Marshall W. Mason is one of the esteemed guests here at the Great Plains Theatre Conference. He’s a legendary director and, indeed, directed the first show I ever bought a ticket to, in 1980:  Lanford Wilson’s “Fifth of July,” starring Christopher Reeve, Jeff Daniels, and Swoozie Kurtz.

While he’s here, Marshall has been directing a snippet from a Doug Wright play as part of a tribute that was performed last night. Tonight, we’re all going to see “I Am My Own Wife,” a remounting of a production that ran here recently, brought back especially for the conference. The director of that production, a local whose name is Kevin and who seems like a very nice man, is noticeably caught up in the anxiety of remounting a small-town small-theatre production for the benefit of the visiting Pulitzer- and Tony-Award-winning author. Marshall, who shows every sign of being the kindest director I’ve ever met, has been nothing short of warm and supportive.

One of Kevin’s concerns has been about the theatre, a beautifully appointed mid-sized house with a colonnade supporting a balcony trimmed in warm wood. The theatre is undeniably attractive, but those stone columns add an echo to the acoustics. So Kevin had requested that thick black stage drapes be used to dampen the echo and support the actors. He had requested this in a friendly but firm fashion for several days, but nothing had come of it. Then, yesterday, Marshall had his tech runthrough for his segment of the tribute to Doug Wright, and now the black curtain was up. At dinner, he was eager to share this with Kevin and allay his fears about the acoustics.

So the execrable Robert Caisley and I are having dinner at our end of the table with Marshall when he politely excuses himself. “They’ve put up the black drapes and I must go tell Kevin,” he says. “He’ll be relieved.” He runs over to a table near us and leans in to someone he mistakes in the dimness for Kevin, someone who turns out to be Doug Wright’s partner David, in other words, someone who has no idea of the desire for dark sound-muffling curtains. Marshall leans over the table excitedly.

“Good news!” he proclaims. “They’ve hung the blacks!”

Much explaining of that gleeful statement ensued.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 30th, 2008 at 10:47 am and is filed under On being, Thoughts, Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.