George, mime instructor at The Newport Institute of the Arts, 1975

My Real Memoir

I was obsessive, proud, and doggedly devoted to dancing to my own tune. And all I asked in return was unlimited love and admiration. I’d learned as a class clown how to get that attention from the unwashed 2^nd grade masses, while vexing the powers-that-be (“beed?”). And now at age twenty-five, I discovered nothing had changed.

I’d been given the greenlight to direct my first full-length play as a grad student. But rather than do what was expected and choose an unassailable dramatic classic, I decided to “put on a show.” Here, I thought, was the opportunity to do what I’d originally envisioned for my scrappy little street theatre group The Right Pithee Players.

The New Renaissance Review would be a pastiche of comedy bits and songs from the show-trunk of my brain. But how to tie these pieces together? In the early 1640s, I’d read, theatre was outlawed in England. That was my angle! Escaping arrest, our little troupe of actors (the Pithees) had boarded a sailing ship. But they were soon enveloped in a mysterious fog—and somehow ended up in 20^th century America! It was a skimpy plot device, but as an opening scene it produced a roar of audience approval.

Word got out about our musical revue-full of farcical sketches and silent comedy (plus free hot-spiced cider!). Not only were we the first student production ever to sell-out, but the school was forced to add another performance!

Which meant I was in big trouble. I had been since early on, actually. Because our little Renaissance troupe travelled on foot, the entire set had to be pulled out of a hand-cart, I said. My department-assigned designer responded with a lavishly immovable set. “This is my show too, dammit!” he said. I could have found a way to compromise, but I didn’t. I had my “vision,” and was being a Grade A butt about it. Result? He filed a complaint with The Chair of the School of Performing Arts. And then left me a nasty note telling me so. I read it, and hurled my coffee mug all the way to whatever Latin-American country the coffee had come from.

Monday after the show, The Chair (actually a very dignified two-legged human) called me into his office. To congratulate me on my hit? No. The designer issue was only the first strike, he said. “We’re here to do art, Mitch, not entertainment. Your work must have artistic merit, or you’ll be asked to leave.”

Stunned, I told him I’d written and staged an original musical, one that included an entirely new form of silent comedy adapted from classic French mime, that brought repeated ovations from the audience. On what planet did that lack merit? And where in the professional theatre world did they fire directors for creating shows that sold “too many tickets?”

Two people saved me from a second visit to The Chair. Bob Cohen, my advisor and the Drama department head, who’d been dubious about my using mime, but admitted he was genuinely impressed with the techniques I’d developed. (He was less impressed with my diplomatic methods.) And then Sharon, one of the most respected intellectuals in the grad program, wrote a review for the school paper. While not everything in the show worked, she said (and she was right), it was still “the most original and innovative” thing she’d seen at UCI that year!

Interestingly, another UCI Drama student with his own quirky style seemed to fit other’s expectations of him even less than I did. It wasn’t until six years later that Jon Lovitz achieved fame on Saturday Night Live…

Doing his own thing.

My Real Memoir is a series. To read the next one, click here.