30. The Summer Plays ... THE FARM IN PINE VILLAGE

For several years, Charles and Robert had been enrolled in Mrs. Elizabeth Clements Sharpless’ Children’s Summer Theater at Columbian Park in Lafayette. Robert would never forget the first day that he attended. Back then, he was not yet in first grade.

With hopes that Mrs. Sharpless might help Robert to finish overcoming his inability to “say his r’s,” Ida had deposited Charles and Robert at Rush Pavilion overhanging the lagoon.

Columbian Park was a magnificent facility sprawling over a triangular area in between Scott Street, Park Avenue, and Main Street. A zoo with a large animal house occupied one end. The animated conversations of monkeys often rose above the tranquil lapping of the water in the lagoon. Buddy the Chimpanzee frequently accompanied the engineer of the miniature locomotive that pulled a train on the well-built tracks weaving around the park. Zebras roamed a fenced enclosure.

In the main room of the pavilion, Mrs. Sharpless reigned. Her dynamic personality was constantly in evidence. On that first day, she assigned one of the Best sisters to teach Charles and Robert the words to “Frère Jacques,” which they and other children would sing while dancing in a circle as part of one of the stage productions. Breezes from the lagoon wafted through the large open windows of the room, otherwise faintly redolent of the leotards and ballet slippers that the children were required to wear during rehearsals.

A painter widely recognized for her watercolors and her oils, Mrs. Sharpless was also a gifted musician and director. Over the years, Robert’s appreciation of her enormous talent only grew. In Robert’s second-grade year, Jenks Memorial Rest Center, otherwise known as “Jenks Rest,” was built. It was a new facility with ample room for rehearsals of the large-scale productions for which Mrs. Sharpless was revered. A winding walkway dividing the lagoon connected the pavilion and Jenks Rest. Robert and another budding actor also named Robert—Robert Eugene Pechin III, to be exact—collected the green, heavy seed pods from the lilies that filled the edges of the lagoon with spectacular colors. With the other Robert’s penknife, they and their friend Tim Funcheon carved out part of the pods to form canoes, which they set afloat. They watched their miniature boats drift lazily away until the Roberts were called back to rehearsals.

Mrs. Sharpless had assembled a vast staff. There were set designers, lighting and sound experts, costume designers, seamstresses, and musicians. One pianist among them could play as well as Jo Ann Castle on The Lawrence Welk Show. The beloved Mrs. William F. McDill, whose children Sandy and Sherry were cast members, worked wonders with costumes, which she oversaw while assisting Mrs. Sharpless in the countless other ways that a schedule of five plays per summer demanded.

Young people who were really young adults customarily performed the major roles, so the theatrical productions often attained the stature of full-blown plays and musicals.

Each summer featured three or four large productions, and Robert found himself memorizing lines for the next show while still polishing lines for the current show.

Over the years, he absorbed and learned volumes of information from crew members. For a production set in Arabia, the artists on the staff painted many plywood cutouts in such a way that they appeared to be three-dimensional vases, some of them taller than a human being. Robert paid attention to the shading and the highlights that made the vases seem to be glazed pottery.

He was taught how to project his voice toward the microphones, some of which hung above and others of which were amid the footlights.

During one afternoon rehearsal when the lead actor was called away, Mrs. Sharpless asked Robert to read the actor’s part from the script, thereby helping the rest of the cast to practice the scene. Robert thought that this was his chance to show Mrs. Sharpless how well he could do in a lead role. He reached a moment when the character was taken by surprise. Robert gave a shout into the microphone. He heard his exclamation reverberating from the speakers around the park. “No, no!” Mrs. Sharpless snapped. “He would not scream like that! Quite the contrary! He would remain silent! Always remember that less is more!”

On the evenings when the shows were presented on the great outdoor stage that was on Memorial Island at some distance from Rush Pavilion, electricity was in the air as performers changed into their costumes and the aroma of greasepaint filled the porches of the pavilion, which served as headquarters. As the lights on the great outdoor stage came up, the large audience grew silent, and the music (either live or recorded) began, Robert’s heart beat fast.

Dennis, one of Robert’s friends in his class at school, often visited an aunt who lived near Columbian Park, and he could be found in the audience. Robert always tried to do his best to entertain everyone, including Robert’s parents and his classmate.

Tom Sawyer featured scary scenes. The graveyard was so realistic as to be downright spooky, and the cave with Injun Joe was truly frightening. The actor who performed Muff Potter looked nothing like himself in real life. For his role as the drunken misfit, he had wild red hair and a scraggly beard, thanks to the excellent make-up artistry that Mrs. Sharpless could command.

When talented singer and actress Roberta Preston donned her elaborate mock turtle costume for Alice in Wonderland, Robert knew that the production would be a huge hit.  

Babes in Toyland offered enchanting sets with fascinating effects of lighting. Robert’s big line was “Oh no! It’s the water from the Laughing Water Well!” Then (as scripted) Barnaby made the mistake of drinking the water!

Poor Ida drove the twenty miles to and from Lafayette at least once a day and often twice a day almost every single day during those summers when Charles and Robert were in Mrs. Sharpless’ plays.

There were many amusing moments backstage. During the Mikado, the minstrel was in the midst of a story he was telling to crew members when he heard out front the music to the song he was supposed to be singing to the audience. Robert never saw someone run so fast! In that same production, Robert carried a bamboo umbrella above the emperor, ably—and nimbly—performed by Kevin McGuire. Robert’s job was to keep the umbrella high above the actor’s head, no matter where he walked. At one point, the emperor began to dance. He flung his hand holding a fan straight up, and the fan struck against—and broke—several of the thin wooden arms supporting the umbrella, which suddenly folded down around the emperor. He ducked from beneath the ruined umbrella and adlibbed a look of displeasure before resuming his dance. The audience roared with laughter. Robert felt the deepest chagrin, but, as soon as the number was completed and he carried the collapsed umbrella backstage, Mrs. Sharpless ran over to Robert and said, “Did you do that on purpose, or was it an accident? Never mind! It was brilliant! We’ll rig the umbrella to collapse that same way every time!” Robert abruptly felt huge relief.

One night, Mrs. Sharpless walked onto the stage shortly after the show had begun. No one—not even the performers—knew what she was doing. She gestured for a staff member on the ground level to hand up a microphone over the footlights. Then, in a measured voice of reassurance, she said, “We have received a report that a tornado is approaching Lafayette from the southwest. We ask that you calmly walk to Jenks Rest, where you can take shelter. Everyone needs to vacate this facility at this time.”

Robert and Charles met up with their parents. As they strode briskly toward the building at the end of the winding walkway, Joe said to Ida, “We’re parked near Jenks Rest. Why don’t we go to the car and drive home?” Ida agreed, so the family hurried to the Chevrolet. As Joe was driving through Lafayette, the evening sky turned a greenish black. Ida kept looking up through the passenger window. Joe decided to head south, rather than west. He made the right choice, as the car passed quickly from beneath the threatening wall cloud. Fortunately, the funnel did not descend on Lafayette.

For the bright lights of the stage, relatively heavy makeup was deployed. Once, Mrs. Sharpless was running past where Robert was having greasepaint applied. She whirled around and said, “Make him darker.” She rummaged among the tubes and found a particularly dark one. “Use this one,” she told the makeup artist. “He’s so bloomin’ fair, he’s a ghost on stage!”

Robert long remembered those summers at the park with billowy cumulus clouds almost motionless in a sky of vibrant blue, the actors in small groups rehearsing lines outdoors, the vivid orange and yellow and purple flowers everywhere, the exotic ducks preening beside the rippling waters of the lagoon, the indolent warmth, and the faraway chatter of monkeys.