The Goat

For some reason, no matter how many technological advances arise to drive us further into creepy electronic solitude, the act of getting on a stage and playing pretend continues to bring us social misfits together all across this country. People still go to see plays. We still scrape together all of our resources to put them on. Foolish rich people and corporations still donate tons of money to projects that will never return on their investment – barring the odd singing cat, disfigured singer, or sexy revolutionary.

It’s whistling in the dark. It’s spitting in the wind. And yet we persist.

Visiting rural South Carolina one fine autumn night, I found myself sitting around a table with the local cast of Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons.” They were doing what all show people do, no matter where they play. They were having a post-show drink, and exhaustively re-capping, second by second, every single thing that had transpired on stage that night.

Sadly, their production wasn’t great – alright, it was appalling – but, to a certain extent, that’s not the point. The point is that the insurance salesman with the chinstrap beard (in tandem with his combover, he actually appeared to have a white circle around his face), the jittery married gay man, and the clinically depressed woman have somewhere to go. Something to do. A common goal, a unique cause. A story to tell which, certainly in the case of “All My Sons,” is simultaneously more horrible and more, I suppose, glamorous than their own.

As we sat there dropping peanut shells on the floor and pouring out pints of lager from dirty pitchers, we created a little wall around ourselves. We talked about our favorite musicals. We talked about the genius of Neil Simon, though the effeminate married man prefers his earlier work. We talked about that time they took a theatre tour of New York. For the record, they saw “Miss Saigon” and a play whose name nobody could remember.

Meanwhile, the ten people in the bar who were not in the theatre party stared at us mistrustfully.

What did they make of us?

I remember the years that I was involved in community theatre out on Long Island. Was it any different? We went to a seafood place called “Popeye’s” after every show, and dissected every detail of that evening’s “Run For Your Wife” or “Lend Me A Tenor.” The bar patrons had stared at us mistrustfully, as if we had crawled out from under Faggot Rock. Of course, most of us had. We were a happy bunch.

There was Brian, who was in his sixties and was in charge of all costumes. He had platinum blonde hair, diamond earrings, and was always surrounded by a thick cloud of Paul Mitchell cologne. Every Christmas, he designed his own greeting cards with a naked picture of himself. The year I received one, he was naked in the woods, wearing a Santa hat and feeding a deer. When we went to the beach that summer, he wore a neon orange thong, on the crotch of which he had personally bedazzled a glittery peace sign.

There were Darren and Richard. They were a Committed Couple, also in their sixties. Darren was tall, and affected an English accent at all times. He worked sales for a publishing house but had, in younger days, published a couple of his own science fiction epics – something to do with creatures that were half boy-half horse…and the troubles those rascals find themselves in!! Richard was tiny and silent, a Teller to Darren’s Penn. They often had me over for dinner parties. Inevitably, these parties were attended by Darren, Richard, myself, and some boy they wanted to fix me up with. This would have been nice if it hadn’t come with overt suggestions of a foursome.

Then there was Mikey. Short, squat and very sweet. Mid-fifties. Always inviting me out to his car to smoke a joint. I would always go. He never quite had the nerve to pull any shenanigans, and I liked his weed. We had an understanding. Once, when he was going away on a vacation, he asked me to house-sit. As he was leaving, he gave me the tour. Here’s the dogfood. Here’s the alarm code. Here’s the porn collection. Here’s the video camera. In that box up there are the ‘toys.’ “Oh, by the way,” he said. “Feel free to make a video of yourself watching porn and playing with the ‘toys.’”

As for me, I had just turned twenty one and didn't know my ass from a hole in the ground. What I felt or thought at the time I can't imagine, apart from delight in being desired sexually and being regularly encouraged to dress up in costumes.

Hm. I've just noticed that none of my Community Theatre reminiscences include any actual theatre. And I guess that's just it. The same shows come and go. “Guys and Dolls.” “Evita.” “Noises Off.” “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat.” “The Odd Couple.” “The Female Odd Couple.” “South Pacific.” Over and over and over again. Every once in a blue moon, somebody gets brave and takes on “The Crucible,” or even “Romeo and Juliet.” And it doesn’t really matter. It just matters that a group of passionate people find each other. And film amateur pornos.

To a certain extent, I suppose, the same thing is true of the commercial theatre. It’s cliquey, full of ego, hell-bent on recycling the same old thing over and over and over again. Every once in a while, somebody gets brave and puts Martin McDonough on Broadway again. But for the most part, it doesn’t really matter. Between the two, the only real difference is that the commercial theatre hopes to make a profit.

I just wanted to meet people. On the first day of high school, I mustered all of the gravitas I could find at fourteen, marched into the office of the drama teacher and announced my availability for upcoming "projects." And miraculously, he didn't laugh in my face or call the police. He gave me a part. I became Frank Sterling in "The Creature Creeps."

Of course, for people like me, for the lonely and the alienated, for those of us who have at one time or another taken solace in the theatre, we find that it doesn’t always work that way. You really can’t show up and be given a part just because you’re a boy. You actually must throw away any hopes of having a conventional life, or any sort of security. You must embrace poverty and ridiculous day jobs and humiliating auditions and exploitative agents and managers and the hunger and drive it takes just to tread the boards at all. And suddenly that fun thing you did for comfort doesn't seem like so much fun any more.

For lots of us, this realization leads us to subvert our glamorous dreams. We take a boring job, live in the suburbs, and do our fifth consecutive production of “Carousel.” This is why I have such affection for Community Players. The dreams are still there. The passion is still there. They just also have money and houses and cars and other nice things.

Dr. John was another Player out on Long Island. He was a dentist. Because he was a solid actor and had a decent singing voice, he was considered a hot commodity. He would pull up to the theatre in his BMW wearing a leather jacket and mirrored shades. He was every inch the star. Who was deluding who? He was what he projected himself to be – and isn't that the essence of theatre?

Meanwhile, in the pub in South Carolina, the married gay guy and the white-hair-circle guy were telling me about their latest ambition for their troupe of Players. They wanted to take on Edward Albee’s “The Goat.” This play’s central conceit, by the way, is that a happily married and established man’s life comes undone because of his passionate affair with a goat. He has pictures in his wallet. His enraged wife throws dishes. His gay son kisses him.

Long and short of it; it seems unlikely that this will go over too well in South Carolina. But they hope and they dream and they fantasize.

“We’ve developed a sort of code,” said the married gay guy.

“That’s right,” said white-hair-circle guy. “Everytime somebody brings up scheduling the next season…”

“One of us makes horns with our fingers…”

“And bleats like a goat!!”

In unison, they put their fists to their temples with forefingers held aloft, and began bleating at me.

“BAAAAA!!!”

The patrons at the bar shook their heads and stared into their beers.

“BAAAAA!!!”

I smiled and poured us all another pint.