A slow-moving and slightly overweight black Labrador strolled across the front of the stage during the opening convocation, unmindful, I thought at the time, of the seriousness of the occasion. The speaker paused, the platform guests looked bemused, the audience applauded the performance.
And so it began. The Daniel Z. Gibson Arts Center came to life with a spectacular celebration of the arts that began on November 1, 1967 and continued with barely a pause until May 2006.
Pianist Eugene Istomin was not thrilled with the acoustics, but no one in Tawes Theatre for his performances on November 10 and 11, 1967 noticed. Architecture critic and historian Henry Hope Reed had only good things to say in his talk on "Classical America" on November 7. Both lobbies were filled with contemporary Italian paintings from the collection of Professor Roland Gibson. The pipe organ didn't make it past the final budget cuts, but Washington Cathedral organist and choirmaster Paul Callaway came to talk anyway. President Dan Gibson hailed the new facility as "a dream come true" and "a new dimension to Washington College's educational program." At a It's Moving Day For The Ghosts of Plays Past By Professor Tim Maloney cost of $1.3 million, the Arts Center was going to "benefit students and the public for generations to come."
Eugene Istomin was right, though. The acoustics were never as good as they were supposed to be. In spite of its imperfections, an extraordinary number of extraordinary artists have played, sung and danced on its stage. Pianist Robin McCabe first performed in 1978 and returned for three more concerts. The Julliard String Quartet performed seven times between 1967 and 1992. Guitarist Christopher Parkening filled the hall in 1969 and again in 1972. The Dallas Ballet, the Washington Ballet, the New York Ballet Theatre, Baltimore's Center Stage, Shenandoah Shakespeare and the Oxford-Cambridge Dramatic Society are part of Tawes' history.
In his Convocation address on November 4, 1967, British actor and director Douglas Seale noted that one of the markedly different features of a brand new theatre was that it had no ghosts—yet. He was referring to the ghosts who linger from the plays performed in every theatre. In theatre lore, the characters in the drama linger; in some tellings, they linger loudly. Playwrights and composers are remembered, but they don't take up residence. Actors and musicians and dancers are fondly recalled by their audiences.
The dramatic characters who are brought to life on a stage often have a difficult time bringing down the curtain.
In his latest work on theatre theory and performance, Marvin Carlson argues that "all arts are built up of identical material used over and over again," and that the "process of using the memory of previous encounters to understand and interpret encounters with new and somewhat different but apparently similar phenomena is fundamental" to understanding and interpretation. Drama is the retelling of human stories, and cognition is abetted by recognition and memory.
Over time, playgoers acquire a treasure chest of the ghosts of past performances, a relationship with dramatic characters from the past that enhances the encounter with new ones. Ghosts live in the memory of the playgoer; in the physical theatre where they were performed, they seem to live a fuller and more active life as history and historians and...well, ghosts!
Romans, Scots and Brits and Irish from various ages, Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, Poles, Czechs, Germans, Russians, Spaniards, Italians, Canadians, Brazilians, Americans. Not all of them have stayed. Some may not have been pleased with our effort on their behalf, some are too busy to linger long in any one place. We have our share. We know that. You might not see them prancing about; they're too civil and courteous and professional to shift the spectacle to themselves, usually. But those of us who have helped bring them here, and I mean members of the audience as well as members of all the production teams, know that they're in residence, greet them with a smile from time to time, maybe linger alone in the near dark to listen, to enjoy the touch of a memory.
Very shortly though, those who have stayed are going to be in for a very bumpy ride. Their house will be torn apart. It will be rebuilt, and it will be grand. It will be inviting and comfortable with more room to wander and ponder and create and rest. I'm saddened by the tearing apart, not for the house but for the ghosts.
Buildings adapt. I'm not sure what ghosts do. The house has served all of us well for a very long time and is ready for change. The ghosts are my concern. I don't want to lose any.
Professor Tim Maloney has spent four decades helping to create the ghosts of Tawes Theatre.
Carlson, Marvin. The Haunted Stage: The Theatre as Memory Machine. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2001.
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