Tuesday, August 20, 2013

A Twist of TRIST

The year was 1977. I was two years out of high school and somewhat at loose ends in my life. I was working at a job that I disliked, just to pay the bills, you understand, and living with my sister in Cranston, Rhode Island. Just another young man looking for a purpose, some meaning to make the days seem fuller and less aimless.

I had, a few months before, acted the role of Conjur Man in a production of "Dark of the Moon" at a small community theater in East Greenwich. I had discovered my love of acting in high school under the tutelage of a forward thinking teacher and director and was anxious to continue in that vein. A friend suggested that I call Bob Colonna, the artistic director of what was once called The Young Rhode Island Shakespeare Theater, now with the word "young" dropped from the name and known popularly as TRIST. I hesitated at first. I had seen Mr. Colonna in a few productions at Trinity Rep, the nationally known theater in the center of Providence, and I was somewhat cowed by his reputation as an actor. My friend insisted, however, and I made the phone call.

Bob couldn't have been nicer and more welcoming. He suggested that I find my way to the CIC Building outside of the city proper to watch his latest production, a charming and youthful version of Shakespeare's Richard II. I was instructed to meet him backstage after the performance. When the applause faded and the audience filed out I hesitantly crossed the stage and peeked through the curtains that hid the dressing rooms from the spectator's eye. I saw a small group of young women, each in various stages of undress. When I retold this story many years later I gave myself more bravado than I actually felt at that moment, telling my listeners, "And, right then, seeing those half naked women, I knew I was home." If truth be told, I blushed and dropped my eyes, stammering, "I'm sorry. I'm supposed to meet Bob ... Bob Colonna?" One of the ladies was kind enough to lead me to the man himself.

Bob shook my hand and fixed me with a friendly grin. I returned his smile, almost instantly feeling a bond with this big bear of a man. We talked for several minutes, not an interview or an audition by any means, but an easy conversation that ended with him inviting me to a first read-through of his next offering, an outdoor production of  A Midsummer Night's Dream. I read Demetrius but was cast as Peter Quince.

And so began the next fifteen years of my life. I was cast in the next three productions; Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night, Enobarbus in Antony and Cleopatra and Epicure Mammon in The Alchemist. We traveled a bit with these shows, having lost the space in the CIC warehouse. The next summer we were invited by The Newport Historical Society to take up residence in an old carriage house behind  Swanhurst Mansion on Bellevue Avenue. We traveled, a somewhat motley but very excited crew of actors, from the mainland to Aquidneck Island.

We repeated our last season for a new audience, each of us very comfortable in our roles and becoming more and more comfortable in the tiny 83 seat theater as each week passed. We were invited to stay on past that first summer and the offer was accepted gladly. As the years passed our little troupe grew as more local actors joined us. We did about four shows each season, mostly Shakespeare but with the occasional anomaly thrown in; Shaw, Kaufman and Hart, Moliere. I was, quite honestly, in my true element. I got the chance, in my twenties and thirties, to play some of the greatest roles ever written for the stage; Cassius, Angelo, King John, Touchstone, Buckingham and others to numerous to mention. I made life long friendships, fell in and out of love many times, lost a few very close dear friends to  Shakespeare's  "undiscovered country" and, generally, led an artistic life most actors would envy.

We lost the lease to The Swanhurst eventually. In unintentional irony, the last scheduled production of our last season there was a musical version of  The Outcasts of Poker Flats. We continued to perform in any venue we could find, Romeo and Juliet in a local private school, Moliere's The Miser in the shell of The Friend's Meeting House. The die was cast, however, and The Rhode Island Shakespeare Theater folded under the weight of no funds and no permanent home. I moved to Ohio and continued performing sporadically. It never felt the same, though. The pure comradeship and love that we shared was something I never found again.

It does please me to state that Bob Colonna, the same man I met and fell in love with back in 1977, has reformed his theater and it has risen, phoenix like, to delight the citizens of Providence in outdoor venues throughout the city. My only request of these new younger actors is this; respect the man who has given you this gift, respect the gift, respect the exciting history of the theater you are part of and respect the future entrusted unto you.

3 comments:

  1. Wow, Donald. I'm humbled. Well, sort of! But really, thank you for this memory, and your kind words. TRIST REALLY misses you, but now you have a lovely daughter to absorb your attention, and rightly so. Maybe you can come visit us all. P.S. I just talked to Damon. Yes, I did.

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    1. Thank you, Bob. I do hope I got most of the facts straight. It is the emotions I remember most. If you talk to Damon again, give him my love.

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