The Ear of the Heart: An Actress' Journey From Hollywood to Holy Vows (59 page)

A full production of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
was our new theater’s first presentation, followed by two more plays by Shakespeare
: The Taming of the Shrew
and
Much Ado about Nothing.
In all, we have presented six plays by the Bard
.

In 1986, Lady Abbess came to me with a request for a production marking her fiftieth Jubilee, something that the Community had heard at Christmastime for years. She wanted a dramatic presentation of Pablo Casals’ oratorio
El Pessebre (The Crib),
based upon the poem written by his friend Joan Alavedra in 1945, when they both were under arrest during the Spanish Civil War
.

Casals had refused to premiere the work in Spain and, instead, presented it for the first time in Mexico in 1960. It had been performed only one other time, in 1967 in Geneva; consequently, our production would mark the first time the work would be performed in the United States
.

Reenter Tom Camm. Tom is the young oblate who departed the Closed Community twenty years earlier to seek a professional career as a dancer. He had been successful in his quest and was part of a professional company in which he had met his wife. Tom and Sally were living in Michigan and had started a family with the birth of daughter Michaela when Lady Abbess contacted them and asked them to stage
El Pessebre
.

“Choreographing the oratorio was an exciting thought,” recalled Sally, “but Michaela was barely one month old, and I was afraid it wouldn’t be possible. ‘But that’s perfect’, Lady Abbess insisted. ‘She can play the baby Jesus!’ ”

The Camms worked on
El Pessebre
for many months, commuting from Michigan for most of them. Working with the music Casals had recorded, Sally based her choreography on Catalonian folk dancing, using, because this story of the birth of Christ is told through the eyes of children, the great stockpile of youngsters who were around the abbey then
.

Tom and Sally danced the roles of Joseph and Mary. Not only is Sally’s dancing something to behold, but she is a genius when it comes to teaching children to dance. The most touching thing was that the children became so involved. Those kids were not intimidated or shy; they remained themselves but also responded to the discipline of performing. When ballet star Gelsey Kirkland visited Regina Laudis during the rehearsal period, she complimented Sally, “That’s exactly how children should be taught to dance!”

Everything about the show was beautiful, really. A particularly poignant memory was having Pablo Casals widow, Marta, who was now living in Washington, DC, come to Regina Laudis to see
El Pessebre.
She watched a rehearsal and was so moved, she cried
.

Sally remembered, “Almost everyone connected to the abbey, including every nun, was somehow involved—constructing flats, making costumes, headpieces and masks for the donkeys and angels. Lady Abbess was very much the driving force behind this project.”

—
If she had had her way, the show would have had a cast of thousands. There was a lot of Cecil B. DeMille in Lady Abbess
.

El Pessebre
was enormously successful and prompted another epic production, not as part of the summer presentations but solely for an invited audience to continue the celebration of Lady Abbess anniversary.
The Mystery of the Holy Innocents
was an adaptation of the medieval mystery play
The Slaughter of the Innocents
, specifically chosen by Lady Abbess as a contemplative response to the ongoing controversy over the Supreme Court ruling in
Roe v. Wade
. Sally Camm again staged and choreographed the piece, she and Tom danced, Veronica Tyler sang, Patricia Neal and Dawn Douglas acted in it. Stephen Concordia, the young man who was in the land program during the time of the 1980 film, composed original music for the production. Coincidentally, Stephen was now considering a religious vocation.

In 1990, James and Dawn Douglas fervor for an acting company was fanned by the arrival on the scene of Helen Patton, a young professional actress who also had dreams of founding a theater company. Helen, who is the sister of our Mother Margaret Georgina, had written an ingenious play called
Love’s Labour’s Won
and brought a number of her skilled friends to perform it. Helen brought prestige as well via her training at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
.

The next year, Helen and her RADA colleague Richard Rivas returned and were joined by two young people working in our land program—Alistair Highet, Iain’s brother, and Melora Mennesson—in a production of Shakespeare’s
As You Like It.

It was a big production, and there was a terrific spirit among the people. For the first time there was a real sense of an ensemble. Everyone was asking, “What’s next? How do we keep this spirit alive? How can we keep this sense of community growing?” They did not want their relationships to fold just because the play was over. I recognized that need and empathized with the ache they felt. It was out of that desire that the Act Association was born
.

Alistair Highet remembered, “The Act Association sprang from this need to have a core of people committed to each other and to the abbey from one play to the next, and it didn’t mean they would necessarily be the ones to put the play on each year, but they would support whoever did. Our mission was to create a context for this kind of community experience. We embraced that mission.”

I felt, as a contemplative, I must put complements—persons who are in my same profession but not called to religious life—into those positions that could build a genuine community theater. I envisioned my role as a supporting one. This has not always been an easy road for a person who likes to have things her own way. But I learned early on that only when one chooses to work with others does life really happen
.

James and Dawn Douglas, Helen Patton, Alistair Highet, Richard Rivas and Melora Mennesson formed the nucleus of the Act Association. This core grew with the addition of Kelly and Michael Briney, a New York couple with theater aspirations; Tim Ridge, a young man who petitioned for an additional year in our land program to join the group; and a carpenter-cum-stage technician, Kevin McElroy, without whom we would never have had a show each summer
.

Helen Patton recalled, “At the beginning, Mother Dolores was very, very present. She used to come and do vocal warm-ups with us, and at one technical rehearsal I noticed her lugging a huge Fresnel lamp and asked her if she should really be carrying that heavy thing. Not breaking her step, she replied, ‘No, my place is inside. I am called to be contemplative, but until you all get your act together and fill these jobs, someone’s got to do it. When you step up to the plate, I can go back to praying for you.’ ”

“Mother Dolores doesn’t suggest plays but approves or disapproves choices submitted by the association”, said Melora Mennesson. “She does go to auditions and rehearsals now and then, but she resists making suggestions, and I don’t think she takes notes. The company doesn’t always run smoothly. Problems arise, but it is rare when she is asked to arbitrate. Nevertheless, everyone knows she is the final authority.

“The plays are meant to reflect a reality both inside and outside the enclosure. Although Benedictines offer hospitality to the laity, they remain very aware of the necessity for enclosure. So there were always times when she was not present.”

—
There is never the necessity to make a decision to be inside the enclosure rather than at the theater or someplace else, and it is not a holier-than-thou posture to stay within the call of the Horarium. The depth of corporate prayer life keeps me within the purpose of my vows. It’s not an intellectual consideration. It’s not a matter of
decision
at all
.

“Putting on a play is a long process”, Melora continued. “Work on each August production begins in January with auditions and read-throughs. For the next few months, rehearsals are scheduled on weekends only because people have family lives and jobs. As we get closer to performance, we rehearse daily. The Act Association presents only six performances of each play, which includes one for the Community only, over two weekends. It’s a lot of work for just that.

“Yet we began looking at several plays to do between our summer shows. Jean-Paul Sartre’s
No Exit
was one of them, but we felt sure it wouldn’t fly. Because the choice is at the abbey’s discernment, we thought we would never be allowed to do a play that takes place in Hell. But Mother Dolores was intrigued with the idea. She is, happily, adventurous.”

Helen added, “We presented
No Exit
, in a translation forged with the help of Mother Jerome, in repertory with an original musical revue,
No Man Is an Island
. The dynamic between the two productions was incredible.
No Exit
was clandestine and dark;
No Man Is an Island
, open and frothy. And yet the audience would be called to contemplate the message of futility in isolation in both.”

Melora recalled, “No
Exit
was performed in Our Lady of Light, the New England-style house across Flanders Road from the abbey. In hellacious weather! It was more than one hundred degrees inside. Nobody could breathe.”

—
Perfect for Hell
.

We always had a play going each summer, although we lost our customary venue for the August fair the very next year. The weekend attendance at our fair had risen to forty thousand guests. That’s a lot of traffic for Flanders Road and a lot of work for the nuns, considering that all the bread, cheese, honey, pottery and metal sculpture available for purchase came from the labors of the nuns. The fair was getting too big. It paid our oil bill for the whole year, but we could not risk becoming a fairground with a chapel attached. I think everyone was relieved when we closed down the fair
.

The last show performed at the fair was a musical revue
, You Got to Move,
compiled and performed by Tom Pomposello. Tom came to Regina Laudis by way of his wife-to-be, the singer Patricia Lawrence, who knew Mother Placid. Tom was an entrepreneur in every sense of the word. He was also a great bear of a man
.

Tom fell in love with the blues at a young age, and he spent the rest of his life playing and collecting what he considered
the
American folk music. He ran his own company, producing music, animation videos and advertising jingles. Lady Abbess and I thought Tom should meet with our guest mistress, Mother Noella, because her connection to Sha Na Na would easily enable her to relate to his profession
.

Mother Noella remembered their first parlor. “Right off the bat, Tom said he wanted his profession to be assumed by the Community, but he didn’t know how. ‘What does a blues man have to give to an abbey?’ he wondered. ‘Some people would say there’s no place for blues there. I recalled the many times Mother Dolores has said, ‘There’s a possibility of sacredness in whatever you do, depending on how you do it.’ ”

“At our next parlor, we came up with the idea of celebrating American music of the second half of the twentieth century. And, since the year would be marking the fiftieth anniversary of the invasion of Normandy, it would also honor the moment when Lady Abbess received the call to found Regina Laudis.

“The title of the show came from a song Tom’s mentor, the great blues guitarist Fred McDowell, had written: ‘You Got to Move’. His lyrics sang of finding your belongings out on the street because you haven’t paid the rent—and you got to move. And, too, when the Lord calls you, you got to move. The Rolling Stones had a hit record with it.”

Tom recruited professional musical colleagues from New York, and their performances were fabulous. He did a masterful job of editing actual D-Day movie footage, which was projected behind these artists. Most of the music had never been performed at the abbey—blues, soul, rock and roll, music Elvis sang
.

I knew Tom was special when I heard his music while we were in the chapel singing Vespers and Tom and his musicians were just finishing the Saturday matinee at the theater. Because it was August, the windows were open, and it was amazing to hear that music in relation to the Vespers chant. There was something about it that was mysteriously complementary. And it was so much fun
.

After
You Got to Move,
Tom remained in close contact. He was concerned about the potential lack of donations we might suffer without the fair to provide a substantial audience. He said he would think of something to do about that
.

Our next play was one I was very familiar with
: The Pleasure of His Company.
Almost forty years had passed since I recited its lines on the Longacre stage. This time Pogo Poole was a devilish James Douglas. Maria Agee, a nurse in residence in the land program, played Cornelia Otis Skinner’s part. Not long after that performance, Maria entered Regina Laudis and is now Sister Esther, who keeps our gardens beautiful. Although the nuns do not appear in the productions, several of the women have done so as members of the Act Association prior to their entrance
.

Pleasure
was followed by another Broadway comedy
, Light Up the Sky,
and three fine dramas
: The Glass Menagerie, The Miracle Worker
and
The Country Girl.
We did not suffer from lack of attendance. We never had a super-full house, but we were building a base; people came back year after year, including a professional contingent who lived nearby—Richard Widmark, Fay Wray, Christine Baranski, Mia Farrow and Jason Robards. Mr. Robards daughter, Sarah, is a member of the Act Association
.

“The first year I was in the group,” Sarah remembered, “I was very content to remain backstage. I did props and costumes and worked on sets. But the next year, James read me for
Light Up the Sky
and cast me as Irene, the actress. Acting was great fun; I really loved it and didn’t know I would love it. During this whole time, I was in the process of converting to Catholicism. That was a big part of it as well.