Some Plays for Decoration Day

Posted by Bruce Miller
My grandfather, Edward Miller, died near his home in Inwood, WV, when he was in his 90s. I believe it was 1967, the same year that the U. S. Congress created Memorial Day.

From 1865 until 1967, the holiday we now know as Memorial Day was called Decoration Day by a large percentage of the population. It took place on May 30. Congress changed the name and the date in 1967 in an effort to beef up a holiday that was falling into disuse. The new date became the last Monday in May, ensuring that it would be part of a three-day weekend and the symbolic start of summer. What better way to beef up a holiday than that?

My grandfather would not have cottoned to the change. Decoration Day was important to him. You may remember from previous posts that he was a Mennonite minister, originally from Springs, PA. Unique among his peers (most Mennonites during that time were strict pacifists), my granddad had given his blessing for his sons and sons-in-law to enlist during WWII. That decision earned him some stiff ridicule, but he believed in the rightness of the decision until the day he died.

My uncle, Will Pettus, died while serving as a doctor during the Second Sino-Japanese War, which, after Pearl Harbor, morphed more or less into WWII. His story is an unusual and honorable one. You can find some of it at http://www.cgu.edu/pages/3282.asp.

Will was married to my father's sister, my Aunt Maude, who is still living. My Uncle Will was and is a family hero. He died in China in 1945, five years before I was born. He is buried in Changsha in a small graveyard connected to Xiangya Hospital. The picture below and to the left is of my Uncle Will and Aunt Maude, and my cousins Anne and Sally.

Every Decoration Day, my granddad longed to tend the grave of my Uncle Will. That, to him, is what Decoration Day was all about--tending (decorating) the graves of family members who had fallen during wartime. Since my granddad was never able to make it to China, he religiously marked May 30 by tending the graves of other veterans who may not have been in his family but were in his proximity.

During a visit to Inwood when I was ten or twelve, he took us with him to the graveyard. We all worked hard, pulling weeds, mowing grass, raking leaves, etc. That evening, my granddad read to our assembled family from a book of war stories. I don't remember what book it was. I only remember it brought a tear to his eye. I have always suspected that war means even more to someone who is a converted pacifist.

This Decoration Day, in memory of my late grandfather, Uncle Will and WWII veteran dad, I assembled a list of ten plays that I think my granddad would have found appropriate to read aloud to his family that night in Inwood, WV. Each has a Richmond connection. I mention one today. I'll talk about others in the days that follow.

Journey's End by R. C. Sherriff was written in 1928. It is set in an officers' dugout at Saint-Quentin, France in 1918, near the end of WWI, and concerns a small group of British infantrymen. After catching the attention and patronage of George Bernard Shaw, Journey's End was staged in London in a production starring a very young Laurence Olivier. It eventually became a major hit, and ran in the West End for two years.

Phil and I saw a revival of Journey's End on one of the trips we led to London. After we came home, Roy Proctor called to ask if I saw any London productions that I would recommend. He was trying to decide what theatre tickets to buy for an upcoming visit. I recommended Journey's End. He saw it. loved it, and returned to Richmond to direct it a season or two later at Dogwood Dell.

The London production I saw eventually transferred to Broadway, where it won the 2007 Tony Award for Best Revival. This classic British drama is a very sober, respectful and sad depiction of the horrors of war. It would make an outstanding Decoration Day tribute to our fallen forefathers.

The Sound of Music is not exactly a military play, but it certainly takes place during wartime. As I write this series about "war plays," I look forward to revisiting The Sound of Music this week. I hope to see you there!

--Bruce Miller

Feet Don't Stick to Floor No More

Posted by Bruce Miller
Richmond CenterStage finally opened this evening. It was a wonderful, almost miraculous night! Many in the crowd spoke sentimentally about the first public announcement of the renovation and expansion, which occurred either 8 or 8 ½ years ago, depending on whose talking.

Having earned my stripes as a grand old man of Richmond theatre, I couldn’t stop thinking of the Symphony’s original purchase of the Loew’s in 1980, and Theatre IV’s 1981 Season—the first performance season by any group in the history of this magnificent building.

In those earliest of days, what is now the Carpenter Theatre was named the Virginia Center for the Performing Arts. Nina Abady, the legendary Richmond administrator who provided staff leadership for the $6 million campaign to pay off the mortgage and restore the landmark venue (yes, only $6 million), was just beginning to raise the needed funds. In order to create public interest, she wanted to bring people into the theatre. But she had no money for programming, and the theatre itself, frankly, was a sticky, rickety mess.

All those years as a movie palace (and a declining movie palace during the 1970s) had taken their toll.

During that same time, Nina served on the Board of Directors of Theatre IV. She had attended all three shows in our 1980 Season, which had taken place in another performance facility where your feet were apt to stick to the floor—the Westover (movie) Theatre, South of the James at 4712 Forest Hill Avenue.

The Westover was nothing more than a wooden platform stage that we constructed in front of the movie screen. Despite its humble pedigree, we had staged Theatre IV’s first “adult” audience season there in 1980: The Diary of Anne Frank, A Raisin in the Sun, and The Philadelphia Story. I remember being very proud of all three shows.

Nina knew we were hungry for grander digs. So she struck up a deal with us--a win/win for both parties involved.

If Theatre IV agreed to repair the 2,000 seats in the former Loew’s, scrape all the gum and muck off of the historic tile floors, and produce at least three shows designed to attract a mass audience, she would let us rent the facility for a dollar per seat sold.

We leapt at the chance. It took us about six months to tighten and/or replace all the nuts and bolts on the 2,000 or so seats, most of which had been literally falling into pieces. My dear dad, Curt Miller, who had recently retired from the Defense General Supply Center at Bellwood and was looking for something to do, joined another volunteer named Ralph Antell, who I think was a recent retiree from Philip Morris. Together, the two of them slaved away every day on their hands and knees until all of the seats were once again ready to be used.

Phil and I (and many, many other volunteers) attacked the floor-bound gum and goo with chisels and putty knives, scraping up more hardened grime from the bathroom floors and theatre aisle-ways than I care to remember. I think we must have filled a hundred or so Hefty bags with petrified remains of countless movie theatre snacks.

At last the theatre was ready. Well, "ready" may be too strong a word. At last the theatre was no longer disgusting.

We staged two hit productions of West Side Story (with a 26-piece orchestra no less) and the classic American comedy, Born Yesterday. We also mounted a third production, Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians, about which the less said the better. Suffice it to say that Roy Proctor's review was headlined "Who Dunnit? Who Cares!"

By the following year (1982), Nina had raised enough money to begin renovation, and so Theatre IV had to move on to our next rented facility … which turned out to be the Empire Theatre. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Way back in 1981, we LOVED being the first arts group to welcome Richmond’s performing arts audience back into the former Loew’s.

Tonight, 28 ½ years later, we LOVED joining with our wonderful friends and colleagues at African American Repertory Theatre, Elegba Folklore Society, Richmond Ballet, Richmond Jazz Society, Richmond Shakespeare, Richmond Symphony, SPARC, and the Virginia Opera as together we welcomed a new generation of Richmonders back into this great atmospheric treasure.

Congratulations to EVERYONE who has been working so hard for so long to make tonight happen. Whether you date back to 1980, or only 2001 ... Job Well Done!

--Bruce Miller

Reacquainting Myself w/ Frankie's Meatloaf

Posted by Bruce Miller
About 15 years ago I was privileged to direct Terrence McNally’s lovely two-hander Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune in the Little Theatre at Theatre IV. It starred Irene Ziegler and John Moon, and boy were they great.

People remember it as a Theatre Gym production, but it wasn’t. It was back in the days when Theatre IV staged full fledged adult seasons of its own in the Little Theatre. Frankie and Johnny was a part of these seasons, as were our productions remembered with equal fondness: Crimes of the Heart, A Shayna Maidel, our first Shirley Valentine, Gary Hopper's Hamlet, and Stand Up Tragedy.

One of the many fun aspects of Frankie and Johnny is the cooking that happens onstage. Just as in Shirley Valentine, every night the actress playing Frankie makes a Western omelet, and the actor playing Johnny makes a meatloaf sandwich. One of my jobs was to make the meatloaf that emerged each night from the fridge and was sliced for the sandwich and devoured on-stage.

I relied on the old tried and true meatloaf recipe that my dad gave me when I went off to college. It’s quick and easy to make, it’s relatively cheap, it freezes well so you can make a large batch and save some for later, and it tastes wonderful.

Roy Proctor apparently had a Pavlovian response while watching John Moon slice the meatloaf, slather it with ketchup, slap it between two slabs of bread, and then slowly slide it down his gullet. With saliva flowing, Roy asked me for the recipe. He later ran it in the T-D using the name my father gave the entree when he first presented me with the recipe card. My father had passed several years earlier, so I let the slightly embarrassing name stand in his memory.

Miller’s Mighty Meatloaf

2.25 lbs ground beef—as lean as you can get
4 slices whole-grain bread
1 large sweet onion, minced
1 green pepper, minced
2 medium carrots, minced
2 stalks celery, minced
1 egg
½ cup 2% milk
1 can condensed tomato soup
2 tsp salt
½ tsp oregano or Italian Seasoning
¼ tsp pepper
2 cloves garlic, minced

Cube the bread slices (the older the bread the better) and dry them for about 10 minutes in a warm oven (100°). Mince the onion, pepper, carrots and celery. Remove the bread and preheat the oven to 350°. Crush the dried bread cubes into crumbs. Mince the cloves of garlic. In a medium-large mixing bowl, combine all ingredients and kneed them until they are thoroughly mixed. Lightly coat the interiors of two 5” x 9” glass loaf pans with vegetable oil spray. Press the mixed ingredients into the two pans. Bake for 1 hour 15 minutes. Remove from oven. Insert a knife between the sides of each loaf and the pan. Allow to cool for 5 minutes. Remove each loaf using two pancake turners, and place the loaves on paper towels to drain. Each loaf serves 4 hearty appetites, and can be cut in half and frozen if desired.

Now that times are lean again and Barksdale is facing some significant recession-driven cutbacks (including my salary), I pulled out the old recipe card today and whipped up a pair of meatloaves for the two omnivores in my family. At least it made me feel like I was being proactive. We're eating half a loaf tonight and freezing the other three halves for later. At a cost of about $1.25 per hearty serving, it’s still a great deal.

And now when I cook it and eat it, I remember not only my dad but also that delicious production of Frankie and Johnny. Meatloaf by the light of the moon. What could be better?

--Bruce Miller