Marquee Shade & Ghost Light

Bookend Rendezvous No. 3

What if books could slip under covers and swap stories?

This book report couples another pair of unknown titles –

strangers to each other, until introduced here.

Marquee Shade & Ghost Light

by Jamie Jobb

Nineteenth Century gaslit theaters suffered well-deserved reputations as filthy firetraps. When the Twentieth Century dawned with the advent of electrified power, theaters found modern ways to address audience safety. Electric lights obviously made stages safer, so public security stimulated box-office demand. Seats sold out and show business emerged from the deepening taproot of budding consumer confidence which took up residence in the “Front Of The House”.

Those who work Front-Of-House tend to regard their theaters as lively breathing beasts, not unlike Audrey-The-Venus-Fly-Trap in “Little Shop of Horrors” – wonderful monsters with thunderous biorhythms and surprising seasonal scents. “FOH” personnel take full responsibility for every single audient in The House, from the street to the seat and back outside again.

Doormen, box-office clerks, ticket-takers, concession-stand hands, janitors, ushers, managers all constitute off-stage personnel necessary for keeping their houses humming for a show. All these public-servants aim to provide ongoing audience support that is mostly ignored by those of us with tickets, unless we require restroom locations or seating assistance.

Performers onstage know their show can’t go on if nobody works FOH – that periodically-populated public space which includes marquee, posters, lobby, bar, concessions, restrooms, alleys, stage door – every square inch of a theater that has “something to say” about the unique experiences which transpire inside the building.

In this Bookend Rendezvous, we introduce two unfamiliar titles which illuminate show business from uniquely specific, albeit inside-out perspectives – “Ghost Light: a Memoir” by Frank Rich and “Places of Performance: The Semiotics of Theatre Architecture” by Marvin Carlson. Whereas Carlson’s book is a densely detailed academic tome of theater hardscapes, Rich’s memoir is a rip-snorter recollection of well-spun yarns which is very difficult to put down. Both books are worthy of the time they demand of a serious theater student.

* * *

Frank Rich recalls U.S. history behind The National Theatre’s second door

Ghost Light: a Memoir

by Frank Rich

New York: Random House, 2001

Notorious as “The Butcher of Broadway” during his long stint as New York Times chief drama critic from 1980-1993, Frank Rich became better known for the depth and breadth of his journalism after he left daily dramatic criticism. Rich’s uniquely American perspective coaxed his writing into fruition as top-tier op-ed critic-at-large for New York Magazine. Later he slow-pitched his own show business success as executive producer for HBO’s biting satire “Veep”. Now Rich may be better known as “The Butcher of the Beltway”.

The largesse of Rich’s personal journalism is obvious to any reader of “Ghost Light” – an enticing yet clearly transcribed series of “selfies” from his charmed childhood love affair with live theater. Although only 51 when he wrote the book two decades ago, Rich dwells on his adolescence in Washington D.C. during the 1950-60s before he left home to begin life on his own. Rich was a privileged adolescent who came of age in the Front of The House during a time of “Camelot”. And he knew exactly what that meant.

Rich’s meticulous recall blossoms slowly into much more than mere memoir. And, like show business itself – everything had to do with timing. Clearly more than once Frank Rich found himself in the right place at the right time. Indeed, his young life was so charmed that his parents’ divorce actually propelled his career.

He was a self-motivated quick-study as a preteen writer. A lone child inspired by musicals, he grew up wondering: “Why would anyone throw away a playbill?” Not such a strange question as he frames it in this midlife examination of his peculiar upbringing.

Lucky for Frank Rich, both father figures in his life – real dad and step dad – had more than casual interest in all things Broadway. Playbills were regular visitors to his home(s). His mother also kept a theater scrapbook. Stepdad Joel not only saved playbills but also dispensed sage Broadway advice. Young Rich took it all in like the executive producer he was becoming. On his very first visit to The Great White Way, he got punched by a solid hunch:

“In Shubert Alley that night I had unwittingly reached the threshold of an entire landscape of alleys that would lead to a world of theaters each a house packed with strangers both generous and mean, shabby and grand. It was to be a life full of the transitory moments, double-edged with ecstasy and loss, that I had already come to think of as theater. And following the example of Mom and her scrapbook, I would try to memorialize this life as it passed, hoping to freeze time and hold each moment before it fled.”

An observant young man, Rich most esteemed musical theater. Not unlike child actor/theater critic Iain Armitage (CBS-TV’s “Young Sheldon”), Rich tracked his own Broadway habit by amassing a playbill collection of shows he attended. He even admits scouring trashcans of Tin Pan Alley for tossed programs of shows he didn’t see. Rich also copied by hand entire Times Square newspaper advertisements. The kid fell asleep with all the Lullabies Of Broadway he’d heard dancing in his dreams!

* * *

“People came and went, but the theater stayed.

Even an empty playhouse had drama,

intense and perhaps momentous.”

– Frank Rich

* * *

Portrait of young “Butcher of Broadway”

Located at 1321 Pennsylvania Avenue just three blocks from The White House, The National Theatre is a privately-owned venue with a long, proud history in the nation’s capitol. Although it burned down and was rebuilt three times, The National remains America’s oldest theater continually operating in the same address since 1835. Despite that ancestry, in no way is it associated with that publicly-endowed jewell in the United Kingdom’s cultural crown – The National Theatre of London.

Young Frank Rich lived in Cleveland Park within four miles of the theater, the closest D.C. ever got to Broadway. Rich saw so many touring shows at the National that he eventually caught the attention of theater manager Scott Kirkpatrick who stopped the lad one day and offered him a job as second doorman. With that FOH position came his first “pass” into the theater. Now that Frank was “on The Door”, he could get in free.

But Rich learned right away that if he actually wanted to see an entire performance, he’d have to do so on his own time – stuck as he was in the office during the show, trying to balance The Count (tickets sold) and The Deadwood (unsold, unsat seats).

From his vantage at The National’s second door, Rich lets his readers thoroughly tap the epic beats of American history during that turbulent time of undeclared war, public disobedience, assassination, civil rights and riots.

* * *

“Broadway seemed a place where no matter what happened in the rest

of the world, a closing would always be followed by an opening,

an empty house would always become full again.”

– Frank Rich

* * *

At their most visceral level, theaters are celebrations of light and sound – particularly after the stage has been set and the seats are full. But when “The House is dark”, theater people understand the place is not really dark.

Every House has its “ghost light”, basically a bare-bulb pole lamp without a shade. The first time he saw one, Frank Rich was shocked: “Only a few hours earlier, I thought, there had been people talking and laughing and crying on this stage as if their lives would never end. Now there was nothing but what looked like a giant night-light. It stood at the center of the empty stage: a tall black pole with a single lightbulb at its top, a solitary lamp casting stark shadows everywhere. What was its point?”

Superstitious thespians (google “The Scottish Play”) believe a ghost will haunt a theater unless the ghost light remains lit on stage while The House is empty. Indeed, the words “ghost” and “theater” co-star in the same sentence so often that it’s no accident every House has a ghost light. 

 A short sidebar follows this essay. It tells the true tale of John McCullough and describes in more detail how ghost stories can became embedded in a theater.

* * *

Edwin Booth’s set for “Merchant of Venice” in 1864

Places of Performance:

The Semiotics of Theatre Architecture

by Marvin Carlson

Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993

Marvin Carlson is distinguished professor of theater at University of Washington and State University of New York, so we should expect him to pen an academic tome – a deep text that requires plenty of processing time, a read-a-page-and-think-about-it-book.

Carlson concerns himself with how a theater “signs” itself to a community. He observes that a theater’s impact may be judged best by what its location and architecture say about society’s attitude toward the place. His lens is the science of Semiotics, the study of how things display themselves in public. In other words, what a venue “says” about itself beyond its proper name. Carlson states:

“… the theatre building which in addition to providing a space for the performance of a dramatic text has taken on a wide variety of social meanings over the centuries – a cultural monument, a site of display for a dominant social class, an emblem of depravity and vice, a center of political activism, a haven of retreat from the world of harsh realty. Nor are these many connotations without effect on the physical theater space, many elements, some evident, other subtle, of contemporary and historical theater provide striking evidence of the semiotic role played by a theater in its society.”

Few who attend live performances stop to comprehend semiotic meanings in the theater, as we are more concerned with the meaning of the drama on stage. Carlson knows we’re missing a bigger context:

“Every element of the spectator’s environment during ... performance – the singing, the scenery, the orchestra, the lobbies and bars at intermission, the programs, the ushers, the other audience members – contributes to the way in which that spectator ‘makes sense’ of the event, and all these may be subjected to semiotic analysis.”

Although less notorious than Frank Rich, Carlson is a recognized expert in western theater history.  But it’s not easy to comprehend an author who asks “How do theaters mean?”  Upon reflection, that’s a very probing question when you face it head on.  Put another way: How do theaters tell and sell themselves to the public? What is their story, beyond those fleeting moments of poetry dramatically presented on stage?

Take, for example, the statement that a venue is a “Broadway” theater. Carlson points out that Broadway was the main drag, the street most people used to get to the theater district. But in fact most theaters were on side streets and their marquees had to be affixed to the building on a diagonal, so patrons could read it on Broadway!

Carlson acknowledges Brander Matthews as the first American professor of theater studies to establish semiotic study.  Much of their academic effort has landed in Columbia University’s collection of historic theater models and memorabilia which Carlson draws upon heavily for his research.  Theater architecture is akin to Greek temples or Roman churches with an assembled mass “set off from the rest of the world.”

* * *

“There’s a difference in not getting laughs,

and changing the architecture of the theater.”

– Lenny Bruce

* * *

And it may be a little difficult to believe, but Carlson’s textbook helped me comprehend how to find the best seat in The House for a spectacular farce we saw a few years ago. The book’s advice worked for us when we were among the audience for Dario Fo’s "Accidental Death of an Anarchist" at Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre. After reading Carlson’s descriptions of seating arrangements of indoor theaters of the Renaissance being arranged around “the ducal box” seats, I realized which tickets were best for us as I scanned Rep’s digital House chart.

We picked seats in the mezzanine, first row – right in the middle of The House. Indeed, these were the best seats to see Fo's explosive anarchist brand of farce. The Duke’s box in Renaissance theaters was positioned in direct counterpoint to the stage: right in the crosshairs of a set’s vanishing point.

So when the final bombastic image of "Accidental/Anarchist" burst through the Roda’s proscenium, it had an extremely powerful impact upon all of us because we were sitting in the exact seats where the effect was meant to be seen.

From our point of view, this was truly inspired theatric pyrotechnics -- a literal Big Bang -- that was far more unique than any violent fireworks display Hollywood could dream up on a $20 million budget.

* * *

The Ghost Light for John McCullough

In its Sunday edition of 4 October 1896, The Washington Post reported an eerie experience of Frederic Bond, well-known comedian and close friend of Irish-American actor John McCullough. Bond was sitting alone at the National Theatre late one night in rehearsal at a prompter's table downstage. Running his lines in flickering gaslight, the actor heard a disturbing noise.

He looked into the wings then out into the darkened auditorium, and saw no one. Thinking he‘d misheard something, Bond returned to his memorization. But again a frightful noise stopped him. Peering into gloomy shadows, he wondered if another actor or the nightwatchman had crossed behind the curtains. Maybe someone was playing a trick on him?

Suddenly the hairs on the back of Bond’s neck arose as he felt nearby the invisible presence of a hovering being. Bond saw an apparition gliding across stage before stopping in front of him. Recognizing the visage, Bond called out: "John? John McCullough!!!" whereupon the figure disappeared into the wings.

Then suddenly another transparent figure materialized. Bond recognized it as the recently-deceased Eddie Specht, an eager young property-boy who idolized McCullough. When the theatre was empty, Specht would often mimic McCullough's roles on the bare stage. Eddie's ghost followed McCullough's spirit to the same spot offstage and also vanished.

Time has scattered evidence and witnesses, but rumors persisted that an actor had been murdered and buried under the National stage where Tiber Creek flowed in an open drainage ditch beneath the boards. That channel was not enclosed by a storm sewer until the 1950s. Running water could be heard after heavy downpours during quiet scenes in the auditorium above. The convenient creek below-stage provided actors with a perfect place to wash costumes, hang out, have arguments and … get murdered.

However it’s questionable whether the victim was truly actor John McCullough, or just another “John”. Evidence exists that the unfortunate McCullough contracted a "social disease" which affected his mind. This rendered the actor increasingly ineffective in bizarre performances which found him confusing his blocking and forgetting lines. He appeared on stage for the last time in Washington in 1884, and died mercifully the following year in Philadelphia where he also was alleged to have been buried.

Getting wind of this murky circumstance in the 1930s, Washington police planned to dig up the National Theatre’s earthen floor below the stage, exhume any corpse and give McCullough a proper grave in a proper cemetery. But a close-knit clan of thespians opposed those plans and rallied against any scheme to disturb their fellow actor resting-in-peace exactly where he wanted to be.

While beyond scientific scrutiny, McCullough sightings continued to be reported well into the 20th Century. But are they legend or legacy? Just when cynical sensibilities could debunk such lurid tale of backstage murder and walking dead, new evidence emerged. In renovations of The National during its refurbishment of 1984, no body was found but a rusty pistol turned up in the dirt beneath the stage. The theatre's manager turned it over to the Smithsonian.

https://web.archive.org/web/20050901065753/http://nationaltheatre.org/location/ghost.htm

FURTHERMORE

http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100594990

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/153998/ghost-light-by-frank-rich/9780375758249/

http://www.playbill.com/article/frank-rich-memoir-ghost-light-will-materialize-in-october-com-90691

https://www.barclayagency.com/speakers/frank-rich/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Rich

https://www.washingtonian.com/2012/10/08/frank-rich-theater-saved-my-life/

https://scarydc.com/2017/12/02/john-mccullough-of-the-national-theatre/

https://web.archive.org/web/20050901065753/http://nationaltheatre.org/location/ghost.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCullough_(actor)#Haunting

https://library.columbia.edu/libraries/rbml/units/performing_arts/overview.html

Frank Rich audio interview 6 February 2015

https://youtu.be/8C0E1b1EBxI

(21 minutes)

Shows About Show Biz:

“Theaterland”
"This So-Called Disaster"

“Slings and Arrows”

“Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead”

THANKS for helping me learn The House:

Marvin and Sadie Reed, Van Fleisher, Ken Brown, Jerry Jones, Jonathan Demme, Greg Weglarz, Buckley Weglarz, Stanley Balcauskas, Gretchen Green, Martha McDonough, Richard Janaro, Randy Nott, Ryan Terry, Diane McRice, John Lytle, Todd Drummond, Dave Pursley, John Burgh, Mark Hinds, Helen Means, Eddie Roberts, Gwen Sampson, Robert Brown.