2. Processions and Pearls

ENTRY TWO: PROCESSIONS AND PEARLS AT STRATFORD

I have a vivid memory of my first attendance at a theatre.  It goes like this:

            My mother and father took me for a long drive in a car, the longest I'd likely taken in one day to do anything.  I was, perhaps, four years old.  When we arrived at our destination, there were many cars there, a field of cars, cars parked everywhere, on streets, by a river, in a field.  When we got out of the car, I looked up, and there was a very large, kind-of-round building at the top of a hill.   As we walked up the hill toward this building, I remember becoming aware of two things.  The first was how small I was, my hand held by my mother as I struggled to keep up, looking up at everything and down at nothing, everyone moving up a hill toward the same building.  A world full of giants in progress toward the monument of...  

            But not so fast.  That's getting ahead of myself....

            The second, and much more vivid memory, as I struggled up that hill, was of jewelry.  Pearls specifically.  I remember people dressed as if for church, a kind of public costume I knew well.  And yet, not quite for church, because there something extra visible.  It might have been the colour and texture of the suits, or the patterns of the dresses.  But I have no memory of that.  I remember only looking  up at--staring at--a long string of pearls, as I walked up toward that building.  Pearls. 

            And then I'm in my seat, as I remember it, that first time.  It was the largest room I had ever been in, by far.  It was full of chairs all facing the same open space, and it was nearly round, so that I could see people sitting all around me.  The stage, I remember, seemed very close, and was full of edges and points, and a balcony at the back.  I have no memory of recognizing the area in front of me as a stage, just to be clear.  So far as I was concerned, I was in a space, the purpose of which I did not know.  A church, perhaps--though many times the size of any I had visited.  

            I remember that I was in an aisle seat, about two thirds of the way back toward the exits, which were behind me.  And I remember that I stared at all who sat around me, the crowd of people, more people than I'd every seen in one place inside--and maybe outside, too.  And then I was aware that the lights were getting dimmer--and then we were all in complete darkness.  And then I remember this about the performance:

            I remember lights on the stage, and people dressed in billowy trunks and tights--what I later knew were doublets and hose.  I remember large hats with feathers.  

            And that's it.  The sum total of my memory of the event.  No story, no spectacle.  Just doublets and hose and feathers.  And pearls.

            I remember that I grew tired of sitting still, and started to leave my seat.  I remember, distinctly enough that I believe it, getting out of my seat and crawling between my parents' legs.              And I remember my father snoring.  

            I remember nothing after that, no applause, no departure, no drive home.  

So--what am I to make of these memories?  How do I generate something like understanding from this?  Here's what I can come up with:

            This was the Stratford Shakespearean Festival in Stratford, Ontario, a long-ish day trip from where I grew up, so accessible, but not without the tears of sitting in a car without air-conditioning in the summer in the late 1950s.  On the one hand, clearly my parents made an effort to attend.  On the other hand, these were people who never went to the theatre, and in the case of my mother, the destination--a theatre--was an entire institution that was morally and theologically suspect.  And yet there they were, and not for the first time.  They had been there together when it first opened, before there was a permanent building, when the Festival was held in a tent.  They had taken my older brothers there when the building first opened.  They were drawn to the place, to the event, to the drama that took place there.  But it was the only theatre they attended at that time, and quite possibly the only theatre they had attended together during their entire, at the time 20-year, married life.  Why?  What was it that drew them there, but kept them away from any other theatre?  Why was this worth the trip?  

            My own suspicion is that they did not define where they were going as 'Theatre,' but as 'Shakespeare.'  And in their minds, this was an entirely different kind of performance, not like other live performances, or like films--also off limits--but only like itself.  Safe, and a part of their larger Anglo-Canadian culture, and something they remembered from school.  Not that they had much school, but...what they had.

            But that's simply context for my own memories.  And for myself?  First and foremost, what I remember was the architectural space and its relationship to people, all moving towards a building on a hill, together, all in that one way connected, as if in a march, and all sitting together concentrating on one area of space, as if by concentrating on it together we could all make it come alive.  This all clearly impressed me, in a way that was not unlike attendance at a church--except that it was far more impressive, I expect, because of the journey to get there, because of the numbers of people, because of the size of the space, because it was not about church, finally, and so, finally, confusing.  Where were the prayers and the kneeling, and why were all those other people there before us?  Where was the pulpit?  

            But perhaps most telling of these memories are the stray ones, the 'how can he possibly remember that' memories.  I was impressed by people dressed in ways I had not seen, ever, in my life.  The doublet and hose?  Certainly.  But the string of pearls most especially.  I was a small boy in a procession, and I remember this, because in my house I had never seen a string of pearls.  

            My parents had 'no business' being there, it seems to me.  They were making an effort to be good members of the middle class, something they were still only just learning.  They were doing so by compromising their own strong morality on these matters, that looked suspiciously on such gatherings as too close to the ethical bone, as too dangerous to trust.  This is true for my mother, more.  For my father, it was economically out of character, as he struggled with business, and yet looked for ways to improve both himself and his family, culturally in particular.  

            I re-examine these memories now, and this is what I see:  my parents taking trouble to drive a very long way to a performance at a theatre, as a matter of self-improvement.  There was no doubt a long and difficult conversation about this, for reasons economic and ethical, but they did it.  They were somehow not dressed like other people, perhaps not noticeably so, but sufficiently that I would notice the extra added attractions of pearls on other women, other adults, other mothers.  We were sufficiently engaged to attend, but we were ill-equipped to stay the course.  My father slept, and I crawled--the irony here is that my mother, no doubt least willing to attend because of her own cultural restrictions, her own faith, was the only one who stayed alert and attentive.  Or so I believe.  But then, time would prove that she was both the most artistically creative, the most visually sophisticated, and the most intelligent of us.  Not that anyone cared, in the late 1950s, on a farm.  That was something about to happen.

            The pearls were important, then.  But so was the small boy struggling and squirming at the end of the arm of the mother.  Why was I even there?  There were no other children, or not that I can remember.  I can only imagine that my presence was at least a little disruptive, even before I began to crawl between people's legs.  Why was I there to reinforce difference, in costume, and class, and experience in the theatre?   Were my parents so determined to give me the experience, even against some part of their better judgment?  Or was it easier and less expensive than hiring a babysitter for the day? 

            This was, I believe, a complicated journey for them.  Not an easy thing at all, but a long, hard walk up the hill, and a long time in the dark.  

            The fact that it helped to change the course of my life is not a part of that complication.  That was just the unintended consequence.