted to the changing
station…
Once my shoes were
on, laces tied, I rose up from the ground… “Under
that Old Black Magic called Love...” I could still hear Ben singing
from behind the backdrop. I
couldn’t believe what I was about to do.
Then something hit me in a cold flash… And I froze...
“Now, what exactly ARE you going to do?” … “He’s Ben Vereen!
Who the heck are YOU?” … A barrage of doubt flew into my atmosphere of
thought. “What the heck am I
doing?” As I began to agree with
the gray cloud of negative opinions swirling around me, a one-ton anvil seemed
to materialize from within my stomach…
And then I knew what was happening…or WHO was happening I should
say… And I could almost picture a
face…
Hello
Fear. Once again I have found you
in this familiar place… at this intersection of Risk and Uncertainty. I know you’re here to falsely comfort
me; coddle me; pat my cushion of Convenience, that I might sit back down and
rest safely and soundly. But I am
desperate to see what is on the other side of the great wall of Opportunity that
stands before me. I am determined
to scale that magnificent rampart that you would do anything to keep me
from. You see… I believe there are
certain promises that unfold whenever I run into you; and then run forward, in
spite of you, with uninhibited faith that something spectacular awaits me. I have seen how you partner with
Circumstance to paralyze Humanity.
So I refuse to pitch a tent with you on the campgrounds of Complacency…
As I approached
the stage, in an effort to garner courage, I started rifling through brain
files for some reference; some recipe for what I was about to do. Nothing came to mind. Then I thought about my last
“show-stopping” confrontation with Fear…
I was a part of
the first American musical to grace the Russian stage. Our show was co-produced
by an American company, and a Russian guy named Boris (who I am pretty sure was
in the Mafia). We left the States in September, rehearsed for six weeks, and
opened in October with a bang…
I was eighteen…
It was my first
job out of high school…
My first time
overseas…
And my very first
terrorist attack...
“42nd Street cast
and crew! Please quickly and calmly exit the building…”
I was in Moscow
during The Nord-Ost Siege,
a theater hostage crisis that grabbed the world’s attention…
The ordeal
happened Wednesday night, October 23rd, 2002, at the Dubrovka
Theater. The Russian Musical Nord-Ost (Northeast)
was one of three major productions playing in the city. After the intermission, at the top of
the second act, the full male ensemble was tap-dancing onstage at the climax of
a musical number. Suddenly 40 to
50 armed men and women, who claimed allegiance to an Islamist separatist movement, emerged from the audience and seized the entire theatre. They took 850 hostages
and demanded the withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya and an end to the Second Chechen War. If
the Russian government did not comply, the female rebels (who were all strapped
with explosives) were instructed to blow the entire complex up. After a two-and-a-half day standoff,
Russian forces pumped an unknown chemical agent into the
building's ventilation system and raided it. 39 of the attackers were killed, along
with at least 129 of the hostages (including nine foreigners)… Roughly 170
people died in all.
“… Don’t bother
changing out of costume, hair, or make-up… Get out… now!”
We knew our stage
manager wasn’t joking. It had been
a month since the Nord-Ost
incident, but bomb threats pop-corned all around the city. And this was the first time we were
ordered to evacuate immediately.
So we slid out of the theater, and into the snow (tap shoes, wigs,
make-up and all!). We scurried
across the icy parking lot, and into a sushi restaurant we had claimed as a
refuge house during the last two bomb scares. I don’t know what the Russian name for the place was. But we called it “Bomb Scare Sushi”…
“Happy Thanksgiving!” We
said with jaded smiles, and toasted with hot sake…
In addition to
finding ourselves at the center of an international crisis, we had already
survived a number of things; rehearsing in a space that resembled a
concentration camp, ridden with stray dogs and guarded by machine-gun-clad
soldiers; a McDonalds car bombing; a political assassination; and… a gigantic
language barrier…
One day in between
shows, I had a craving for a milkshake.
There was only one problem.
I only knew the Russian word for “milk”. But I didn’t know how to communicate the “shake” part in
this completely foreign language with an entirely different alphabet. So on my way over to a Russian
McDonalds, I devised a plan. And I
knew it would be brilliant. I
pushed through the glass doors, and there were about 10 people standing in
line. That bought me some time to
prepare.
“Da?” (That means
“yes” in Russian)… The young woman at the register was already sizing me up
(probably because I was wearing the stupidest, most clueless, cheesy,
all-American grin ever). “Priviet”
(“Hello”)… That was one of the few words I knew. Before I commenced, I looked up to see if I could point. But alas, the screen was too far away,
and jumbled in a collage of menu items and Russian words I could neither read
nor pronounce. Then I tried to order in
English, but with a Russian accent. (I love that when Americans can’t speak a foreign language in a foreign
country, our default is to speak English in our interpretation of that foreign
accent)… “I would like” … but by
the deadpan look on her face, this would be a long shot… So I proceeded with
“the plan”.
I locked eyes with
her. I don’t know why. Maybe I thought that where I lacked in
language, I could make up for in telepathy. I spoke… “Moloko” (“Milk”)… (dramatic pause)… then I hugged
myself, and I started to “shake” my head and body emphatically, allowing my
lips to whiplash, and release sounds that magnified the effects of being
shaken. I stopped to see if she
got it on the first try.
How we respond to
circumstances in the midst of a crisis reveals who we truly are on in the
inside. Not being able to order a
milkshake when you really want one, and in a foreign country, is a dire
situation. And if my response
unleashed the idiot from within, then so be it! I accepted in the moment that I was asking her to play
Charades with me at the front of a McDonalds line in the middle of Moscow…
“Moloko”… (action for “shake”)… “Moloko”… (action for “shake”)… And I wasn’t
worried about the ever-increasing throng of hungry (now angry) Russian patrons
gathering behind me. I had been
“risking my life” entertaining them tirelessly, night after night. The least they could do was wait until I
got my freaking milkshake!
I started losing hope in
the young woman at the register, as her deadpan stare was now evolving into one
that communicated irritation. I
emitted a long, audible breath, expressing my sadness. Then I ordered a Coke… “Okay… Coca
Cola.” I walked out of McDonalds a
little disappointed, but with my head held high, and certainly not thirsty…
42nd Street was scheduled to
run in Moscow for nine months. The
plug was pulled, and we were sent home after four. Only then did we realize how close we came to utter
disaster. An HBO documentary on
the siege, Terror In
Moscow, was produced and released a year later, and most of the live
footage used in the film belonged to the deceased terrorists themselves. Apparently, only a few days before the
fanatics apprehended the Nord-Ost
venue, one of the Chechen gunmen had videotaped another potential
target… the musical, 42nd
Street. The militant
group had collected footage of the building, and of all the entrances and
exits. My mouth dropped as one
snippet revealed my entire cast walking into the theater, just another night
onstage for us… one menacing decision away from eminent danger.
The opening statement of
the 25-year-old leader of the rebellion sent chills down my spine … “We’ve come to Russia’s capital
city to stop the war or die for Allah… We’ll perish here, taking hundreds of
unbelievers with us. I swear to
Allah, we desire death more than you want life… Allah is great.” I could not help but imagine myself in
a sequence of events that could very well have been an alternative fate. The hostages lived on nothing but water
and chocolate. And the orchestra
pit served as a public bathroom, men on the left and women on the right. “People
didn’t drink on purpose so they wouldn’t need to go. It was a dreadful feeling, rolling up your trousers so they
wouldn’t get soaked,” a survivor recalled.
One
first-hand account came from a 42nd
Street dresser, and my friend, Sveta. She was doing double duty, working in the wardrobe
departments for both 42nd
Street and Nord-Ost. We hadn’t seen her for a couple of
days, from the start of the invasion.
When she finally returned to work with us, she shared how she and some
other women hid in an undiscovered section backstage. They called Russian authorities from within the walls, and
were drilled out to safety from the outside of the facility.
I was heavily impacted by
one story of a man who was on the creative team for Nord-Ost … “I thought I’d try to sit closer to the main bomb,
and get to know the woman in charge of the detonator,” he said
without blinking to the camera. “Who knows? Perhaps at the critical moment I could
push her hand away or rip out the wires.
We talked about lots of things, about the role of women in Islam, about art. She admitted, reluctantly, that she’d
enjoyed the show, and she knew I was the co-writer. Oddly enough she needed to share her impressions of the
show. She wrote an Arabic phrase
on a scrap of paper, and told me to say it aloud at the moment of my
death. If I recited it, then I’d
be accepted in paradise as a Muslim.
It read, ‘There is no God but Allah.’ ”
Such a dichotomy of
character and emotion displayed in this artist: fierce heroism in the face of death, to be prepared to take
the woman down as an enemy; tender compassion, to engage in a human
conversation with her, acknowledging her eye to eye, as a comrade and admirer
of his work. The definition of Art
is “the expression or
application of human creative skill and imagination, producing works to be appreciated
primarily for their beauty or emotional power.” That art can move to a degree where it
shifts the atmosphere, proclaims life over death, and disarms the very energy
that threatens its existence, speaks of the power of creativity… Creativity releases the capacity to
love… And “Perfect Love casts out all fear.” …
“Go for it!” I had the support of my fellow cast
members; still I was shaking and perspiring… “You’re
the lover I have waited for… You’re the mate that Fate had me created for… And
every time your lips meet mine”… I was now standing at the mouth of
the stage, ten feet away from Ben Vereen.
He was approaching the end of the song. “Last chance.” I thought to myself. The only bit of security I could cling
to was the wing I hid behind. “I’m under that Old Black Magic
called…” I stretched out my right leg to take my first step… then I
could swear someone pushed me… Into the light I went.
To choose love over fear…
This is the mark of beauty.
To find beauty in chaos…
This is the mark of creativity.
The synthesis of beauty
and creativity… This is the work of God.
