S4 Ep 2 Shadows & Light

Network Sting: MSW Media

Martin: Hello, and welcome to the fourth season of The Martin Sheen Podcast with yours truly, Martin Sheen, of course. And I’m delighted to be back hosting this podcast pilgrimage, where the destination is still and always will be the journey itself. Along the way, I plan to share stories and personal memories of some of the many people, places, and events that have helped to shape my lifelong happy and continuing struggle as an artist and a man to unite the will of the spirit with the work of the flesh. I also hope to explore poetry as a powerful form of expression and communication by proxy, as it were, and how poetry is such a vital and necessary component of our spirituality and our public discourse. And from time to time, I’ll invite friends, fellow actors, poets, scholars and family members to join our pilgrimage and discuss what inspires their artistic journey. And so, friends, let us continue.

Martin: Notes on London’s Heart

In September 1985, I received a call from Joe Papp, the founder of the New York Shakespeare Festival and the Public Theater in New York, where he had recently produced a powerful and controversial new play called The Normal Heart by Larry Kramer. Now, he was planning to direct a production of the play for a limited run at the Royal Court Theatre in London, with rehearsal to begin there in February 1986. And he wanted to know if I was interested in playing the lead role. And without hesitation, I said yes, even though I had not even read the script to begin with. Joe was a dear friend and mentor. He had directed the production of Romeo and Juliet in the summer of 1968 in Central Park and cast me in the title role. And while I had appeared in several other plays at the Public Theater since then, he had not directed any of them. So the opportunity to work with him again as a director and was rare indeed and most welcome. But to put it more in perspective, Joe Papp had no equal. He was the most consequential and transformative figure in the history of the American theater. And as critic Kenneth Turin wrote, “he made theater in America accessible and essential.” With the New York Shakespeare Festival, Joe established Free Shakespeare to the public in Central Park. And he built the Delacorte Theatre, to permanently house it there in 1962. A few years later, he discovered an old, large and beautiful abandoned building on West Lafayette street near historic Cooper Union that was owned by the city. Built in 1854, it was originally the Astor Library, the very first public library in New York City until the early 20th century, when it became a settlement house for large numbers of Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe, which spoke to Joe in deeply personal ways. Both his parents had come from Eastern Europe, his father from Poland, his mother from Lithuania. So gradually he began to realize the potential of the building as a unique theater with multiple venues. His first instinct was to persuade the city to place it on the historic preservation list, which they did. Then he organized a campaign to buy and remodel the building and he supervised its rebirth into the Public Theater, a treasured national landmark where for more than 30 years he nourished the talents and the careers of many young playwrights, directors and actors, myself among them. Hair, A Chorus Line, That Championship Season, Sticks and Bones, Streamers and The Normal Heart are just a fraction of the many extraordinary productions Joe Papp guided through the theater that now officially bears his name. Of note, a far more detailed history of the Public Theater and the New York Shakespeare Festival are available in Free For All, published in 2010 at Anchor Books, a division of Random House. With my commitment to Joe for The Normal Heart, my focus turned to England. I’d never appeared on the British stage, which my generation always considered the ultimate challenge for any serious American actor. But that challenge included the Bard. In fact, we Yanks were not considered proper actors by our British colleagues until we had done Shakespeare on an English stage at some point in our career. The Normal Heart was not Shakespeare, of course, but it had as many complexities of life and death drama as any of the Bard’s best-known plays. And I was representing the New York Shakespeare Festival after all. Enough said. So to England and St George! The play itself was admittedly autobiographical, as Larry Kramer detailed his journey from 1981 through 1983 as Ned Weeks, a 40-year-old gay Jewish man in New York City living with his partner Felix and confronting a rare and strange form of cancer starting to emerge among gay men. Ned’s good friend Dr. Emma Bruckner urged him to use every possible resource to sound the alarm with the press, the government, the CDC, anyone who will listen and act to help prevent the immense carnage about to land on the entire gay community as this strange cancer morphed into the deadly AIDS virus. Ned accepts the challenge and goes about organizing the nonprofit Gay Men’s Health Crisis with his chief goal of closing the many bath houses in New York City, where he is convinced the habitual practice of casual unprotected sex among gay men is a major contributor spreading the virus. Of note, this theme was not lost on critic John Simon of New York Magazine in his review of May 6, 1985, quote “the play’s most original contribution is its examination of the relationship between homosexual promiscuity and aids.” But Ned’s gay friends, as well as a majority of the gay community, missed the point entirely. They felt directly threatened, as if they were being forced back into the closet by one of their own, and a terrible fight ensued, resulting in Ned being thrown out of the very organization he helped create. The Normal Heart is a powerful real-life drama from a man at the center of the crisis, raging against all the dying around him. I was drawn to Ned for his singleness of purpose and through his deeply flawed humanity, to his breathtaking courage. And it didn’t matter to me if he was gay or straight, though it was abundantly clear that he was as comfortable being gay as he was being Jewish, and any actor portraying him honestly had to convey that fact without reservation. I had played a gay man in a Landmark Network TV movie called That Certain Summer in November 1972, long before a more recent gay man I portrayed on Grace and Frankie and but both of those gay relationships were considered dignified, even acceptable, as long as they did not reveal or advocate any overt gay sexuality, at least not on camera. But the normal heart beat quite differently, and it wasn’t on tv, at least not yet. Then, by coincidence, not long after my commitment, a production of the play opened in Los Angeles, starring Richard Dreyfuss as Ned and Bruce Davison as Felix, and I hastened to see it with my wife Janet. The production hummed along with great energy, and I began to project myself into Richard’s brilliant performance until near the end of the first act, when Ned and Felix share an intense and passionate kiss. Somehow I missed that in the stage direction, so I didn’t see it coming. And suddenly I felt strangely uncomfortable and slid down in my seat. What’s wrong? Janet whispered. I can’t do that, I said. Do what? She asked. Kiss a man like that, I replied. Oh, for heaven’s sake, she said with great annoyance. You can’t take it personal. You’re an actor. You’re meant to play someone, not become them. She was right, of course. Still, aside from my adult sons, I had never kissed another man on the lips, and I began to have second thoughts. Not only was I extremely uncomfortable doing the scene, but an added concern at the time was the possibility that the AIDS virus could be transmitted through kissing. In fact, most actors had imposed a self-ban on kissing in film and TV until an HIV AIDS test had been discovered and made available. Early one morning a few weeks later, Janet woke me saying Joe Papp was calling long distance from New York. As I made my way to the phone in the kitchen, I secretly hoped he was calling to say the London production had been canceled or at least postponed, or that maybe he’d come to his senses and changed his mind about me playing that role. But the news he shared was far worse than I could have imagined. In a calm voice, Joe revealed in confidence that that he was forced to withdraw from directing the London production due to his recent diagnosis of prostate cancer. I was stunned, and before I could respond, he continued on, asking me to keep my commitment if possible. And if for no other reason than to honor him, I assured him I would.

While I was filming Loophole with Albert Finney in the summer of 1979, we rented a large old house in the village of Wokingham, not far from London, in where several of our children came over and stayed from time to time, including Ramon, who became friends while he was there with a very likable young man from London named Jason Moreland. And when I told Ramon I was going over to do the play, he inquired to see if I could stay with Jason and his family, who lived in a five-story house in an area of London called Barnes. There was a lovely, comfortable flat on the top floor with a private entrance which the Moreland family agreed to rent to me for my entire stay. And I could not have found a better place. The house was near a Catholic church, a post office and a number of convenient shops. And the Moreland family of four could not have been more hospitable or accommodating. I was a welcome guest at the family supper most Sunday evenings, and we grew quite fond of each other over the next four months. In fact, Jason became my personal assistant as well as my driver, hauling me to rehearsal every day and home at night on the back of his motor scooter, which was always an adventure in London traffic. Rehearsals began February 8, 1986 at the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square with a wonderful and very talented mix of Irish, British and American actors. Frances Tamalty, an Irish actress and the only female in the cast, played Dr. Emma Bruckner. She was quite brilliant and we became good friends. An English actor named Paul Jessen was equally brilliant as Felix, and to my great relief, he confided to me that he was as uncomfortable with the kiss scene as I was. So together we agreed to address it head on… by not addressing it at all. Of course, at least not until the first preview with the very first audience, which was a good four weeks off. Of note, both of us had grown mustaches for no apparent reason other than a possible lip barrier perhaps, and neither asked the other to shave. Eventually we worked our way through the kiss scene, little by little, performance by performance, until it was, surprisingly no longer an issue. By the way, Paul won several awards for his performance, and I’d give him one more for being such a good sport as well. As rehearsal progressed, the play rapidly took shape and we opened with great confidence for two weeks of previews the first week of March amid a general concern that that the AIDS crisis was being largely ignored, even swept under the rug in England. All that abruptly ended, however, with the revelation of the tragic AIDS related death of Nicholas Eden, the son of the former Prime Minister Anthony Eden. Suddenly, a huge media focus started landing on the Royal Court Theater where the so-called AIDS play was up and running. The BBC did an in-depth story with cast interviews and filmed extended scenes from the play. Then more and more coverage followed on TV news and chat shows as well as in national and local magazines and newspapers. Soon, scores of gay men began attending each performance of the play and gathering in the lobby and under the marquee outside afterwards, discussing the crisis, organizing and planning actions and demanding appropriate medical care for the gay community. Which is exactly what occurred when, with the original production in New York at the Public Theater nine months earlier. On May 18, our official opening night, I was extremely nervous waiting in the wings. Another actor was standing nearby reading a newspaper. I cannot remember his name, but I’ll never forget what he said, “You may as well Relax, Mr. Sheen, because you’re not getting out of here tonight till you do this play.” I started laughing so hard all my nervousness disappeared, and when I turned to thank him, he was already on stage with the paper tucked under his arm. The play and my role in it were constantly evolving, but my stoic machoism remained unchanged. From the beginning, I simply lacked the courage to permit any feminism to emerge in my performance. Then one night during the violent confrontation scene in the second act, when the actor playing the antagonist, who was always restrained by two other actors as directed, suddenly broke free and charged at me unrestrained. It was the first and only time this ever happened, and my response is best described by a fellow actor and eyewitness, “In that instant, Martin became full on gay as he fluttered across the stage like an old queen and hid behind the biggest guy he could find.” The audience roared with laughter and some of the actors did too, and it was clearly a breakout moment, no pun intended. All my machoism dissolved in that fight or flight instant, and the real Ned Weeks finally emerged and remained.

One of my favorite directors, John Schlesinger attended a performance towards the end of the run. He came backstage afterwards and offered me a leading role in his next film, The Believers, which was set to begin filming in New York in June, and I gladly accepted. The play was an overwhelming success and sold out every performance. The entire production was a wonderful, exciting and deeply satisfying personal and professional experience. From the first day of rehearsal to my closing night at the Royal Court, when my son Ramon came over to attend my last performance with his dear friend Ava Gardner. I returned to Los Angeles and began at once preparing for The Believers in New York in June. And while I was filming there, Joe Papp invited Janet and I to join him and his wife Gail for breakfast one morning at their apartment on East 9th Street. I was very anxious to see them both, and especially to hear some good news from Joe about his health. He assured me he was doing fine, but he was especially anxious to hear about the production in London. “I heard you change the ending of the play. Is that true?” He asked. “Yes, I did, but only slightly.” The play ends with Ned and Felix being married as Felix dies from aids. The very last line of the play is Ned telling a story to Felix about his recent trip to Yale for a class reunion and how delighted he was to see so many gay couples dancing together at the closing night of the event. Then I, explained to Joe that I added a section from W.H. Auden’s poem September 1, 1939, where Larry Kramer got the title for his play: What Mad Nijinsky wrote about Diaghilev is true of the normal heart, for the error bred in the bone of each woman and each man craves what it cannot have, not universal love, but to be loved alone. When I ended the poem, Joe looked at Gail and smiled. Then he said, “that’s how we should have ended the play in New York.” Thank you, Joe.

Martin: We’ll be right back. And we’re back.

Martin: Consider this from Agatha Christie’s autobiography. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow. But through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.

Martin: And for our final selection, Hymn to the Night by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

I heard the trailing garments of the Night

Sweep through her marble halls!

I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light

From the celestial walls!

I felt her presence, by its spell of might,

Stoop o’er me from above;

The calm, majestic presence of the Night,

As of the one I love.

I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight,

The manifold, soft chimes,

That fill the haunted chambers of the Night

Like some old poet’s rhymes.

From the cool cisterns of the midnight air

My spirit drank repose;

The fountain of perpetual peace flows there,—

From those deep cisterns flows.

O holy Night! from thee I learn to bear

What man has borne before!

Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care,

And they complain no more.

Peace! Peace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer!

Descend with broad-winged flight,

The welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair,

The best-beloved Night!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator. He is known for his style of lyric poetry, presenting stories of mythology and legend, such as The Song of Hiawatha and The Village Blacksmith. He was born on February 27, 1807 in Portland, Maine, and died on March 24, 1882 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was 75 years old.

Martin: I invite you to delve further into the works of the poets I shared with you, and I hope you seek out writers and poets whose work speaks to your hearts and minds with the power to inspire your life. If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve heard here, please subscribe to my podcast, The Martin Sheen Podcast, with your host, yours truly, Martin Sheen, of course, wherever you find your podcasts. Yeah, I still have to say that. You can find a complete list of the poets and titles of their poems that I’ve chosen at our website, themartensheenpodcast.com

I want to thank the people who make this podcast possible. Our producer and research assistant, Renee Estevez, whose explanation of the Internet really gets me thinking, “What’s for lunch?” And our sound engineer and editor, Bruce Greenspan, the man behind these rich and seamless recordings with the much-deserved nickname, the Sound Surgeon. And I especially want to thank you, our listeners, for joining me.

And so, friends, we part with the prayer from Tagore.

We are called to lift up this nation and all its people to that place where the heart is without fear and the head is held high. Where knowledge is free, where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls. Where words come out from the depths of truth and tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection. Where the clear stream of reason, has not lost its way into the dreary desert sands of dead habit, where the mind is led forward by thee into ever widening thought and action, into that heaven of, freedom. Dear Father, let our country awake. Amen.

Martin Sheen: The Martin Sheen Podcast all rights reserved. No part of this podcast may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form without prior written consent of the author and TE Productions.

The story “Notes on London’s Heart” by Ramon Gerard Estevez, AKA Martin Sheen is included in this podcast by copyright permission of the Authority.