“Old Yankees in the neighborhood worked in their gardens by moonlight. They lived in houses they’d grown up in, planted vegetables and talked at night on their porches. They drove model A’s, had coal furnaces and got ice delivered by a man with a horse and cart just as it had happened when they were young.
“They followed rituaclass="underline" Memorial Day and Fourth of July and Harvest Moon and at Halloween they had pumpkins with candles inside them on their porches.
“Instinctively I understood the power of a certain grain in the blood.”
That old neighborhood decades ago is where I am. I feel smaller. The face of the kid Joseph/Josie wide-eyed but guarded is my face as I speak.
“My parents often seemed very young. They had been actors, people of the theater who settled down but not entirely. My mother wrote for a local TV show Boston Common. On five mornings a week it was songs, the news, dramatic pieces (her specialty), a segment for kids.
“Sometimes she took me with her when she brought scripts over to the station. Old friends she’d acted with worked on the show. They greeted each other with kisses. She’d be flushed with excitement. I never thought to see if it was the full moon.
“My parents always wanted me on the show and I always said no. Maybe some part of me understood where I was going and wanted to delay the trip as long as I could. When Boston Common got cancelled after a few years my mother was devastated, lost.
“By then I had other concerns. At that time boys swam, showered, took group physical exams naked. As a small child I’d just seemed undeveloped and got teased. With the onset of puberty it grew obvious that I had a cock and a cunt as well. I was taunted, kicked, taken to doctors.
“Drug treatment was suggested, surgery. I didn’t want to change and my parents, who knew a little about being different, didn’t insist. They moved to another part of the city enrolled me at a school where I got excused from gym and swimming class.
The secret scared me but left me feeling superior to others. Danger and lust got intertwined.
“My parents still dabbled, did readings, took small parts in plays. My father was in a production of Shaw’s The Devil’s Disciple done in late spring outdoors in the Public Gardens.
“I went with a couple of fellow outcasts from our high school drama department. The full Flower Moon rose over the trees. By then I knew all the names and phases and was aware of what was up with my parents. I felt my grow fluid and knew what I was meant to do.
“The next year I was a page boy in Henry the Fifth, not a big stretch. Shortly afterwards I was Yum Yum in The Mikado. We opened the night of Green Corn Moon and I was sensational.
Sex was a tense game. I had so many ways of disappointing partners. My freshman year of college I got picked up at a party by one of the boys who’d tormented me back in the old neighborhood. He didn’t recognize me. I showed him what I had. His eyes widened in recognition.
“Then I showed him this,” and on the stage of the Cherry Lane my face is the Gorgon Medusa’s. It’s my way of telling the audience we’re past the pleasant introductions. They recoil but don’t turn to stone.
Ransom has disappeared from the stage. I stand motionless, getting back my face and body. Drums beat out in the lobby and then in the house. Ransom comes down the center aisle. His hair is in golden ringlets; his face gleams. Behind him the chorus twirl, buck, roll their eyes back in their heads. They chant:
They are the wild maenads, the women, some played here by guys, who have followed Dionysius all the way from Asia to ancient Thebes. Several have leather drums on which they maintain heartbeats that will go on as long as the performance does. Two others hold aloft on sticks a light-reflecting silver disk: the full moon.
Euripides’ The Bacchae: maybe everyone sees herself in every great play. But those who follow the silver goddess are close to this one. Order—Pentheus the righteous young king of Thebes—confronts Chaos—Dionysius god of wine and frenzy.
The chorus sings and dances:
All are supposed to be wild-eyed. But tonight some are barely under control. Intentionally, we are playing with fire. Tommy is the worst, twirling, smacking into others on the crowded stage. He’s the company pet. Random lets him get away with too much. I catch Tommy’s attention, stare right into him. He subsides.
At Lincoln Center many years ago there was the legendary production in which young Ransom played both Pentheus and Bacchus. Tonight he stands at the back of the stage and announces:
His eyes are wide and blazing as he goes on to speak of his anger at the city and its ruling family—relatives who have disowned him and plans for vengeance.
In Greek drama, actors take multiple roles. With my back to the audience I wear a crown and am Pentheus; young, arrogant, full of hubris, speaking to what he thinks is a lunatic, ordering him imprisoned.
And all the time the chorus goes on chanting quietly, the drums beat. The silver disc shines on the stage.
Minutes later Ransom, young and severe, wears the crown and is Pentheus his face rigid and imperious. Tommy is a messenger describing the packs of maddened Bacchantes which include Pentheus’ own mother and aunts, destroying villages, tearing wild beasts and cattle apart:
Pentheus demands to see this for himself. Now I am Dionysius all golden hair and glowing face. I dress him in woman’s robes and lead him up the mountain while the chorus around us snaps their teeth like mad dogs. The night, the drums begin to take me. My eyes lose focus.
Then we are all supposed to exit except for Mary Kowal who remains onstage. Tomlinson passing by suddenly turns and bites her on the shoulder. She cries out, shoves him away. This is not acting and I hear the audience gasp. For a heartbeat everyone on stage stops. For a moment it seems that we might all start tearing at each other.
I know Ransom is being dead in the wings. He lies stretched out on the floor, mouth gaping, an expression of horror on his face. I’ve seen it many times.
It’s up to me. I grab Tomlinson, look right into his wild, staring eyes with all the authority of a priestess and the madness of an actor with forty-five years on the New York stage.
“Don’t waste this last chance, Tommy,” I whisper. His eyes focus and the troupe leads him off. Onstage Mary Kowal as a messenger describes how the Bacchae, maddened, fell upon Pentheus. Agave, his own mother, tore her son’s head from his believing he was a lion.
In the wings we form up in a tight group, pick up dead Pentheus and emerge onto the stage. And now I am Agave marching back into Thebes. In triumph I hold my son Pentheus’ bloody head by his mane of hair, his jaw flapping open. Foaming at the mouth I sing: