Almost a Woman : A Memoir (9780306821110) (19 page)

At Performing Arts, we scorned movie actors. They “indicated,”
and their acting relied on minute facial and eye gestures that were often no more than mannerisms. They seldom worked with their voices and seemed more worried about how they looked than creating a character.

It was crucial in our development as actors, we were told, to learn the difference between self-consciousness and self-awareness. A self-conscious actor was too earnest, too vigilant of his or her performance. Self-aware ones trusted that the weeks or months of preparation for a role helped them become the character, while maintaining a level of alertness that allowed them to react to the other actors and to the situation. A performance, we were told, was a living thing that changed and developed every time the actor stepped on stage.

I understood the concepts, observed and stored moments and situations in my “sense memory” for later, when I'd need to draw upon them. But I was convinced that my life didn't provide enough variety to make me a good actress. How could it, when every move I made was monitored by Mami? But whenever I so much as considered going against her wishes, a little voice went off in my head to remind me that between her and the rest of the world was nothing but hostile eyes and low expectations. Were I to fall, only my mother would be there to pick me up. Yes, there were seven sisters and brothers, but they were younger and more helpless. Yes, there was Tata, but she was often drunk. The other relatives were there, but they had children of their own, lives of their own, problems of their own. There was my father, far away in Puerto Rico, with his new wife and his new kids and his new life. If I didn't have Mami, I'd be alone. And at seventeen, I didn't want to be alone. Not yet.

My drama teacher, Mrs. Provet, called me to the office one day and asked if I'd be interested in a job on weekends, working as an usher in a theater.

“I can't work at night.”

“It's on Sunday afternoons.”

I accepted, happy that I'd finally make some money, eager for any exposure to the theater, even as an usher. I'd see actors at work, study their technique, and maybe get some pointers.

The job didn't require an interview. I was to report to the theater at noon on the following Sunday.

The address was in lower Manhattan. I came out of the subway station in front of a row of shabby two- and three-story buildings, not a theater marquee in sight. I looked at the directions and read the address again, walked up and down the block until I found a tattered awning over a dark doorway that led to a set of stairs. I was nervous, reluctant to go up, uncertain of where I was. The
algos
that could happen in dim halls of unfamiliar buildings repeated in my brain, but I silenced them, took a breath, and rose. At the top of the stairs were three doors and a ticket window. I knocked on the door marked “Office” and was greeted by a bearded gentleman dressed in black.

“I'm from Performing Arts,” I introduced myself. “The usher.”

“Oh, yes,” he said, “Come with me.” He led me down the hall. “I'm Mr. Rosenberg,” he said, as he opened the middle set of doors. “I'll be selling tickets, and you'll be right here.” He noticed me hesitate, looked in, and saw that the room was dark. “Uh, sorry,” he said, flipping a switch, and we were in the back of a small theater.

“The numbers are on the armrests. See? You show people to their seats and make sure they get a program.”

He rummaged behind a curtain against the back wall and pulled out a box full of printed pages in a script I couldn't read, but which I knew to be Hebrew. The stark black characters were similar to those in storefronts all over New York, and I'd learned that
meant that the establishment served kosher food, although I wasn't sure what kosher food was.

“Fold them in half like this,” he demonstrated. “The play begins in an hour. You can watch from any seat that's free in the
back.” He pulled out a flashlight from behind the curtain and handed it to me. “If people come late, wait until a change of scene to bring them to their seats. At the end, make sure they don't forget their belongings.”

I sat on one of the hard wooden chairs that flipped up and folded the programs. When I was done, I walked down the stepped aisles to the foot of the stage. It wasn't raised high, only about knee height on me. The set was a kitchen in an apartment. A door stage right led to stairs going down offstage, and a window stage left led to a fire escape. A table covered in a checkered cloth, three chairs, a stove, curtains on the windows, and some dishes completed the set. A bare light bulb lit the stage, and I felt a sudden thrill. This was a real stage, in a real theater, and I was about to see a live performance by real actors.

In a few minutes, there was a shuffle of feet up the stairs. Mr. Rosenberg opened the doors, and I ran to my post at the back of the theater, took a bunch of programs in my hand, and handed them out as people showed me their tickets. They were mostly elderly, very orderly and polite, and seemed grateful to be shown to their seats, though it was clear that many of them were familiar with the layout and knew where they were going. Everyone was as dressed up as Mami and my sisters and I were when we went dancing. The women wore wigs, jewelry, furs. The men wore suits and hats, which they perched on their knees the minute they sat down. There was a strong scent of mothballs, cigars, and perfume.

When the lights went down, I stood in the back of the theater. The actors entered, dressed in the clothes I associated with the owners of secondhand stores and delis on Graham Avenue. They spoke Yiddish, a language that sounded familiar because I'd heard it in the
marketa,
at the check-cashing place, on the streets of Williamsburg.

Even though I didn't understand a word, I was caught up in the action on the stage. The drama revolved around a family whose son had strayed from the traditions they had brought from
their home country to the United States. He'd fallen in love with an American girl, and his family refused to meet her.

At the end of act 1, I applauded vigorously, along with the rest of the audience. A woman in front turned and smiled in my direction. When she passed me on the way out during the intermission, she asked if I understood any of it.

“I don't know the language, but I can follow the action. The actors are very good.”

“Wonderful!” she said, and patted my hand.

When the second act began, a new character was introduced, and I was surprised to see Mr. Rosenberg on the stage. He played a grandfather or other older relative and made several impassioned speeches. At the end of act 2, he delivered a long monologue that brought the audience to its feet and had everyone, including me, in tears.

In act 3 the young man decided not to marry the American girl, and the play ended with the entire family on the stage around lighted candles singing a solemn, beautiful hymn. By this time I was sobbing, and the lady who had talked to me earlier came over with a Kleenex.

“Yiddish theater,” she said, opening her arms in a dramatic gesture. “The best!” I thanked her, nodded agreement, and tried my best to clear the theater, but I was so distraught that I just sat in the back row crying and feeling stupid because I couldn't stop.

Mr. Rosenberg came out stage right, hopped down to the floor, made his way to me.

“I'm so sorry,” I said, “I don't know what happened. It was so beautiful. Your performance. The song at the end. And the candles. I have no idea what you said. . . .” I blubbered on and on, wiped my face with the Kleenex, which by now was shreds in my fingers.

“It's all right,” he said. “It's flattering,” he added with a smile. He offered to introduce me to the actors and took me backstage to the cubicle dressing rooms. I shook each actor's hand, told them
how much I enjoyed the play. They looked at me curiously, and the woman who played Mamma touched my cheek. I was almost brought to tears again, but Mr. Rosenberg led me out.

“Come back in two hours,” he said.

I ushered another show that day, and still the play moved me beyond words. For four Sundays in a row, I watched those actors perform the same play once in matinee and once in the early evening. No performance was the same twice. Their voices, their gestures, the level of concentration changed the dynamics each time they spoke their lines, making the play completely different and new.

Until then, a theatrical experience was a concept taught at Performing Arts, not one I'd had. But now I understood why my teachers at Performing Arts loved the theater so much, why they claimed the sacrifices were worth making.

After the sixth Sunday Mr. Rosenberg said he didn't need me anymore. “We're rehearsing for a couple of months,” he said, “then we open another play.” I was disappointed, told him to call the school when he needed me. A couple of months later, he did.

“Bring a handkerchief,” he said, before he said goodbye. I did.

Mami was told about a dance in the Armory on Park Avenue. “It's been a while,” she reasoned, “and it is almost Christmas.”

I saved my ushering money for a dress and was allowed to shop alone.

“But don't come home with anything
estrámbolico,”
Mami said.

“I don't want to look like a clown . . . maybe black.”

“Ay, no! Don't get black.” Mami had recently rid herself of mourning clothes. She was afraid that if she kept them, they'd bring bad luck. When I suggested she burn them, she flinched, and I understood that fire implied bad things for poor, dead,
Francisco. If she gave the clothes to someone not in mourning, they'd bring the recipient bad luck. So she stuffed them in a plastic bag, tied the bag with several knots so that the bad luck in them wouldn't escape, and put them out with the garbage.

“Red, then, since it's Christmas.”

“Heaven forbid!” Tata said. Red clothes, she claimed, brought on heavy periods and, on a woman of childbearing age, miscarriages.

“I'm not planning to get pregnant any time soon,” I reminded her.

“Still,” she warned.

“Get something with all the colors in the rainbow,” Edna suggested.

“Never mind, I'll figure it out,” I replied. I used the excuse of looking for my dress to shop in Manhattan.

“Why can't you shop around here?” Mami asked, “or on Flatbush Avenue. They have lots of nice things.”

But I didn't want to shop in Brooklyn. At Performing Arts, I'd learned that Brooklyn was not New York City. It was referred to as an “outer borough” by the mayor himself. Manhattan was the financial, theatrical, and artistic center of the United States. I wanted to be in it, to move from the margins into the center. I wanted to climb to the top of the Empire State Building, to gaze over the city and beyond it to the vast horizon that I knew existed but couldn't see from the ground in Brooklyn.