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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A How-To Theater Novel For Dummies,
By T. Patrick Killough "All about Patrick" (Black Mountain, NC United States) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE) (REAL NAME)
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This review is from: Bethel Merriday (Hardcover)
Have you read any of the "how to" series called " xxxx for Dummies?" Franchising for Dummies. Computers for Dummies. Spread Sheets for Dummies. This sort of title exists by the hundreds.Some of Sinclair Lewis's novels have a distinct "how to" flavor. THE JOB (1917) has lots of tips for young women who want to succeed in business. MANTRAP (1926) is full of hands-on details about canoeing, portaging and trekking around Canada north of the 53rd parallel. WORK OF ART (1934) might be subtitled "Hotel Management for Dummies." Even IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE (1935) lays out the "how to" mechanics of a Fascist takeover of these United States. Sinclair Lewis had in one way or another immersed himself in these topics for a time, usually not many months before he wrote about them. Prior to BETHEL MERRIDAY he had written plays, acted in plays and would also direct them. Not all of Lewis's novels by any means are of this "how to" ilk. But 1940's BETHEL MERRIDAY most certainly is. It might be styled "All About the Stage for Dummies." The heroine, Bethel Merriday, was born June 1, 1916. On her sixth birthday her mother caught her imitating the slouching, slow walk of an old woman and rebuked her for generally showing off, speaking up in Church and in this case for "copying" people. Bethel said, "Oh! I'm not copying her. I'm trying to be her. I can be a lot of different people." Her mother's comment: "It all sounds like maybe you're going to be an actress." (Ch. 1) At home in Sladesbury, Connecticut, Bethel learned something of acting from motion pictures. Without ever having seen professional actors in the flesh, she grew ever more sure that she would be an actress and she shared this vision with her skeptical young friends. And she would be a professional stage actress, not an amateur. "I'm not going to play at playing. No! It isn't good enough!" (Ch. 1) Finally, in the summer of 1931 a touring troupe came to Sladesbury. 15-year old Bethel rapturously took in their performances, waited for actors and actresses at the stage door and even followed them to a drugstore where they had a bite. She drank in their shop talk. She spoke to a young actress. An older actor told Bethel that if she wanted to become an actress, she must train, play parts at every opportunity and get lucky (Ch. 1) Bethel went on to act in college and to be noticed in her senior year somewhat negatively by two professional directors. Her father paid for her to apprentice in summer stock on the Connecticut shore in the summer of 1938. In the autumn of that year connections which she made in summer stock helped her quickly but very luckily become part of a brand new touring troupe which would do ROMEO AND JULIET in modern dress. Bethel understudied Juliet and played her once, when the $1,000/week English actress took to drink. Other speaking parts were small. But Bethel was interested in all aspects of theater: musicians, lighting and especially scenery design. She worked very hard and she learned quickly that on stage you "Never do anything unless you understand why." (Ch. 11) Almost inevitably, the road show lost money and failed. This left 23 year old Bethel with time to choose among several men who offered her marriage, including her next door neighbor from home and two actors who had played Romeo and Mercutio on the road. She chose the talented "Mercutio" and they were married Saturday January 21, in Pike City, Kansas, population 7,000, end of the line for the theater tour. A few months later the newlyweds were acting together in New York for another company whose director had seen Bethel overact Nora in Ibsen's DOLL HOUSE in college only seven months earlier. If you like novels about the theater, BETHEL MERRIDAY will call to mind Herman Wouk's 1955 MARJORIE MORNINGSTAR, without the latter's Angst. BETHEL MERRIDAY lacks the profundity of Goethe's 1796 WILHELM MEISTER. But all three books were written by men who knew and loved theater and spoke with authority. Sinclair Lewis's theater novel woos the senses with cramped dressing rooms and the smell of grease paint, the look and feel of increasingly shabby costumes as the tour grows old and conveys a sense of what makes actors and actresses do what they do, usually for very little money. And the stage has its personnnel dimension, too. Young Bethel is even pressed by an embarrassed producer to tell an aging ham that he must go. Sinclair Lewis portrays theater as a partnership between actors and audience and argues that being a good audience is a skill to be learned. Language once used for religion is now applied to show business: to actors on stage "each with his prides and secrets and sins," (Ch. 12), to the audience as heathens to be "advanced toward salvation," to faith in the power of staged illusions to change the world, to devout study of a role, to that limbo where all young actors and bull fighters float, and finally to "the solid American Protestant belief in the glory and efficacy of human will power. If anyone wanted enough to do anything, he would unquestionably do it..." (Ch. 18). The faces of most Americans today have been "ironed out by spiritual massage" (Ch. 33). Not so the face of a great actor. People who love theater will recognize one of their own in Sinclair Lewis. -OOO-
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