Probably the most powerful memory I have of my years at Academy is of the infamous 5th grade Christmas concert. Every year as I attend my own kids' Xmas concerts, inevitably, the initial scene plays over and over in my head like so many televised film clips of the Kennedy assassination. In slow motion I see Mark Dean gradually open his mouth and from it I observe a torrent of vomit spew all over Jim Tracy's head, neck, and back. Absurdly, my mind flashes back to Mrs. Kuhn's fourth grade geography lesson in which she compares the source and mouth of a river to the stomach and mouth of a person. I instantly (and appropriately) associate Mark Dean with the Niagara. People old enough to remember the assassination of JFK say they will never forget where they were the moment they heard the news. Do you remember where you were at the Christmas concert? I know where I was. I was standing next to Mark Strickland on the left side of the stage, opposite Mark and Jim. Since the risers were curved like a horseshoe, I was in an excellent position to witness the carnage. I happened to be looking at that part of the stage at the critical moment and vividly recall watching the wide-eyed horror on Jim Tracy's face as he leaped from the risers and ran shouting from the stage. What happened next is a blur, but somehow the mess is cleaned and we begin singing again. However, things aren't right because sounds are becoming fuzzy and I'm having a hard time focusing on Mrs. Heywood. Kids begin exiting the stage one at a time before they pass out. Later, I hear rumors that Barbara Boyer and Cathy Brice never make it off stage. As my head begins to spin, I exit stage left and walk directly to the nurse's office. I neither pass out nor vomit, but lying on the stiff synthetic-leather nurse's sofa, I overhear some adults talk and I learn that the less fortunate are showering in the school locker rooms. As my family and I drive home, my father shakes his head laughing; he will never forget this.
Of course, the aftershocks of the holiday concert are felt throughout the school the next day. Endless stories describing and no doubt exaggerating the previous night's events pass between students. Matt Wasmund and Kevin Thomson who served at ushers during the performance relate in detail the effect the concert had on the audience. Apparently, a number of parents became ill themselves, particularly one bearded man in a turban. There are large numbers of absences and a stream of students head for the nurse's office all day long. By the end of the day, Mrs. VanPell's class of thirty is reduced to seven.
The effect this concert had on the students and families of Academy can only be accounted for with the help of psychological theories of trauma and hysteria. There appears to be no other way to explain the huge number of people who experienced sympathetic responses to what happened. Is it an accident, for example, that these events occurred during the Christmas season, the most emotionally stressful time of the year? Actually, I like to think about what happened in aesthetic terms -- as art. What if we interpret this as an over-the-top "Charlie Brown Christmas"? During the 1940's dramatist Antonin Artaud imagined a "Theater of Cruelty," a form of theatrical art that rejected drama's traditional reliance upon words and reaffirmed the physical immediacy of the theatrical performance. In Artaud's view, scripted dialogue, poetry, and song -- often viewed as the basis for drama -- diminished the physical presence of the performance. Instead, Artaud imagined "the meaning of a new physical language with its basis in signs and no longer in words." This "total theater" emphasized movement, gesture, music, sound, light, and other nonverbal elements to make the experience more intense. One of the goals of such a spectacle was to eliminate the reassuring distance between the actors and the audience who become involved in a direct physical way with the action on stage. I think of the 1972 Academy Holiday Concert as an example of such a performance. In place of the traditional holiday season clichés that ordinarily flow from the mouths of elementary school students, Mark Dean and others provided a much more physical and disruptive "song," a holiday carol that had an impact like no other. What did it signify? All of the pent up feelings of depression, anxiety, and aggression we are normally expected to suppress? Was it a comment upon all of the "peace on earth; good will towards men" messages we hear affixed to the end of beer commercials? Who knows? I don't.
This year, as I watch my own children assume their place on their school stage for their holiday concert, I will wonder: Will it happen this time? Will some child during "Deck the Halls" -- perhaps during the "fa la la's" -- throw up or pass out? And if so, what will happen next? What will it mean?
(If you're not acquainted with my sense of humor, please be aware that I say lots of things that are tongue-in-cheek, and mean no harm or offense by any of them.)
I have a problem with elementary school: I remember almost none of it. Zip, zilch, nada. My memory will grudgingly show me glimpses once in a while, but not very often, and not in very much detail. These are six years that I simply cannot recall, which I guess is part of the reason why I'm so interested in building this web page. Hopefully, reading the recollections of others will help me access that part of my brain that is off-limits right now. So, here's what little I can remember:
More to come ...
If you have memories you want to share, please send 'em to me!