March 2010 Archives
Acting, competition, tears: Oh, the drama!
THERE'S NO crying in baseball,'' Tom Hanks tells a weeping player in "A League of Their Own.'' And that might be the case -- or at least the hope -- in all athletic competitions. But in one competitive sphere, the opposite is true. There's alwayscrying in drama.
This weekend, 14 teams of Massachusetts high school thespians, techies, musicians, seamstresses and directors will compete in the annual High School Drama Guild finals. Of 111 teams who entered the competition, each performing a non-musical play in less than 40 minutes, only one will take home a trophy.
The rest will probably cry.
I know this because my child's team competed in the semi-final round. During the two weeks between "prelims'' and "semis,'' they previewed the play, collected audience feedback, tweaked costumes and line-readings. They met the director-mandated curfew the night before competing. And though their bus broke down on the way to the auditorium, the stage was unfamiliar, and a couple of kids got sick, they nailed it.
At least that's what our traveling parent cheering section decided. After our kids competed, we spent the rest of the day applauding the other shows, holding our collective breath when we suspected a performance might have outshone ours and not saying anything that could jinx the outcome. After years of being shut out after semis, we badly wanted our players to move on to finals. They didn't.
Hours of crying ensued. Drama kids are, after all, a highly emotional sort. It's part of the skill set. Take your average, overwrought teenager and square their freak-out. You think your soccer player gets dramatic over a missed goal? Quadruple that reaction. Drama kids are the pros. I refer to unrest in the theater world as Drama-drama.
So when they don't get a role or the director corrects them too many times or they get eliminated from the tournament, they cry. With the girls, it's viral: one starts and almost all of them finish. The boys might hide the tears and kick things instead, as boys are apt to do, but I'm certain they weep later.
It's not fair, they say. And they're right. Nothing in theater is fair. I've been around children's theater since my high school junior was in fifth grade. Drama is the most arbitrary and subjective thing I've witnessed.
In sports, hard work often leads directly to success. In the workplace, too. Not so in drama. The kid who works his butt off preparing for an audition can get passed over for the actor who's tall enough to dance with the lead. Children with flawless singing voices can get cut because they don't have the right musical theater sound. And then there's normal, human subjectivity, which sullies all teams: the producer's kid cast as the most important elf is the same as the coach's kid slotted as lead pitcher despite a weak arm.
The Guild competition might be the most unfair of the unfair. There are too few judges, too much nepotism and home-court advantages. Still, it's the best thing my kid has ever done.
A lot of children land on stage by default: they don't like sports and there are few venues for creative pursuits when they're little and craving a place to belong. Theater is accepting. The quirkier the kid, the better. The drawback to this kind and gentle atmosphere is that dramatic types miss lessons that athletes learn regularly.
The drama competition teaches theater kids to work as a team. Divas aren't welcome during the competition. Since sets are judged along with performances, the stage crew becomes as valued as the cast. Everyone learns what it feels like to win, to lose, and to pick themselves up off the playing field.
Amid the tears, there's tough talk about never doing this again! But they will. The tears will dry. The kids will move on to the next play. The directors will search for a new script. They'll all be back: the underclassmen with their make-up and power drills and headsets; the graduates who come back to cheer on their old team; the moms and dads in their matching t-shirts. And just like in sports, they will arrive with the undying belief that this is their year.
Susan Kushner Resnick is author of "Goodbye Wifes and Daughters.'' 
| On the Bookshelf |
| Goodbye Wifes and Daughters |
after Montana's worst coal mine disaster |
| By: Barbara Theroux Fact & Fiction for Headwaters News Feb. 25, 2010 |
- From the introduction of Susan Kushner Resnick's On Saturday, February 27, 1943, nearly 80 men descended into the Smith coal mine in Bearcreek , Montana. Only three came out alive. "Goodbye wifes and daughters . . ." wrote two of the miners as they died. As I started reading Resnick's book I kept asking one question--Why am I not familiar with this disaster? And wondering one thought---Why does this kind of disaster keep happening? The story of that tragic day and its aftermath unfolds in this book through the eyes of those wives and daughters--women who lost their husbands, fathers, and sons, livelihoods, neighbors and homes. The tragedy at Smith Mine became Montana 's worst coal mine disaster, sparking investigations at the state and national level. Susan Kushner Resnick felt the fascination of how the surviving women managed to continue after facing such loss; the need to share their heroic stories; the anger at those who let it happen; and the hope the someday history would stop repeating itself. She chronicles the missteps and questionable ethics of the mine's managers; the efforts of an earnest federal mine inspector and the mine union's president, who tried in vain to make the mine safer; and the heroism of the men who battled for nine days to rescue the trapped miners. In the 1920's, Bearcreek, Montana was new. It was wild, with 11 saloons and not one church. It was like all mining towns or coal camps with brothels, fistfights and rollicking parties. At the time of the disaster, Bearcreek had grown but it was not a company town. The firm that owned the Smith Mine, Montana Coal and Iron, did not rule the community. The residents of Bearcreek were free to shop and sleep where they wanted. There were two hotels, rows of profitable businesses, a hospital and a bank. During its glory days almost two thousand people lived in Bearcreek. But the 1943 disaster destroyed a community---it killed 75 men, leaving 58 widows and 125 fatherless children.
Resnick sets the time and the scene. It was war time and getting coal out of the ground was the priority, not clean air or the health of the miners. The week of the disaster, people were waiting to register for the newest ration books. An article in the Billings Gazette about the Bearcreek High School's basketball success, began by describing the all-American spirit of the mining town. The table of contents of Resnick's book reads like an outline, with precise topics including: The Romance, The Inspection, The Teenagers, The Panic, The Wait, The Grief, The Blame, The Survivors. Many of the chapter's first lines set the mood:
With the background in place, the history unfolds. In November 1942, Gerald Arnold, the federal mine inspector, came to perform a long overdue inspection on the Smith Mine.
Copies of Arnold's report were sent to Ed Davies, the state mine inspector, as well as to Tony Boyle, the district president of the United Mine Workers of America, and the report was to be posted at the mine for all the workers to see. One month before the disaster, Davies visited the mine. But everyone knew the inspector was coming so they spent the days before his visit clearing out the gas and making the mine appear safe. Davies saw no reason to have the State Industrial Accident Board shut the mine. The board issued a safety inspection certificate on February 23, 1943--just four days before the disaster. Another warning came from Dr John Oleinik who had been treating more and more miners with symptoms of gas inhalation. He analyzed blood samples and found carbon monoxide levels of 27.5 percent, some even as high as 37 percent. In addition to the gas safety concerns, the last mine rescue training had been in 1930 and the company barely had any rescue equipment .
After the disaster, the people of Bearcreek embarked on surviving. Children went back to school, starting on a Saturday to make up for the days lost. The high schoolers had a free day, but that Saturday was to have been the day of the Senior ball. There were no decorations in the gym, no dancing, no wearing of the prom dresses. The ball had been cancelled due to sorrow. Social Security officers were doing all they could to help the women win their benefits as quickly as possible. The federal War Manpower Commission was encouraging women with children older than 14 to get a job. Patriotism could not supply a paycheck; could not pay for college; could not keep people in Bearcreek. In April, an inquest was held to determine how the men died and whether anyone was responsible for their deaths. During questioning it was revealed that the mine was indeed gassy, that many had known that fact and that the mining practices were unsafe. After six hours the nine jurors concluded the men "met their deaths due to concussion and to gas poisoning caused by gas and dust explosion" and recommended new state mining laws, but did not charge anyone with a crime. The governor also appointed a committee to investigate. Their report attacked the mine operators, the state inspector and the state itself, but again, no blame was given to Montana Coal and Iron. Not one of the women widowed by the Smith Mine disaster ever received compensation from the company. The Smith closed for good two years later due to financial strain. Barbara Theroux is the manager of Fact & Fiction, now part of theBookstore at the University of Montana. |
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