The Stage Of Souls

It was cold outside, the wind unfriendly and wary, pushing me to shelter wanted or not. Sliding through the back door I found myself backstage of a lively community theater, surrounded by braided costumes, wafting perfume, stale sweat and an electric current crackling in the air. In the distant voices I could hear the wide eyes of fear, the soaring songs, and everything in between. Dear God, what an intoxicating sound! Lives exploding in every direction - this I had to see for myself.

I turned to hear the approaching bony-handed loud claps of a Grumpy Grandma admonishing a group of frisky frolickers gathered in spirited debate over the best beer in the bar down the road. "Acting! Acting!" she scolded in her stilted Austrian accent. "This place is for acting! Talk acting, not your irrelevant lives!" But the agitated faces cared not to debate and her agenda was confounded as her grumpiness scurried to find other lives to interrupt.

In the far corner glowed the adoration of the magi where a Confident Con smirked with authority, dispensing wisdom on all things acting and even the art of life. In his hands were the sacred scrolls that contained unseen formulas for happiness. His faithful followers imbibed his words to beseechingly sate their frustrated folly, congratulating their stubbornness as a sign of The Way. But I had seen the scrolls already and knew them to be blank.

Cotton Candy Gal pranced in with her popularity smilingly intact, passing out her treats in breezy bribery. She read her script of life with words sure to sell, never threatening honesty. Candy Gal played her role both on and off stage just happy to be in the spotlight regardless of reason. Then a toothache took her presents away.

In the dressing rooms I heard the hammer of Monument Man who collected and posted every positive word ever said about him on a wall to stand as the Sphinx of ancient Egypt. In this temple he prayed and fed his wooden idol as savior. "I have found enlightenment!" he cheered, safe among his words of praise. Then he hit his thumb with his holy hammer and threw the "goddam fucker" right through the monumental wall.

Slowly a Small Boy Who Knew Nothing walked onstage, oblivious to the fears and frets and the dreams and delights swirling around him. He shared his beating heart for his ears were filled with its sound only. Like a ripple descending from a rock's splash a hush spread out across the stage and onto the theater as a whole. It was no longer just a community theater at that point, but a point of light that shone as bright as any in the universe and we its lucky witnesses. Eat your heart out, Broadway. But never was the Boy able to recreate that moment - yet never did we forget the power that could come through anyone at any given moment, every soul born a genius.

Egos bent in the darkness tangled to and fro as each argued the worth of its existence. A Lovely Lady - no one like her in all the world! - lost her spirit, leaving to wander outside in search of another stage where she could find rebirth - and have to face herself all over again. Round and round spins the wheel but no soul can ever be replaced. Much blood spilled on that fateful floor by the haste of hopelessness, leaving some who stayed as crippled whispers in makeup, their smiles painted on in mocking disguise.

Then a cat purred onstage and all but the foulest tempers applauded her feline mystique.

Off stage I saw a Rounded Man with his portly belly eating an éclair with feet frozen to the floor. I never saw him move as his eyes looked longingly to the centered spotlight. He watched and stared and pretended to place the performer's heart into his body until finally he uttered, "A practical man knows when to let go of his dreams." But he was as a boulder in a stream where the water had learned to rush around him, and a bouncy ballerina brushed by him on her cue responding in passing: "What's practical about giving up your dreams?"

And the ballerina dazzled all watchers as a Glittery Girl with Broadway on her mind, breathing in the rarified air of hope, fueling both jealousy and inspiration. But did being a star of this stage make her a star on the Stage Of Stars? They all dared to think so as she carried a little piece of every performer and maybe just maybe their own acts weren't so meaningless after all.

In the aisle of the audience I saw a Mockingbird Boy. He mimicked the steps of the Glittery Girl - and of all the actors - seeing if he could do what they do. It was as if an unseen gun was pointed to his head demanding his talent to match theirs. But never did he want to perform with others, he just wanted to know for himself while never taking the stage, living a star's life in his mind.

Veterans of Broadways past intermingled in parental pose amid this motley crew of acting wannabes, jokers of the world, seekers of art, the disdainfully vain, the spontaneous laughers, the seethingly caged, the dramatically suicidal, those sensitive to the light, fingers snapping in rhythmic joy and beings just happy to be there. Some asked who were the real actors and some asked not. The battle for the spotlight endured like a stalemated tug-of-war. Some decried the ugly faces the struggle brought to light - as if truth can ever be kept down. But I saw all these things as the looks of love.

As for me I wanted out of there to find my own spot, my life lost, unknown to the stars. But to step out that door was to step back into the inhospitable cold of a homeless night. Where to go but the Stage Of Souls?

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