. . . room for the birds to fly through . . .

Did anyone ever give you a new way to see things?  Maybe even a new way to see yourself?

For me, it was ‘Great Gloria’ who did that.  With joy, I dubbed her Great Gloria, because our son was first to make her a great grandmother.  We had a special bond that grew as I became an adult, and we traveled the world together.   You may have seen her in Titanic playing Old Rose - but a lifetime before James Cameron ever conceived of that film, Great Gloria played the love interest in such timeless films as ‘The Invisible Man’ with Claude Rains and ‘The Old Dark House’ with Boris Karloff and Here Comes the Navy’ with James Cagney and ‘Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farms” with Shirley Temple and countless others that she made as a contract player at Universal Studios. 

It was Great Gloria who held me close and told me, “Never become an actor, Benjy - an actor just waits by the phone.”  That’s why I became a director.  And I came to learn from how she saw the world and it informed the way I saw my craft.  Beyond being my grandmother, and an accomplished actress, Great Gloria was a consummate artist. Perhaps another time we’ll look at the extent of her work as a painter, and at her art furniture, and her silk screen and her fine book crafts - but it was her work as a Bonsai Master that fully captured my imagination. 

I’ve always loved the majestic theatre that trees can sometimes create - especially sequoias – and for her to be able to capture the mystique of a tree - or even create a grove of trees, in the miniature world within a Japanese bonsai - for me, this was truly a wonder, because it created a completely different world, where our imagination inhabited the tiny set of the gardener.  We traveled to Japan together, where I was able to see some of the most sublime bonsai ever cultivated.  And I also saw some stunning Theatre that opened my eyes. 

Entering the Minamiza Kabuki Theatre in Kyoto, was, in fact, entering just such a fresh world.  Musicians sit on the stage playing ancient string instruments that fill the air with sparse tones augmented by percussive wood block rhythms while a bamboo flute soars above it all with a poignant urgency. The stage is grand and spacious; made of gorgeous wood planks that are quite beautiful even when bare.  The backdrops and the curtains are enormous and dramatic.  And a long narrow walkway, called a hanamachi - just off to the left of center as you face the stage – splits the audience as it runs to the back of the house – where as I later learned, actors appeared, to make their grand entrance, with their feet at eye level for audience members seated nearby – so that their characters achieved epic status.  I had no idea until I saw it happening, but Kabuki audiences behave more like rock fans – as these actors in character stood above them on the hanamachi - their fans reached, yelling that they’d saved all their money and they’d waited years to come see them just this once!

In the production that I saw, as much as I could track it, there was a magic white fox.  And a certain point, a shocking slap of blocks from the direction of the hanamachi booth cracks out and the entire audience turns to see who will make their entrance – but - just as suddenly, our attention is whipped back to front and center on the main stage, where, impossibly, appeared the White Fox, as if he’s been lying in perfect relaxation for quite some time - although it was many many steps to any entrance. Just how had that fox magically appeared! 

It was so awesome and thrilling that I returned the next day and this time, when the moment came, I refused to fall for the distraction slap that made the whole audience turn, and I gazed, front and center at the stage, with its little rise of three small steps – and just then, the steps rotated forward, like a barrel, revealing the White Fox from under the lip of the stage, where he had already laid out in form. And when everyone turned to look, and gasped, I nodded, now knowing the theatrical gag that created the illusion.  Great Gloria’s love and appreciation of the Japanese aesthetic and Kites and Haiku and Hokosai’s Views of Fuji and so much more, changed the way I see the stage.  But it was in her own little bonsai garden, which I helped her maintain, that I learned about the different bonsai forms and how much care they require. And one day, when we were looking at the oak forest she had cultivated from acorns that I had picked up with her in the forest of Fountainbleau, she peered into the tree tops of the bonsai forest and said, “you have to make room for the birds to fly through. . .”