Light More Light-a trip back to LU

I recently returned to a place I associate with personal failure, panic, anxiety and depression, not high school. College. This return back to a place where I spent the better part of four years frozen, literally and emotionally, was bittersweet. I arrived with my theatre troupe/program, of 10 years, CloseUP. Lawrence had hired us to perform for their incoming freshman class. I received a phone call on my cell phone that read, Lawrence University. I didn’t answer it, thinking how did the development office, the Lawrence Fund, get my cell phone? And in a somewhat ironic twist, the evening of the phone call I was in LA and meeting some of my college friends Steve (aka Bert) and Gillian (aka Gilly). A harmonic convergence or divergence.. I wasn’t so sure. When calling me/us they were unaware that I was even an alumni.

This show, which has traveled in various incarnations to other Universities, including our own, basically addresses subjects of transitions from trying to balance a home and school life, to one night stands, to sexual assault, to civility. It speaks to almost all the challenges (excluding mental health) I wish I had been spoken to me as I entered this life-transition.
The show moves far away from the didacticism of what may be a typical educational theatre production. And instead it’s irreverent, it’s hopeful; it’s politically ‘incorrect’ and thus honest. It’s both informal and formal, episodic, and thus more accessible to it’s channel surfing audiences. Its forms are reflective of media, soundbytes, public-service announcements, movie plots (15 minute rule’s set-up slightly resembles breakfast club, that 5 ‘archetypes’ arrive for the first day of college, waiting for the professor to arrive. The 15 Minute Rule is the unspoken rule which says if a prof. Is 15 minutes late, the class can depart with presumably no penalty—I myself am typically 3-5 minutes late, mostly because of the theatrics, ‘it’s all about the entrance’.)

The show’s intents (awareness, hope, prevention) are multiple and overlap. One intent, for example is to both foster awareness of sexual assault (1 in 4 women will be sexually assaulted during their life time), and prevent it. We address alcohol use from two perspectives--- if you spend your college life drinking are you missing out on other opportunities spoken in our piece ‘Wasted Time” or in War Stories, two people try to up each other on drinking tales. After each story they toast, ‘classic’ drink simultaneously and as they lower their beer bottles, we see some subtext-regret? Questioning? The question, which is projected following the scene, is, “What do the stories you tell, tell about you?”

The show speaks to living a life in check and in balance. Not living a life in grey, but living a life, which isn’t extreme ‘but someplace in between’. We are not trying to foster communities of moderates nor Protestants, but people open to possibility, to diversity, yet wary of risk that could result well..in personal destruction.

For our visit to Lawrence, we reworked and rewrote several pieces. When going to another university or college, we work to create a show that reflects some of the culture of their community. When performing for Western Kentucky University we satirize the diversity of religion. The town hosts something like 150 Baptist Churches. Diversity is like Methodist or something. This cracks the audience up every time (we have been to WKU for the past 5 summers).

Lawrence’ing this show was going to be a little difficult. Though I attended there, I would say that I was an exception not the norm. As a student, I would often say to those back home, that I was the ‘darkest person a in 40 mile radius (I’m Jewish). Or perhaps I just felt most different. I certainly wasn’t the darkest, but I was one of the fastest talkers. I had never felt ethnic until I arrived at Lawrence. In moments (this sentiment would/does continue way into my professional life) I was viewed as a novelty. Where I live now, in one of the most segregated states in the US—my Jewishness is often revered—displayed, and often ostracized.

CloseUp’s homebase, EMU, is quite different form LU. EMU is a regional university of 24,000. It’s primarily made-up of first generation college students from middle to low income families. Most of its undergraduate populace hails from the east side of the state, and most of its people are connected in some way to the depressed auto-industry. And though Lawrence doesn’t have an arrogant, prep-school, old-money attitude of some other elite liberal arts colleges, its student body is certainly more privileged that that the body of EMU. Though many students at Lawrence receive Financial Aid, it’s not a first-generation, generation; it’s a second or third generation mentality. Culturally, it’s primarily white and Midwestern. I joke that upon arriving at LU in 1987, I was in awe of the people’s height. I grew up around Jews, Italians and Mexicans, where 5’9 was tall. Here in this Norwegian, Dutch, German-Descent crossroads, average male height was like 6’2. This was Jcrew world, and I was indeed a visitor.

At EMU, there are what we call non-traditional students, those students who begin college in their twenties or who return to college to receive a teaching degree perhaps or still those who arrive at college for the time in their 30’s or 40’s. A non-traditional student at LU may be someone from California, or a Muslim or an International student. The majority of the campus is made up of 18-22 year olds who finish college in 4-5 years and who will most likely attend graduate school, law school, or get a second degree. With the exception perhaps of one or two, all of my Lawrence friends, regardless of discipline, or geography, went on to attend some form of graduate school, this is less likely at EMU.

In recreating the academic scene for LU, I focused-with the help of my friends from LU- on the campus archetypes (which still exist.. today): special to LU is the: conservatory student, and a regional student from Neenah /Menasha who feels that they are ‘far from home’ (perhaps culturally) but are only time-wise come from a town which is 20 minutes away. Other archetypes that seem to transcend location, region, private or public included: a wise-soul/urbanite, an over-prepared, ultra-organized first-year, and a homesick, still wearing the HS letter jacket freshman. I focused on my own experience at LU where the everyday speak and humor of the conservatory student often seemed actually foreign to me.

In our scene, 15 Minute Rule, a conservatory student, cracking herself up, says,

“… and this one time I was listening to Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 16 in D Major and I was like wouldn’t it be funny if it was in C minor?! What would that sound like…? (laughs) “

The individual from Menasha in a most innocuous manner, asks her “What Country Are You From?” She responds.. “ in disbelief—country? I’m from the wood wind section.”

The Lawrence audience .. lost it.

CloseUP is urban in pace, in humor. I feared that Lawrence would either be too muted or too socially conservative (not politically) to embrace it. I was wrong. The transition to college whether into a public place or a private place is one of great upheaval and complexity. Though CloseUP addresses subjects related specifically to the college transition/experience it addresses feelings which transcend college such as Feelings of exclusion, the need to find community, questioning of one’s belief, personal vs. family expectations, the hypocrisy of encouraging one to experience, but not experience things that may be harmful or illegal, and search for love. These are my life struggles.. still.

We left LU filled with hope about the work and its worth beyond the public sphere. I left feeling a little sad, wanting the two worlds to interface, and connect just a little longer. It’s rare one gets to return to a place and fix what they perceive was missing. Following our show, Domi ( an LU student from Chile I had befriended or as my students think wanted to 'befriend me'--LOVE THE Latins!- made me an Origami T-rex. A parting gift-- a symbol of authenticity, and reminder that two worlds, even one prehistoric and one artistic, can indeed merge into something of beauty.