I finished a run of performances a couple of weeks ago as part of an
ensemble cast, gifted with three standing ovations over three nights. It’s an actor’s dream, the audience making
that commitment, when so many (usually) want to reach for their car keys and
start heading home.
It’s not as common as you might think, if all you see are
Hollywood award shows or a State of the Union address. I’ve done dozens of shows, hundreds of
performances over four decades. A
charitable assessment might produce thirty or so times that the crowd rose to
their feet in enthusiastic acclaim. Each
one is special, but there was a time when I got one I didn’t want.
Home for a few weeks after a summer traveling with a side
show (I was playing Mark Twain, performing “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of
Calaveras County” before a frog-jumping contest), my mother had an idea for a
quick one-and-done on stage in front of an admiring crowd. I said yes immediately, not giving it another
thought.
I should remind you, if you haven’t heard it before, that my
mother is a retired minister. Before she
heeded the call to preach, she was already deeply involved in her church, the
one I was raised in. It is a Pentecostal
sect, established in the first five years of the last century. They are, by and large, literalists about the
King James Version of the Bible. They
believe in the Immaculate Creation, the Resurrection of the Saints at the
Rapture and speaking in tongues.
I spent years watching fire-and-brimstone evangelists prowl
the edge of the altar, speaking the truth as they understood it, telling the
world stories of sin and salvation. From
my childhood, there were those who prophesied that I would, one day, be a
minister of the Gospel. That was not to
be. Watching some of them was an
education in drama, while others offered a primer for hypocrisy. I chose drama.
The deal my Mom was offering was to portray a Mexican common
man, thrilled to travel three thousand miles to collect a bike. Yeah, I know, it sounds ridiculous. But her intentions were pure. She was helping a woman gifted with excellent
fundraising ability but with (near) no audience skills. The two of them wanted to present a
dramatization of a Hispanic coming all the way from his remote village to
accept a couple of bicycles their fundraisers had paid for. The fundraising was real…the acceptance was
the show. They presented the idea to me
and it wasn’t good enough. I asked them,
“What if I replied to your questions in Spanish?” Canary feathers fluttered from their mouths,
as they enthusiastically put me in touch with a minister from West Detroit who
was fluent.
We wrote out my answers to the questions and offered them to
our “translator”, who responded into a tape recorder. From there, I wrote and memorized what he had
said phonetically. It wound up being a
lot more work than I had assumed it would be, but I hoped the end product would
be worth it. It was a quick five-minute
piece. I was planning on being in and
out quickly, so I brought my girlfriend with me. She was used to me being in and out quickly.
She waited backstage while I prepared to go out and be the
faux recipient. I was dressed like a
fruit picker, possibly a fruit picker’s foreman, in khaki slacks and shirt,
straw hat and black work boots. When I
was introduced, I walked out working the brim of the hat in my hands, as if I’d
never seen so many people before, or certainly, not that many staring right at
me.
The director of the fundraiser insisted on asking the
questions, though she was uncomfortable in front of a microphone. Her queries were choppy, forced, uneven. All I had to do was look at my translator and
wait for him to re-pose the question in Spanish. Though I understood nothing he said, I knew
which question was coming and I would answer in Spanish. He would then relay my response to the
microphone, telling the congregation how much the bicycles would mean to the
community and detailing the things it would allow the villagers to
accomplish. There weren’t more than four
or five questions, but we handled them well.
We all stayed “in character” and the segment wound down without incident.
The next part was my fault.
After they were so excited about me doing my part in Spanish, I
forwarded the idea that maybe my character should give a short speech…in broken
English. When my translator left the
stage, I told the director, “I…have words,” waving a sheet of paper in front of
me. I was now going to impersonate a
Mexican reading a couple of paragraphs written phonetically in English. The podium was cleared and I stepped toward
it. I think I may have bumped the
microphone with my nose, pretending complete ignorance of how such things were
done. The blue-eyed Mexican took a deep
breath and began.
“Good morning, Shursh of Goad…of Prop-a-see…” I said,
butchering the pronunciation of ‘Church of God of Prophecy’. That may have been what did it. For the next minute and a half, while this
man they saw as a humble laborer attempted to thank them for their largesse,
you could have heard a pin drop in an auditorium that would hold fifteen
hundred people and was nearly full. By
the time I had thanked them, from the ‘bootom of my heert’, the hook was set.
I stepped back from the podium and it began. They roared their approval, standing in
sections, until every person in the auditorium was on their feet. I cut my eyes to the right to see the director
and my mother…freaked out. They had
assumed that everyone knew it was a put-on, a representation of what it
might’ve been like if…again…a guy could travel three thousand miles to pick up
a couple of bikes. My mother told me
later, “If they had started speaking in tongues, I would’ve died.”
You see, if you are a student of the Bible, the Holy Ghost
(or Spirit) is not to be mocked. If the
congregation had begun speaking in that unknown language that originated in the
Upper Room on the Day of Pentecost, that would be a product of a false spirit
and undoubtedly bogus. Thankfully, that
did not occur. The applause abated, the
audience sat down, and they returned to business as usual.
I stepped out of the lights and met my redheaded, green-eyed
girlfriend standing in the wings. “Nice
going, Senor,” she said, moving in for a kiss that was decidedly
un-sisterly. A stagehand watched us,
puzzled. As we moved to the exit, I
thought I was busted. He stepped in
front of us and extended his hand, as if to stop us.
Then he offered his hand in greeting, shaking mine. He said, in slow, clear English, “I hope you
enjoyed your visit to the U.S. God bless
you.” At that point, he pushed the door
open as I murmured thanks behind me. We
were off. The speed limit was seventy,
so she did seventy-eight, one hand on the steering wheel and one hand in my
hair, my head in her lap.
There was no blockade at the city limits; my mother let the
proverbial cat out of the bag at first opportunity, admitting, yes, it was a put-on. ‘Dramatization’ would have been my
preference, but whatever. No one held it
against her, or me. I heard later that
when they passed the plates, it was one of the best mission offerings they ever
had.
It’s strange, but I don’t think I’ve been on a bike since.
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