Last month’s rousing performances of “Kiss Me Kate” by Culver City High School’s Academy of Visual and Performing Arts were entertaining and engaging, whimsically blending Cole Porter and Shakespeare. What I heard after the shows was inspirational. Several parents shared how empowering, and even life-changing, the experience of participating in “Kiss Me Kate” (or generally in AVPA’s music, dance, art, theatre and films programs) has been for their kids.
Here’s the story of my own quite unexpected and life-altering Shakespeare experience, as a participant of an entirely different kind. It was originally written as a tribute to Raul Julia following his untimely death.
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Raul Julia’s sad passing led me to reminiscing. His passionate screen and television work engaged me on many occasions. But his most profound impact on me was before I even knew who he was. The one time I got so close to him he could spit on me … and he did.
It was the summer of 1978. I was visiting friends in New York. We capped a great day of Manhattan neighborhood hopping by playing frisbee in Central Park’s late afternoon sun.
As a major baseball fan, I lobbied for the natural way to spend that balmy summer evening – my first trip to Yankee Stadium. Marc and David weren’t biting. To them, baseball rests a half-a-step above root canal on the enjoyment scale. David fended off Reason Number 37 for a trip to the ballpark by pointing to a long line across the park. “That’s what we’re doing,” he exclaimed. He and Marc bolted for the line. Case closed.
We stood there for 45 minutes to get tickets to Shakespeare in the Park. Shakespeare?! I’d never made it all the way through any of the bard’s works during school. To top it off, we were offered the chance to sit at the very front, as part of the “audience” of the “play within a play” in “Taming of the Shrew.” So much for hiding in the back and falling asleep.
We were ushered to seats no more than a dozen feet from center stage. I hadn’t been this close since my acting career ended as an ensemble player in “Masque of the Red Death” in the seventh grade. Reluctantly I settled in and skimmed the program. The production featured actors named Meryl Streep and Raul Julia. Streep was hardly a household name, but at least I’d seen her in the miniseries “Holocaust.” All I knew from Raul was the French version, “Raoul,” adopted by a friend in high school French class.
The play began, the dialogue cameth forth, and my mind wandered to the Bronx. I heard the crowd roar as Reggie Jackson launched a tape measure shot over the right-center field wall. I smelled the hot dogs and tasted the beer as the vendors scampered down the aisles.
But the sheer volume of the actors almost literally “in my face” snapped me back to the moment. Streep and Julia strutted before me, radiating intensity. Their body language, voices and eyes carried meaning far deeper than the words they spoke. And suddenly the characters and story began to make sense.
I could see the spray flying as the sparring characters hurled each new invective. Julia’s tirade reached its heated pinnacle, and I felt the first drops of misty rain from a cloudless sky. When it dawned on me that the moisture sprang directly from Julia’s mouth along with his words, I was mesmerized.
The spell was broken only by the resounding roar as we gave Julia, Streep and company a standing ovation at the final curtain.
Three summers later I sat in Dodger Stadium watching the Yankees and Dodgers in the World Series. But what I still talk about is Shakespeare in the Park with Meryl Streep and Raul Julia.
Michael Zucker, a writer and communications strategist, has called Culver City home for 15 years. He helps individuals, organizations and businesses tell their stories. Michael can be contacted at sustainableconversations@gmail.com