June 6, 2008
All the Men and Women Merely Players (RIP Paul Sills 1927-2008)
I’ve been wrassling all week over a cluster-post about Paul Sills. I mean, I was silent about Bob Rauschenberg. I promised and failed to deliver a meditation on Yves Saint Laurent. The best I could do for Bo Diddley was a photo and quotation and link to a clip on YouTube.
And then Paul Sills died.
This is getting morbid.
So I’m just going to crib, this time from Gapers Block’s newsletter, The Party Line.
In my ongoing quest to evaluate my personal contribution to this world, recently I stopped Googling myself long enough to realize that I enjoy a curious claim: I’ve reduced to tears two women from two separate Chicago performing arts families.
The first time was in Kindergarten at Second City’s Parents School, a tiny co-op school begun in the 1960s by Paul and Carol Sills and others connected with the theater. Considerate far beyond my tender years, I recall fastidiously returning a tray of Tinker Toys, while that pesky Rachel Sills was no doubt just running around the room aimlessly and recklessly like your typical 5-year-old. We bumped foreheads really hard and were inconsolable. The lesson: even if it takes four decades, the first to accuse will retain the upper hand.
The second time was with Julie Wachowski, the big sister of the guys who created The Matrix and the new Speed Racer. Julie and I spent most of our free time at Whitney Young High School working in the theater. A crucible for many careers in the arts, Young is famous for challenging itself theatrically. We mounted “Madwoman of Chaillot” one year and decided to take one of the scenes on the road for the annual state theater championship. We were confident we would make it to the finals down in Springfield. We were better than our arch-rival Homewood-Flossmoor.
We spent weekends sawing down the set, with its networks of cobwebs and trees, and attaching hinges and casters so it could travel. We rehearsed the scene — down to loading the set in and out — to stopwatch precision. Julie played one of the leading roles.
On a drizzly Saturday morning, we piled everything into a U-Haul and headed to Homewood. We couldn’t have been better prepared. We were up against two or three insipid renditions of “A Raisin in the Sun.” There’s nothing worse than seeing this performed by rich suburban white teenagers. We felt nervous but good.
But in fact we lost to Homewood-Flossmoor. Julie was stunned; she rushed out of the auditorium. I found her sobbing in the corner of a dark classroom.
“Come on, Julie. You were really wonderful.”
“I can’t believe we lost! How could this happen?”
“You can only do your best.”
“Maybe you’re right.”
“And anyway, this means we won’t have to go to Springfield.”Don’t know why I ad-libbed that last bit. Bad move. Julie started crying twice as hard and swinging at me. People rushed in and had to pull her off of me.
My friends tell me that I am too self-effacing, that I don’t claim credit where I should. But, for these two great American show business families, hey — I know I did my small part.
Rachel Sills’ father Paul died Monday night at the family farm in Wisconsin. Paul Sills brought his mother Viola Spolin’s (and her professor Neva Boyd’s) theories about play and theater into the public arena, inaugurating the revolutionary new genre of improvisational theater. There is very little that identifies the American stage better than this reciprocity of interactive play and performance.
I remember the morning call every day: “OK, people! Games Theater! Theater Games!” It was really Paul’s improv laboratory for children. The school’s overly experimental atmosphere actually caused some difficulties. But we took away confidence and the ability to think and move creatively. There are people all over the world who were touched by Paul Sills’ generous hand. We’ve lost a giant.
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