STORIES IN THE DARK
Many years ago I played “Katie, the Maid” in Beyer High School’s production of George Washington Slept Here. I had about eight lines in the whole play, but I remember getting some good laughs on those lines. About the same time, I saw some friends in Downey High School’s production of You Can’t Take It With You, and I laughed and laughed over their antics on stage. Over the years, I’ve also enjoyed the film version of You Can’t Take It With You, the film The Man Who Came To Dinner, and the 1954 Judy Garland version of A Star Is Born. Those scripts are an important part of my early theatrical experiences, and what they have in common is their author: Moss Hart.
Mr. Hart is a legend of Broadway, with a writing and directing career that included far more credits than listed here. His autobiography, Act One, was required reading for any drama student back in my day, and I still have my copy of it. But I recently downloaded the audiobooks version of Act One and for several happy hours commuting in my car, I revisited Mr. Hart’s tales of his childhood in the poverty of the Bronx and the path to his first hit Broadway play. It’s a fascinating tale of a lifestyle and a Broadway in an era that has long since disappeared. But the essence of Mr. Hart’s story and the lessons he learned are still relevant today.
I particularly enjoy Mr. Hart’s description of the moment he discovered his gift for drama. It’s a moment in a specific time and place, yet it is a scene that has recurred time and time again since the dawn of humanity.
He was 12 years old, spending the endless summer days as all the boys did, in the street in front of his home. Young Moss, not being athletically inclined and something of a bookworm, was never asked to take part in the street baseball game. Instead, he sat on the curb and read a book while the other boys played. When it grew dark, it was customary for the boys to gather on the little stoop in front of the corner store, and Moss was happy just to be allowed to sit there with them. He picks up the narrative now:
“There the boys would sit, talking aimlessly for hours on end. There were the usual probings of sex and dirty jokes, not too well defined or clearly understood; but mostly the talk was of the games played during the day. Ultimately, long silences would fall and then the boys would wander off one by one. It was just after one of those long silences that my life as an outsider changed, and for one glorious summer I was accepted on my own terms as one of the tribe.
I can no longer remember which boy it was that summer evening who broke the silence with a question. ‘What’s in those books you’re always reading?’ he asked idly. ‘Stories,’ I answered. ‘What kind?’ asked somebody else without much interest.
I launched full tilt into the book I was immersed in at the moment. I told them the story for two full hours. They listened bug-eyed and breathless. Not one of them left the stoop until I had finished. The next night and many nights thereafter, a kind of unspoken ritual took place. As it grew dark, I would take my place in the center of the stoop and begin the evening’s tale. Some nights, in order to savor my triumph more completely, I cheated. I would stop at the most exciting part of a story and without warning tell them that that was as far as I had gone in the book and it would have to be continued the following evening. It was not true, of course; but with a sense of drama that I did not know I possessed, I spun out the long summer evenings until school began again in the fall.”
In the years that followed, Moss left the streets of the Bronx behind and took his rightful place on Broadway. What I love about Mr. Hart’s story of those summer evenings on the stoop is that it boils down the art of creating theater to the most basic necessity. We playwrights, songwriters, directors, actors, designers, and theater craftsmen come together to create elaborate musical theater productions, but sometimes it’s useful to remember that theater doesn’t have to be elaborate to be effective. “Theater” has been happening whenever and wherever there are people who want to hear a good story. Ultimately our work – as well as Mr. Hart’s amazing Broadway & Hollywood career – boils down to that centuries-old habit of humanity: telling stories in the dark.
“Other words of mine have been listened to by larger and more fashionable audiences, but for that tough and grimy audience huddled on the stoop outside the candy store, I have an unreasoning affection that will last forever.”
How about you? When did you realize you had a flair for the dramatic? When did you know you wanted to be a storyteller?
Excerpts from Act One by Moss Hart. Copyright, 1959, By Catharine Carlisle Hart and Joseph M. Hyman Trustees. Published in New York by Random House, Inc.