Old Boyfriend for Lunch, Husband Included

The story is simple enough. Old acquaintances, let’s call them friends, maybe even one time lovers-of-a-sort reconnect through Facebook. Even though it begins as a tired cliché, unexpected connections slowly form. Living thousands of miles apart, their chances of meeting again are next to nil until a class reunion beckons one of them home once more.

Thus begins a play or a novel I haven’t written yet. The basic concept has been tugging at my curiosity, seeping into my consciousness for a while now. Relationships, even in their simplest form, can be complex, confusing and a puzzle for the mind, if one wants to go there.

A luncheon is arranged. Of course, the current husband would be included. How crass not to invite him along when it’s just an old boyfriend and nothing could possibly happen after fifty plus years. Or could it?

The old boyfriend is calm in his skin. The miles traveled and past emotions haven’t sublimated his curiosity because it’s held in check with a life well lived and future miles anticipated. The meeting will answer a few of those vexing questions that have arisen since their first e-mail re-connection. The current husband - not a problem. The old boyfriend is curious what her partner of 50 years is 'like'. He was the one who married her. He was the one who won her heart.

My treatment doesn’t have the humor of ‘Barefoot in the Park’ meets the drama of ‘Same time, Next Year’ yet but the intent is there. The reunion could go any number of ways. It could be a total bust, an embarrassment for everyone involved, a rekindling of old feelings, or unanswered questions still left unresolved. It’s anything but predictable. As the day of the encounter draws near, plans begin to unravel. At least that’s the premise of the play as it stands right now.

One scenario is a mix up in meetings, perhaps a time delay, and a change of plans. Suddenly that oft-anticipated meeting might not happen after all. Another scenario is that she decides to bail out at the last minute. One of the parties is relieved, the other not surprised that the meeting never took place in the first place.

 

I won’t reveal which scenario is edging for prominence in my mind. The parties involved already know. It’s the accumulation of a series of e-mails back and forth that only hinted of getting reacquainted. Perhaps it was never meant to be in the first place.

It’s like a who-done-it without villains or heroes. It’s a conclusion that many observers would have guessed correctly if left to their own devices. It’s reality that one of the parties hasn’t grasped yet. It’s the ‘real world’ minus its cloak of inquiring e-mails that hint of promises made.

It’s that often-asked yet seldom answered question of ‘whatever happened to?’ The emotions gone vapid down through the ages and the absent of warm eyes connecting have made any semblance of a real reunion a challenge at best. In the safe setting of salad and entree, true feelings are seldom shared or revealed. Welcome to the real world minus station breaks and advertisements.

There is still a lot of work left to flesh out my characters and give them depth and purpose. Reunions are always fun to write about. I loved writing ‘Club 210’ and thoroughly enjoyed its performances last summer at the Steeple Center in Rosemount. Maybe this treatment will become another play that explores relationships under the microscope of a theatrical performance. It’s made up drama under the guise of a play and only the audience gets to guess if it resembles real life or not.

Then again, perhaps nothing will happen to this idea after all. It might languish in my pile of unfinished manuscripts just begging for time to complete. The premise is a good one. The storyline is intriguing. The real question is whether I can come up with a scenario that people believe. I think I can, because the truth - in all of its unwashed accoutrements - is often more entertaining than fiction itself.

Green Room

The specific origin of the term ‘Green Room’ is lost to history. One story is that London’s Blackfriars theatre (1599) included a room behind the scenes, which happened to be painted green; here the actors waited to go on stage. When I worked at Twin Cities Public Television, our green room was where guests would wait before appearing live on television or in one of my video productions.

My own green room has now been emptied. The show will begin shortly. A new play of mine is about to be performed for the first time. So, once again, I’m back at the Steeple Center theater watching my imagined characters come to life; their words transferred from my script to the stage. It’s much the same and yet so very different from last summer’s creation of ‘Riot at Sage Corner.’

I thought an appropriate sub-title for this next new play ought to be:

‘Romance, mischief, good music and a doobie or two

After fifty years, what else would you expect?’

That seems to encapsulate the drama, trauma, and energy I hoped to create with this new storyline of a group of alumni finally gathering together once again after an absence of fifty years. So much had changed. So much had stayed the same. Last January, I visited this subject matter of my next play, in another blog entitled Taking Home Room Attendance.

Now all that effort last winter of telling a story about a fifty-year class reunion was coming to fruition and a play was being created by a very talented cast of actors. The performance dates have been set, the auditions held and rehearsals are in full swing. A very talented singer-songwriter has created two original songs for the show and the sets look marvelous. The actors have been ‘off book’ for some time now. It’s all coming back to me again.

After last summer’s sold out performances of ‘Riot at Sage Corner,’ I asked myself how I was going to follow up on that success with yet another play. There is always a tendency to play it safe and create something that is assured continued satisfaction. Some folks suggested a sequel of the story of Sage and Margaret Maple from ‘Riot.’ Hollywood has been doing that for years with their franchise series. But I wasn’t interested in repeating what I had already done.

In much the same manner that I’ve never been able to focus on just one genre at a time, say more of my successful westerns, I was never interested in just repeating myself. So, I retreated into the half dozen play treatments I’d already created and went searching for some inspiration. Each play treatment had a storyline that interested me to some degree. Finally, after a lot of pondering and toying with the characters, one seemed to stand out. A class reunion of a bunch of odd-ball characters who hadn’t seem one another for fifty years but still carried baggage from that period in their lives.

My own fifty-year class reunion several years earlier turned out to be the ignition point for this new storyline. It was fifty years of change, history, lost feelings, and old feelings resurfacing again. It was one big ‘what if’ and ‘what ever happened to’ that inevitably led to ‘can you believe’ and ‘I’m not surprised.’

My theory is that people don’t really change over time. We grow, we mature and we become more worldly but our core being remains pretty much the same. It’s only when drama or trauma sweeps into our lives that change can sometimes be forced upon us. And even then, it can be a reluctant change at best.

So that theory further begs the question; can a person reconnect on some new level given the past level of commitment, pain of breakup or reluctance to return to the past even at some surface level? Are the old status symbols of class ranking, social standing or financial strength still a part of that old equation? Or is there something of shared value that transcends all those old barriers to reconnect people at some emotional level? Can our respective pasts be bypassed for a new future together?

So, for all my characters in this new play, I had to ask myself if there could be a reconnection, reconciliation, or acceptance of the past all the while bravely facing the future. That turned out to be the genesis for ‘Club 210.’

I had to create representative characters that were interesting. Some could be stereo-types while others had to stand out as being different. Some turned out to be fictional but with a dose of reality to prop them up. Others were made up but interesting to me.

There were two intimidate settings, a home room and a dive bar once frequented by the group. Both places were cauldrons of memories, some good, some bitter-sweet, some forgettable. There would be plenty of conflict and a lot of humor. Both emotions would tie and pull my characters apart.

During the months that ‘Club 210’ came into focus and finally form, I found my voice with the characters. Now it would be up to them to tell their respective stories as best they can. They all have interesting stories I think my audience is going to enjoy. The Green Room is empty, the actors are in place. All I must do is listen and learn.

Who knows, there just might be yet another story in what they have to say.