The Journey Continues

OK. So, I've established sorta kinda what this blog is about. You know, middle-aged Jewish man reclaiming his roots. I don't mean to downplay the importance of last year's journey. Finding and pursuing a life's mission is big stuff; about as big as it gets. The work involved in the mission continues to unfold in many ways, not the least of which led me to a closer relationship to Jack Goldfarb (please see my first post for details about Jack) and my commitment to be actively engaged in the preservation of the Jewish cemetery in Staszow. Jack will be going back during the summer and I expect that there will be another call to arms. There still remains a lot to be done and given the difficulties imposed by cultural and language differences, not to mention the distance involved, things will never move very quickly or smoothly.

Fundamentally, this search is about finding home. As one of only two Jewish kids in my southside Chicago elementary school, I not only felt like I didn't belong, I also experienced some pretty ugly anti-semitism. It began in sixth grade and pinnacled during eighth grade. I was never beaten up. The threats were plenty and the constant baiting was hard to take. I had no one to go for protection since I had decided that if I told my parents, they would just make it worse somehow. High school, at Morgan Park Academy, was better with little or no overt taunting and there were a fair number of Jewish kids. Yet, I still felt like an alien.

By the time I reached college, first at the University of Illinois-Chicago and then at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, things were shaking up in an even bigger way. The Vietnam War was in full swing and the anti-war movement was gathering steam. I just watched The War At Home, a documentary made in 1979 about the anti-war movement as it played out at Madison. It's not the best film ever made, though it gave an accurate portrayal of what was going during that time, at that place. It left me feeling sad, that I had not done enough, and that so many of the themes are being played out again and that leaves me angry.

I had participated in several of the demonstrations and had dutifully gone on strike when called to do so. After the Army Math Research building bombing and the resulting death of a graduate student, the mood on campus shifted substantially and, like so many others, my focus returned to getting an education. Besides, I was really enjoying my major, theatrical lighting design, and my work load was heavy. Along with keeping up with my academic classes, I was involved in a constant stream of main stage and studio productions, not to mention acting in several Broom Street Theater productions, under the tutelage, delight and scorn of Joel Gersmann, who, I just learned, died about a year ago from a heart attack at the age of 62.

This is truly disorienting. I'm blithely writing this entry about ME and I'm hit with the death of one of my mentors, only I'm a year late. I never had any aspirations of being an actor and Joel's inspiration for material and staging concepts had little or nothing to do with what I was doing in the on-campus theater world. Yet, I thoroughly enjoyed working with him. He was a potent antidote to the conservatism that was rampant in the Theater Division at that time. In one of the obit pieces he is quoted as saying, "I haven't read a play in 15 years". He had an equal contempt for his audience. Back in the early 70s he had not worked himself into a lather about that, but he was incensed about the war and the utter absurdity of it all. One show was "Vietnamese Phrasebook", whose script was, you guessed it, a Vietnamese phrasebook given to GIs. Joel's concept of theater was crude and loud and maddening. Yet, he knew the art and technique of theater at a highly sophisticated level. Which, I'm sure, drove the powers-that-were at the university completely nuts.

Joel didn't give a shit about theatrical convention or about his audience. He said that he did what he did for his own amusement, though I don't entirely buy his glibness. He was dealing with big ideas and he presented those ideas in ways that would make you squirm. I care much too much about what others think. Maybe I've made some progress in this regard and I've got a long way to go.

Comments

[Callen Harty]

I just happened upon your posting about Joel Gersmann. He was my mentor, too, many years later. The number of people he influenced and who ended up doing incredible work in the theater was astounding.

When Joel passed away I spent hours and hours and hours on-line looking for former cast members, technicians, and others who may have worked with Joel and who would want to know that he was gone. I tried to reach everyone who might have had an interest, so I'm sorry I missed you.

At the time of his death he was working on a biographical play about Ralph Lauren called The Most Beautiful Jew in the World. After he died those of us at the theater stole that title and created a retrospective/tribute to his life and work at the theater that featured video clips, posters/programs, photographs, personal items, and more. Joel ran Broom Street from its second or third show back in 1969 all the way to his passing in 2005. He created something like 130 original plays, not to mention his adaptations of such classics as The Cherry Orchard, Hamlet (which he did as a mini-series), and more.

I don't have much more to say. My grief continues a year later, so I wanted you to know you are not alone in how you feel. Take care.

Yours,

Callen