A TALE OF THE LIGHTBRINGER (cont.)

Avrom's second mistake was John Lubachek. I served on the hiring committee as an "advanced drama student," and I must insist in fairness that there was no way during the hiring process to have known that Luby wasn't a dud. He looked and acted like one. During the interview he was overdressed for the southern springtime, and went around looking dazed and sweaty. Attentive people remarked on his habitual use of the double modal-- "might could", "might should", etc-- something all my people do too so I really didn't notice on my own. Luby was tongue-tied without being inarticulate. Once you got him started he was damn near brilliant, but when Wassermann was around it was certain that things wouldn't get much beyond academic gossip and what a great thing the university theater was for the community, bla bla bla. It's not that Avrom thought all the things he said or expected you to think them, but that he used them as a litmus test of departmental durability; how long you could go on the subject of Avrom's greatness without blanching or breaking a grin was a measure of how long you'd stay in the department. Luby, fresh out of grad school on his first job hunt, dazed and frightened and far from anything he knew, nodded and bumbled and got the job.
When Luby arrived that fall I was still a student, but in the way the department worked technically his senior. Since Avrom wasn't going to and Carol hadn't time, I showed him the ropes. He was a live wire then, well recovered now from his interview panic. I thought at first his energy was the show-offing of the new kid, but there was no particular reason to want to impress me. All that fizz was genuine. He wasn't as dumpy as he looked in his interview clothes, but compact and burly, his hair rusty brown wire, his body under his flannel shirts creamy Polish white. He moved like a piston, every lateral gesture complemented by a vertical one which served no purpose but maybe to vent excess energy. I began to like the guy, though it never occurred to me that he might last more than the four semesters of his probationary contract.
Poor Luby thought it was a boon to be excused from university committee responsibilities. Nobody told him it was so he would make no friends or allies in the faculty, so when the time came for the axe there would be no defenders and no unpleasantness. You got to hand it to Avrom; he knew how to get the job done.
Luby was allowed his first year to direct Lorraine Hansberry's The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window, which Avrom had chosen in the name of multi-culturalism, but which nobody wanted to direct because it was A) uncastable on a politically inert campus and B) sure to flop, being not only serious but too daring for conservatives and too quaint for radicals. Avrom failed to tell Luby it was supposed to flop (every disaster in "serious drama" strengthened Avrom's justification for specializing in froth), and Luby went at it with his throttle open.
I designed lights for the production, and let me tell you I had to that point seen nothing like it. Avrom saw to it in his indirect way that none of the theater regulars auditioned (they were supposed to save themselves for his own production later on in the semester), so Luby went to the dining halls and student center recruiting actors, dangling the lure of sheer need. I watched him in action. He was something. Absolutely fearless, like a horny kid who can't believe anybody would refuse him. He'd come up to accounting majors and track jocks and chatter about how wonderful it all was going to be and what an experience they would have. I wanted to turn away in mortification until I saw that it was working. Some of them believed him that it would be a wonderful experience. Most didn't believe but were intrigued by the weirdness of it all. To be wanted, to be beseeched is a powerful attraction, a kind of aphrodisiac, and the new kids came to him in love as much as the old hands avoided him in fear of Avrom.
Later Avrom was right when he insisted later that the production was ragged, but he never mentioned that the raggedness was one born of grabbing for more than any cast could possibly hold. Luby did nothing easy, or at least nothing just because it was easy. He worked those kids skinny, and they loved him. It was exciting. You're not going to believe me when I say I had never thought of theater as exciting until I saw Luby's Window. I thought of it as either well done or not, well lit or not, as though a production were a sort of machine cranking out text without altering or adding to it or casting any unnecessary radiance. When Avrom directed he stood like a statue. Students in his directing classes did the same thing after him, communicating with a twitch of eyelid or a lift of lip, requiring just about that much from their actors. Luby ran and sweated and shouted and jumped up and down like a kid when an actor made a discovery. I have seen him burst into tears at a really great moment in rehearsal, and the kids burst into tears after him. I was glad to be up in the booth where I could bawl in private. It's not that the show was that good, really. It was that it was alive, and every moment seemed vibrant and necessary.
Luby's cast tore that play to pieces. When they put it back together it wasn't right exactly, but it was magic. Every single night in that scene where the whore is dancing with the homo and they're telling each other their dreams, and then the whore goes into the bathroom and kills herself, I mean there was never a dry eye in the goddam house. Not even mine, and I'd never (at that point) met a whore or a homo that I knew of.
Preview night there was the usual polite, judgmental crowd, local theater people and media critics who took advantage of the special courtesy price and the opportunity to catch up on the gossip. Avrom always set the tone for such an evening. One looked to him at intermission to see if one would be wildly enthusiastic, politely tolerant, politely disappointed. That night his face said "not so politely disappointed." It was the face of a schoolmaster who had a sad duty of correction before him. The applause was polite and brief at curtain. I don't think Luby noticed. He was beaming and hugging his sweaty cast. I noticed, though. I thought, "here goes another one," and tried not to be disappointed.
Next morning offered a surprise. The review in the town paper was a rave. Now, this is a community in which reviews of anything but movies and Southern rock bands are rare, and those which appear are largely annotated cast lists suitable for clipping into scrapbooks. But this review groped beyond the usual capability of the reviewer into a realm in which genuine and valuable things about a performance are sometimes said. Its halting tone betrayed an underlying vein of wondrous satisfaction. It contained the smoking phrase, "Unlike most productions at the University Theater, this one possessed--" and then proceeded to name the virtues of energy, sincerity, artistic commitment, passion. Wassermann came to school long enough to pick up the paper. I positioned myself outside his office so I could watch him read the review, so I could watch the self-satisfied arch of his brows collapsing like bridges of sand. He went home sick that day. He put the note on his door with a happy face sticker.
When the student paper came out it was even worse-- or better, depending on your point of view. The reporter called Luby the "new director of University Theater," an ineptitude, of course, but one close enough to the unuttered tenor of the occasion to tighten the line of lips from one end of campus to the other.
Luby was so beside himself with delight that we didn't have the heart to tell him he was in big trouble. What Wassermann prophesied would be a flop on his own turf had damn well better be one. Nobody knows what words were exchanged when Wassermann finally gathered himself to summon Luby into his office. Voices were kept low; we heard Luby clearly only once, the tone being one of incredulity bordering, but not quite touching, disagreement. All we who had arrayed ourselves in the lobby waiting for the outcome knew was that Luby came out looking at once crushed and dumbfounded. Avrom had shut his door, so we could talk freely. We assured Luby that Avrom was a twerp, but he was still his boss and the news was not so comforting as it might have been.
The honeymoon was over for Luby. Avrom hated errors, and he had made a big one. He had allowed Luby to go public. Word-of-mouth had gotten everybody to that production of Sidney Brustein, and the enthusiasm was so great and general that Avrom found-- practically for the first time-- that he was not having his way. The last three nights of the run the theater was full and disappointed long-time check-signing patrons stood forlornly in the lobby listening to the opening music. This had not happened before. Except for Yvain and a few of the jerkier students nobody jumped to agree when Avrom affected his well-now-but-I-have-some-reservations whine. On this occasion he was forced to take his dissatisfaction inward. You could see it happening.
Avrom in a funk was a little scary, for he was capable of taking it out on other people in fairly significant ways. Believe me, nobody asked for a recommendation that week.
Being around them so much, I have theories about artists, and one is that weak artists either crumble before criticism or reject it out of hand; strong artists use it. The following semester Luby's assignment was to guide the directing students through a series of one-act studio productions, their very first attempts as directors. Well, these productions turned out well in a whole different way from Sidney Brustein. They were exemplars of academic correctness, little jewels of the tradition transfigured, formal, intelligent, crisp, and when people asked where the students had gotten their inspiration they said, "from Dr. Lubachek," and when they asked Dr. Lubachek where he had gotten his inspiration he said "from Avrom Wassermann, of course." And the great thing was that he was not ass-kissing but telling God's truth. He had decided to take Avrom's wisdom, such as it was, try it, perfect it, see what it was worth.
Avrom thought he had the victory. He didn't understand that Luby had passed him by forever.
It wasn't inevitable that Luby and I would start to hang out together. At that time in our lives I wanted to talk about women and he wanted to talk about theater, so our lines of conversation slipped past each other a lot. Neither of us seemed to care. Luby's observations about the theater helped me with my understanding of women in an odd way. I hope my concupiscent chatter helped him with his art.
Our relationship flowered because he trusted me. I'd told him the truth about the department and the school. Most of it astonished him, not only because he hadn't noticed on his own, but because so much of it was pointless and wasteful. He was the sort of person who was baffled by the pointless and wasteful. Didn't understand them. He would have made a lousy administrator.
Luby began to like me back. Being liked by Luby was an unusual experience. If he got a kick out of you he'd watch you to figure out for himself why, as though you were a successful performance he wanted to analyze. He stared at you when you did things, exclaiming if they were done particularly well, asking embarrassing questions if not.
"God, Kyle, you were so great out there on the dance floor! How did you do it!"
"God, Kyle, you've had a six pack and you're not weaving! How do you do it?"
"God, Kyle, you really fucked that up. What do you think went wrong?"
It's amazing how infrequently you know how and why you do things. Having Luby there to ask made me pay better attention, I guess, though sometimes I just had to make reasons up, as though following a grand plan, you know, so he would continue to think I was remarkable.
Basically Luby regarded the stage as a more precise and understandable extension of life, in which it was really possible that you might have a clear notion of why you had done a particular thing in a particular way. He is the first person I'd ever met in the business who did not make a distinction between the stage and "real life," seeing one as a concentration of the essence of the other, one to the other as a sort of lab, where gestures were perfected and instincts explored. Luby wanted to be a good man surrounded by good people, and he believed the theater could teach him how. This huge intellectual program always creaking in the background could make a person self-conscious at first, but after a while I started to grow into it. If Luby were present I'd think twice before I did something, to make sure I'd be doing it the best way I knew how.
When we read Plato's Symposium in Senior Humanities I astounded myself by knowing what they were talking about. I forget which guy it was, but he said love between friends would insure that neither of them would do anything unworthy in front of the other, and that would make good citizens. Damned if it isn't true. When I was out with Luby I knew he was watching me and I'd be as good as gold. It sounds like this puts a burden on spontaneity, but it didn't. It was a sport.
Besides, spontaneity was part of what Luby would be looking for in a person. In his presence, if I felt some subconscious gesture welling up inside me I'd hold back just long enough to taste if it were worthy of me, and then let fly. Sometimes he'd be so pleased with me I thought he'd burst. Got so I lived for those moments. I'm not a fag or anything so I wasn't used to feeling that way about a man. Dad and I weren't that close, and I had no brother, so day by day I nudged Luby into those slots, and he fit fine. The fit was all the finer for the fact that Luby hadn't planned any of it, didn't aspire to those roles, would have been surprised to be told he occupied them. Basically, Luby was the sort of man who made what you did and the way you did it seem important.
Luby loved movies--especially bad ones-- and when I introduced him to video technology you'd have thought he'd died and gone to heaven. That was when video toys were really first getting wonderful, and getting so ordinary people could afford them if they scrimped a little. Video added the one thing that live drama lacked: permanence. I told him that mail order, though it took longer, would be cheaper, but once the idea grabbed him he had to have the equipment NOW. Leaving the Circuit City parking lot he already had the boxes open, me giving rudimentray usage instructions while trying to drive. He was ready to explode, not knowing whether he wanted me to concentrate on driving so we could get home quicker, or stop the car to give the lessons my undivided attention.
Long before we made it to his house Luby had conceived the notion of a great State University Drama Department Video Library, archiving our dramatic triumphs for generations yet unborn. Nothing would do but that we veer from his apartment and hurry back to the theater That Instant and confront Carol with an idea Luby figured she would adore. I said "uh huh" and tagged along. A rehearsal was in progress. Luby aimed and pressed the button, sweating with excitement.
Turns out Carol did adore the idea, even found money in the budget for the purchase of some of the equipment we forgot on the first visit. Since she was chairman that should have been the end of it. We might have foreseen what would happen, though, considering the way he had put the kibosh on everything else that might have made Luby locally famous and, therefore in his mind, a threat. Luby and I were standing on the stage chattering about the possibilities of video, what famous lost scenes we would have captured in what way from what position, when the wraith of Avrom Wassermann materialized in the intermediate distance.
Video?" he said, in the way he had that spelled damnation.
"Yeah." Luby was like a schoolboy caught at some forbidden deed. "Carol said we could."
"Ah," said Avrom, resisting a glance toward Carol's office. "Well, that's not very. . . uh . . . dramatic is it?"
As Luby said nothing, Wassermann continued, "This is after all the drama department." Luby stood looking toward the costume shop as though somebody had just called his name. He was habitually tongue-tied in front of Wassermann, so it was up to me to state the case before all was lost. It's not that I was so keen on video myself-- it would end up just one more thing for me to supervise-- but that Luby was so excited, and I wanted him to get something good for a change, something that the eminence gris had not managed to spoil for him.
"Carol said it was all right," I began, employing the repetition segue, "besides, most theaters find it an extremely valuable device for evaluation of performances, and particularly for archival uses such as. . . ." bla bla bla. I was going on as though the real merits of the project were at issue. One tended to forget with Avrom that the issue was seldom the issue. The issue was almost always control. Avrom had it, and had to decide how much of it to delegate and when. The pattern of never yielding an ounce of it to Luby had already been set, and I saw that Avrom was weighing my words not for their intrinsic merit but to judge how much of the idea was Carol's and how much ours. I'd given away too much too fast. I could see the gates of Avrom's eyelids shutting slowly.
When I was finished Avrom waited, letting my messy syllables drop from the air.
"You understand of course that all this was considered. . . long ago. Almost as soon as the technology was. . . uhm. . . practical." Though I had been the one speaking, Avrom looked directly at Assistant Professor Lubachek. "We determined than that to see their failures and humiliations immortalized would not only not do our actors much good, it could do a great deal of harm. It distresses me, though it doesn't surprise me much, that you did not consider that."
"But--"
"Also, as you surely know, this is a building dedicated to live performance. Live Performance. Had we wanted a movie studio we would probably. . . uhm. . . have arranged to have one already." Avrom paused two whole beats. "Mr. Lubachek, your reasons for wanting this expensive and irrelevant equipment are transparent, and you must not know us very well if you think we would not see through it."
"I don't know what--"
"If you want to build a portfolio I am afraid you will have to do it on your own time and at your own expense. And I would suggest that. . . uhm. . . utilization of students or university property for such an end. . . will be looked on. . . with severity."
Wassermann snaked off directly to Carol's office, to help her reverse an ill-advised decision. Luby and I just stood there in the brown light of the empty stage. I was fighting mad, but Luby looked thunderstruck. He raised his eyes from the floor, swiveled them onto me and said, "Was I thinking that?" I had to burst out laughing.

What happened afterwards was my fault. I was not ready for Wassermann to have this victory. I'd sensed a note of hysteria in his voice which suggested he was no longer absolutely sure of his authority. Dog-like, I sensed fear, and went in for the kill.
I'd been at the university by then a good long time, and knew what strings to pull and when to pull them. Before the month was out I had an Undergraduate Research Grant which allowed me to justify the necessary video equipment, and had done enough poking around to know where the rest could be rented or borrowed. Luby and I were in business, and totally independent of the Drama Dept.
It was just about as easy as I've made it sound. Undergraduate Research had a reputation for funding mostly science projects, so when something from the arts appeared the committee generally messed its pants in a mixture of delight and anxiety, delight in the sheer fact of the application, anxiety over not knowing what the hell was going on. I led them through it step by step, telling them why this had to happen at this moment, etc, and they were most grateful. Plus, my asking for equipment-- solid, explicable, visible-- played right into their scientific propensity for expensive toys.
We defused Avrom's accusation about building a portfolio by recording the department's production of Blood Wedding first, which Luby had nothing to do with. It's sort of a weird play. I can't say I got it, but Luby was hot to begin our library with it, so there we were. One thing I did understand was that the production was bad. Not boring, really, but one of those epics of error where you wait with genuine anticipation to see what wrong turn would dissipate logic and energy next. The student actors blamed "directorial choices". Carol, who had directed, gallantly did not pass on the blame but said that her administrative duties had made adequate attention to the production next to impossible. I didn't doubt it. Luby dogged the poor woman's path for days with advice on how to shore up the ruins should those sorts of things ever happen again. Carol assured him that no such thing would ever happen again. Luby didn't understand what I did from that comment-- we would be getting Oklahoma from now on.
There dawned nearly a year of peace. We all did our work, our lips set to thin lines of subterranean tension, but able to stand one another, able to work in proximity. It was a good year and there were some good productions, one of them even by Wassermann. The single public blow-up was when Luby by-passed Avrom and Carol both and presented his idea for a film and video sequence directly to the Academic Policies Committee, and it passed. It went down right before Christmas break when everyone's mind was on getting the hell out of town, so the brouhaha was kept at a minimum. It might have been timing merely fortuitous, but I think Luby was learning the way of things. I think he had actually planned it. I told him, "You're losing your innocence" and he grinned back like a cherub-- innocent and wise at once, like it says in the Bible.


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