I think this is a great time to do MASTER CLASS, an opportune time. At it’s heart, MASTER CLASS is a play about the value of art. As the economy struggles and everybody tightens up and battens down, once again, and as always, art is the ‘poor cousin’ to utility bills, groceries, mortgages and insurance premiums (ahem). This is always the case, but it’s important to remind ourselves of the honest value of Art to the human animal. To those that make it and those that experience it. It sustains us, elevates us, offers context and solace, and an altar to Praise and Lament, as the poet Rilke called the divine polarity of human expression. We need it. We don’t often even sense that, but, as Maria Callas states in the play: “The sun will not fall down from the sky if there are no more Traviatas. The world can and will go on without us but I have to think that we have made this world a better place. That we have left it richer, wiser than had we not chosen the way of art.”

Yep, I’ve been asked to”blog”. I’ll say from the outset, I don’t quite get what this is all about, but, being an absolute sport…. I’ll play.

I’m going to rat myself out. In the spring of 1994, I was part of The Gathering in Big Fork, Montana. It was a new play workshop and reading series produced by a couple of friends of mine. I was still living in Seattle and it was a quick gig that paid, and on beautiful Flat Head Lake besides. I was there as an actor. One of the plays that was being read was a thing called MASTER CLASS. Terrence McNally was there, and Zoe Cauldwell was reading Maria Callas. It was one of the first public readings of the play. There were a couple of people I knew from Seattle in it, including Karen Kay Cody who ended up performing in the New York production, as Sophie. I saw the reading, walked outside and ran into the other friend, who shall remain nameless, but had played Manny the accompanist in the reading. I had to confess to him I didn’t get, wasn’t at all sure it worked, and really, did anyone care about an opera diva that much? He also was not sure he was sold on the play. Several years later we met up at a new play festival in California and did the usual “what’s up” queries. Turns out we were both about to direct the play we had damned with faint praise in Big Fork, he at the Denver Theatre Center and me at Salt Lake Acting Company. We congratulated each other on our unerring instincts and both had a slice of humble pie, shared an ironic chuckle. And now, I’m directing it for the second time.

I still know almost nothing about opera. I have to admit I’ve never completely shed the notion that it’s a little silly, which is ridiculous to say as I’ve still never seen an opera. I blame it on the Bugs Bunny cartoon where Elmer Fudd is dressed in drag as Brunhilde singing “K-will dah rabbit, K-will dah rabbit” to Wagner. Popular culture has not been kind to the art form, and I’m shotglass deep and given to baser instincts. But I will say this, Maria Callas has become a very compelling character for me. She did not completely disagree with my kneejerk assessment of opera, either. Her career was a corrective on the merely decorous tendencies in the form. She rejected pretty costumes, pretty music, preening peacocks bathing in light and self-congratulation. She was a revolution. And it cost her dearly. Cost. That column is tallied up with great impact in this play. I have an image of Callas near the end of her life, donated to my conciousness through my readings. She is hold up in her Paris apartment, having become a fragile recluse, and bathed in the light of a television set that was ALWAYS on. Her favorite programs were westerns and detective stories. Even her infrequent guests had to talk over the din of the omnipresent set. Lonely. Lonely. Lonely. The woman that virtually invented the expression “jet set”, who yachted with Churchill, the Rainers, movie stars and glittering heads of state…. the mistress of one of the richest men in the world, the prima-diva…. Cost. I think I understand so much more clearly this time how high the stakes were for her when these master classes occurred. Her career was essentially over, her voice shredded, the love of her life married to Jackie Kennedy but still perversely pursuing her and her confidence at its lowest ebb. She was a woman looking back, attempting to teach students only looking forward. Young, hopeful animals with no knowledge of the costs that may lay ahead. No wonder McNally grabbed the moment! Could it be any more loaded? Any more heartbreaking and funny in turn? Talk about your intrinsic dramatic conflict. So, although I am still a philistine when it comes to opera, and still a stranger in a strange land, I have come to hold Ms.Callas in deep regard. Had I known her I would have undoubtedly wanted to save her from the dark tide, as so many people who knew and loved her tried to do. At least through this play we raise a glass to her now.

We’re about to enter our tech week, as I write this. I’m not going to talk about the workings of our rehearsals, because that’s still very much family business, but I will say I have, once again, thoroughly enjoyed working with Anne Cullimore Decker as the Lady. I could probably write reems about that, but I won’t. Master Paul Dorgan, you have quite simply saved our bacon and poured grace through our days. And our “students”. Bless them all. They have worked their butts off with intelligence and complete devotion. And, truly, Arika Schockmel, our stage manager… you are the hub, you are the light. Josh Martin, we will make you a star, dude. And the designers, Keven, Jim, Brenda and Dave…. all you do is make concrete the world. Nothing much, eh? And SLAC, the Mother Ship, nice to be back. Allora!