Thom and Me and VIGIL at the Mark Taper Forum
Live theater has been a vital part of our personal and professional lives since long before my husband Thom and I were married and taking in shows two nights in a row is not unheard of. Saturday night we caught the well- produced To Kill a Mockingbird at the Actors Co- op and on Sunday enjoyed the opening night performance of Vigil starring Olympia Dukakis and Marco Barriecelli at the Mark Taper Forum. I came away with a new appreciation for both marriage and live theater.
We grabbed an early dinner at First and Hope, a lovely spot just walking distance from the Taper. Two women dinning at the table next to us had come from an afternoon of opera – Romeo and Juliet at the Music Center (they gave it a rave). We struck up the casual conversation that falls easily between strangers who share a common interest.
As I got my coat to leave one of the women made mention of the affection Thom and I displayed for another; she called it a “rarity.” It gave me pause. Anyone who has been married knows – it ain’t no cake walk. There have been times over these past 23- plus years of marriage when the wall of tension between us was so thick I could rap my knuckles at the air in front of me and hear knock knock. Real life quickly imposes itself on those early marital joys of easy lovemaking and seeing life in unison. The bumpy road of matrimony rises with the hits and descends with the misses. But after years of investing ourselves in tilling the soil, pulling the weeds, and reseeding the ground, our marital garden is blooming. The acknowledgement of it by a stranger caused me to reflect, I belong with Thom.
Seated in the familiar house of the Mark Taper Forum waiting for curtain, I felt another kind of familial connection. Too numerous to count are the opening nights, the season subscriptions, the dollars budgeted for last minute matinees over the past 25 years, cheering the hits and grieving the misses. Looking around at the near capacity crowd, I thought, I belong here.
The curtain rose and as the lights came up on Olympia Dukakis, the audience broke into that particular applause sometimes given as an expression of respect before so much as a line is uttered. Thom laughed his infectious chortle as Marco Barricelli delivered the first of many funny lines. Unfortunately, I was so distracted trying to figure out the plot
the less. And without giving away important plot points I would be derelict not to report that we could not take our eyes off of Olympia Dukakis, even though her Grace uttered not more than 10 lines throughout the entire play. The Taper is blessed to have an actress of such skill in this two- character play; anything less would render the piece one very long monologue.
I wish I could tell you more about the play but I just do not want to give away the twists and secrets. What I will tell you is that the set is clever, the writing is razor sharp, the acting superb, and the structure of the drama well girded. I encourage you to go see this play, even though, in the end, there were devices in the piece that I just did not like.
But here is the thing. I am not the kind of theater lover to recommend only those that I personally love. Oh trust me, I will steer you clear of stinkers. But a well written piece with thoughtful actors presented with excellent production values is worth experiencing. And hey, Thom loved it. Vigil is a play with two great actors engaged in the relational effort to create something beautiful and I highly recommend it even if I did not like some of the details.
Sometimes we don’t like the little details of marriage. Sometimes it is messy. Sometimes it makes us want to bolt, but in the end, marriage is a relational effort to create something beautiful and lasting between two people and I highly recommend it.
Photo cred: Craig Schwartz