I am very pleased to have been asked to share a few of my
memories of Bob Tolan, and as I told RJ, my main concern was how to whittle it
down to under three hours. But Bob was an appreciator of “economy with words”,
and so I will try.
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| Bob Tolan |
We know little of people by their stats—the accretion of
credits, honors, awards, and travels all tell us what they did, but not what they were. What we are is defined by our reflection upon those whom we have encountered over
the years. We all know, or have some impression of what Bob accomplished in his
life, but that is one version of him, an avatar. What he was as a man, a father, a husband and a friend, is
something different, different to each of us, a kind of one to one alchemy.
To me, he was an encourager. I met him a few years after I
began working in Columbus theatre, and while I had been playing leading
classical roles, and was making my beginnings as a director, I harbored secret
doubts as to whether I belonged in that world. I wondered where I counted as an
artist. From the start, Bob considered me a colleague, and routinely tried to
convince me to move to New York and try my fortunes there. He kept saying that
with the qualities I possessed, I would never stop working. “ Sure, “ I’d say, “as
a cab driver-- New York has plenty of those, thank you.” And he would roll his
eyes in that manner I’m sure all of you would recognize. But he was the first
real professional theatre man I’d ever met, who had worked on levels of the theatre world, and to have him consider me in that
way was a great boost to my confidence.
He directed me in a number of shows over the few years he
lived in Columbus—one in particular was produced in a converted warehouse, with
no A/C, in July. During one scene, I had to sit at the edge of the raised
stage, and I would pour sweat onto the legs of the people sitting right below
the apron. It was a miserable experience from a physical standpoint, made
bearable by the kindness Bob gave me, pulling his station wagon up in the
alley behind the warehouse, with his A/C blasting, and while the audience was
still applauding the end of the first act, I would run through the curtain,
past the other actors backstage, through the backdoor, and into his car, for 15
minutes of blessed cold air. He always had a soft drink for me as well. He did
this every night of the run. He never came in the theatre. He just knew when
intermission was ready to begin. After that, I would have done anything for
him. I was the lion, and he was the man who’d pulled the thorn from my paw.
I will close with an unintended practical joke I played on
him. I had founded a small theatre company, and in its early days, nearly all
the jobs of the production were done by me, and a few others. We didn’t want it
to look like a “kitchen table operation”—one of Bob’s phrases—so we made up
fake company members, so it would look like we had a large group. In those days
I would do the costuming myself, which was mostly just renting or borrowing
from other theatres or costume houses. Since I was also directing, I made up
the name “ Edith Kneck” for the costume designer, a play on Hollywood’s
legendary Edith Head. In time, Edith even started to get favorable reviews in
the papers. She costumed all our shows for the first season.
One day Bob called me and asked for Edith’s number. He said he’d
seen one of our shows and was impressed by her design, and wanted to hire her
for a show he was producing. I was stunned for a moment—for a little while
there I considered seeing how long I could stretch this out—“ Edith said she’s
heard about your tyrannical nature and refuses to work with such a mean
guy”—but I finally just said,”Bob….I’m Edith….Edith Kneck?…you know, Edith
Head…?” He was quiet for a very long moment, then shouted, “ Oh Jesus Christ!”
and hung up on me. He called back a little later and called me a few choice names,
then hung up again.
As a postscript, I knew Edith’s days were numbered now that
she’d been outed. So by the 2nd season, when we could afford a real
costumer, I killed her off. We put a table in the lobby, draped in black, with
an “in memoriam” display of her designs. I explained she been killed in a
sewing machine accident. A second postscript: one of the local papers gave her
a brief obit on the arts page. Bob gave me a copy of it.
John Updike once said the deaths of distant friends carry us
off, bit by bit, and he’s right. I’ll never again be that alchemy of Bob/Mark,
just as all of you have lost the alchemy of Bob/You. He’s taken that with him
to the next place. And like alchemy, the math doesn’t add up—he was a large
man, and took up a large space in our hearts, and yet the world he left behind
to us is a much smaller one.
