The Fourth Wall

Martin Cruz’s mid-life detour into acting had been rocky, an escape from his bereavement demons. Here’s what one of his grief therapists prompted Marty to scrawl in a journaling workshop:

They tell me to write what I know. Okay, sure, makes sense. Problem is, I seem to know less and less every day. Nothing works the way it should anymore. I exercise and I gain weight, three pounds in the last week. ‘Buy and hold’ is now considered a mistake, according to our stockbroker’s newsletter. For over a decade, our married life was predictable. The sun would come up and the alarm clock would buzz and Phyllis would roll over and say, “Go find the guy who makes the coffee.” That was a private joke that meant, “Get your butt out of bed and fetch me some breakfast.”

I’d go downstairs to brew up a mug of Columbian and butter a muffin and deliver it and say, “Phyllis, don’t you love this hotel?”

Her cue to whisper, “I especially love the room service.”

Shower, shave, drive to the store and sell more vacuum cleaners. Phyllis didn’t come into the shop until later. She handled the books and inventory from a private office in back, away from the floor and the customers. Her real joy was finding props for our community theater. She collected a lot of stuff that got stacked in our garage. The neighbors called her a ‘hoarder’. No, not really. Phyllis was a curator, an enlivener of spaces. As prop master, she had a knack for placing one unexpected, incongruous item in the stage sets that made the audiences stare closely and think, ‘what is that doing in this play?”

Religiously, every Saturday morning, we’d borrow the theater’s van and cruise the yard sales, searching for props. Never know when you might need an inflatable wading pool in Act Three. Phyllis mapped out the route, having studied the classified ads. I was her wheel man and also her haggling foil. She’d turn to me, instead of the seller, and say, “Excuse me, honey, I’m not sure five dollars is a good price for this lava lamp. What do you think?”

My cue to respond, “Four dollars sounds right.” Using my veteran salesman voice and a wink. “Remember we’re on a tight budget,” I’d say.

Actually, we weren’t. Phyllis and I worked pro bono for Prairie Stage and we donated all the out-of-pocket expenses. The money and time was worth it to us, a couple of boring, overweight DINKs with day jobs in retail, to be able to hang out with real theater people. Talk about characters! Phyllis had known Bill Stern, the director of Prairie Stage, since childhood and admired him for following his passion in life. Bill was the kid who organized driveway theatricals and charged parents fifty cents to attend. Phyllis and I thrived vicariously on the energy of his mature productions, both of us having grown up in rigid, churchy families. We loved the camaraderie and the offstage drama. It was a different kind of charismatic faith.

When my dear wife caughtCovid-19 (probably from a too-soon return to yoga class at the YMCA), Bill and his troupe rallied around me and, honestly, the outpouring of emotion over her death taught me how to open up to mine. I still can’t seem to get rid of Phyllis’ stuff. I drag items in from the garage and use them to set up scenes in our living room, thinking that if I set the stage just right, with just the right combination of her accessories and trinkets, the ghost of my wife will return.

We were never in the best of health, both diabetic and asthmatic. For us, the quarantine fifteen had been more like thirty-five. Prairie Stage, housed in a renovated fire station, was scheduled to reopen in September, after being dark for almost two seasons. Live rehearsals had just started again. We were all so tired of the glitch-ridden Zoom projects, as were our annual subscribers, their screens invariably beach-balling and freezing. I should have asked Phyllis to delay the class at the Y. Should have put my foot down. Friends tell me these self-recriminations are part of a phase.

The day after Phyllis’ memorial service, Bill called with the entire theater board on speaker phone. They officially invited me to accept a small, walk-on role in the next production. It was a kids’ musical.

Bill said, “Marty, we all want you to stay involved.”

“You just need my money.”

“No, this would be a way to honor Phyllis.”

“You really think so?” I said. “Heck, I sell vacuum cleaners.”

“Exactly. You’re a salesman, which means you’re an actor at heart.”

So, that’s how it started. The salesman got reborn as a theater person. It was a challenge at first. My main artistic goal has been to embody that lone, curious object which Phyllis included in all her stage sets. I want the audience to ogle me and think, “What is he doing up there?”