My Sacred Places: Poe Sites in Baltimore

This is how it all began. When I was in secondary school, one of my favorite authors was Edgar A. Poe. Like so many young people, I was drawn to his larger-than-life plots. In graduate school, I studied Poe’s works. In the last year of my PhD work at IU, a friend in theater asked me if, for her graduate course in makeup, she could use prosthetics and grease paint to transform me into Walt Whitman, the subject of my dissertation. I consented. I had only to stand center stage in the auditorium while a judging panel evaluated the makeup under lights. The committee said that I looked so much like Whitman that I should consider performing a play about the poet. After completing my PhD in early American literature and taking a position at Northern Kentucky University, I began to research and write a script for a one-person play depicting Whitman and his works. I performed the two-act drama many times, but requests for the show were relatively sporadic. It was a chore to keep two hours of material memorized in between shows that were spaced a month or more apart. As I thoroughly enjoyed performing the part of an author, I decided that, to perform more often, I would choose a writer more popular than Whitman. I then composed a script for a play depicting the master of horror, Edgar A. Poe.

One of My Publicity Photos

Depicting Me in the Rôle of Edgar A. Poe

My play had no intermission. The enactment demanded prodigious energy. My purpose was to put before theatergoers an authentic Poe, not the Poe of popular culture. My Poe was neither a drug addict nor a drunk. My Poe was a writer’s writer. My Poe loved satire, had a towering sense of humor, screamed boo, winked, and smirked. My Poe changed costumes onstage to become the quirky narrators in “To Helen,” “Berenice,” and “The Raven.” My Poe quoted from his letters, essays, and reviews so as to give a nuanced depiction of the author. To change me into Poe meant a makeup process requiring between four and six hours. The style of makeup varied depending on whether the audience was close to me or far away, but the time it took to prepare Poe’s face remained the same.

My Sketch of Poe’s Raven

 

In the past forty years, eighteen actors have played the rôle of Poe on stage, according to writer Michael McGlasson. I offered a fully memorized and fully staged performance with an elaborate set. I gave over two hundred performances of my play A Dream Within a Dream during a dozen years. Thousands witnessed my drama. I last performed my play on Poe in 1994. Mine was not a costumed reading from a lectern—the form to which many Poe enactors resorted; rather, my performance was a ninety-minute, fully scripted show with a set and with a light and-sound technician.

“The Hour Glass of the Kings”

Illustration by Robert W. Satterfield

Page 1 of The Kentucky Post for Friday, December 10, 1915

For a Poe enactor, Baltimore is arguably the most important city in which to stand before the footlights. After all, Baltimore has Poe: his corpse, that is. Poe died in Baltimore on October 7^th in 1849 at the age of 40. Jeff Jerome of the Baltimore Poe Society named my play the authorized stage version of Poe’s life, and he brought my drama to Baltimore for performances on Poe’s birthday in 1988 and 1990. Both shows took place before standing-room only crowds in the deconsecrated church beside Poe’s grave. I was the performer in 1990 when Life Magazine secured an infrared photograph of the man who left cognac and roses on Poe’s grave. The photographer that Life hired took many pictures of my play, but none of them wound up in the magazine. After the performances, I led theater-goers in a toast to Poe beside his grave marker. What a thrilling experience that was! Anyone wishing to know more about Poe should visit the website of the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore, and anyone wanting to read a complete account of my play can see “In Poe’s Skin” at Rhode’s Books from the HeartLand.

When I Met Harvey Phillips ...

When I went to college, I began by majoring in music with piano as my principal instrument. As we pianists were encouraged to gain as much experience as possible, I auditioned to become studio accompanist for the legendary Harvey Phillips, the patron saint of tuba performers worldwide.

I was in for a wild ride. Harvey was powerful but unpretentious. When you entered his presence, you came face to face with his colossal personality.

My Unfinished Sketch of Harvey Phillips

He was all business. He was all fun. Like others who have written about Harvey, I, too, was a guest at his famed Tuba Ranch in the countryside. Who could not feel at home there? I remember autumn evenings with bonfire sparks drifting toward the stars and with tubas and baritones playing old favorites. I, too, was there when the musicians donned Santa costumes for the Tuba Christmas honoring William Bell, Harvey’s mentor who had been born on Christmas back in 1902.

One of my first tasks as Harvey’s studio accompanist was to learn the piano scores to the tuba repertoire. Alec Wilder and Halsey Stevens became my daily companions. I was in and out of Recital Hall so often that it made my head swirl with visions of Effie the Elephant dancing like a dervish. Harvey was always there, in the back, applauding, encouraging, approving.

One day while we were waiting for a tuba student who was late, I started to draw a portrait of Harvey. I used a pencil and a plain sheet of typing paper. What a challenge! Harvey stared directly at me the whole time, and he kept up a conversation that required my participation. When I was looking at my drawing, I still felt Harvey’s eyes piercing my cranium. He had such stage presence—or just presence—yes, a monolithic presence—that I knew I was sketching an original, that rarest of rare individuals having extraordinary gifts.

The tardy tubist showed up, and I put away my drawing, which remains unfinished to this day. I don’t think I could have finished it. To try to squeeze the larger-than-life Harvey Phillips into a pencil sketch was like trying to balance a Miraphone contrabass on the head of a pin or attempting to force a monster King tuba into a piccolo case.

I will never forget a studio session when Harvey announced that a musician from Holland would be visiting. “You will accompany him on the Hindemith sonata. He’s coming in next week.”

Oh, really? So I had a whole week to familiarize myself with the entire piano accompaniment to the Paul Hindemith sonata for bass tuba! Oh, sure! Nothing to it!

I had heard other accompanists perform the piano score. No two sounded alike, especially when the seemingly endless runs of soft notes began tinkling toward the end. Many of them were faking those runs!

I spent hours and hours, all my free time, much of my sleeping time, drilling and drilling that sonata. It drove me nuts! I finally confessed to Harvey that I felt certain I could not perform the accompaniment.

“Why not?” Harvey asked with his trademark bluntness.

“Because the ending is too difficult. I don’t have enough time to prepare it, and I don’t want to fake it.”

“Let me hear part of it.”

I obliged.

Harvey stopped me. “What’s wrong with that?”

I just stared at him.

“You’ll do a fine job,” Harvey said, and he went back to work at his desk.

As I walked away from the music building, I started to laugh. I felt I was unable to awaken from a dream that could turn out well or that could take a nosedive into nightmare.

The performer arrived from the Netherlands. We rehearsed … once! That’s right. We played through the sonata only once in our practice session. Harvey nodded his approval, and the musician thanked me. That evening, the three of us met again in the hallway outside Recital Hall. The tuba player and I strode onstage to appreciative applause from a big audience.

Was I nervous? You bet! The whole scenario struck me as entirely absurd. I had been given only a week to prepare a difficult piece of music, and I had played through it only once—only once!—and now we were going to play this difficult piece in public. No one had said anything to me about how I could improve my part!

While the absurdity saturated my mind, I adjusted the piano bench, looked toward the performer, and began on his cue. Suddenly, I relaxed! I realized I wasn’t here to be perfect; I was here to accompany! I leaned into the opening and listened carefully to the tuba so as to support and blend and make music!

When I reached the daunting finale of the sonata, I faked nothing; instead, I was relaxed enough to follow the ups and downs of the rapid lines without confusion. The standing ovation was proof that the man with the tuba was a star and that I had done nothing to dim his brilliance.

And you know who was responsible for that? Harvey Phillips, who, from the beginning, had known exactly how everything would turn out.      

When I Met Gene Roddenberry ...

When I learned that I would have the opportunity to sketch Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, I was overjoyed. I was a university student and a freelance artist tasked with the pleasant responsibility of drawing portraits of celebrities visiting the campus. My illustrations appeared in various newspapers and other publications. Roddenberry would be introducing a movie featuring bloopers from the wildly popular television series.

My First Sketch of Gene Roddenberry

Two of my fellow students and I met Roddenberry at the airport. On the automobile trip to the university, I got busy with my pad of paper and my pen. Roddenberry was difficult to draw. He was so animated that I had difficulty capturing the movements of his face. He smiled brilliantly and often. He tossed his head to laugh. He quickly turned to peer through a car window and rapidly spun back to speak to a student in the front seat. He would not hold still! I could see that I had my work cut out for me.

I tried not to pay attention to what he was saying, but his stories were so doggone funny that I could not resist being caught up in the aura of Roddenberry’s good nature. He shared anecdote after anecdote about the practical jokes that he played on his wife Majel, who was Nurse Chapel on the Enterprise, and the pranks she played on him as payback. Some were on the set; others, off.

In the seconds between stories, I kept thinking, “How do I put this guy on paper?” His face was too mobile, too protean. Well, I did a lousy job of it!

My first sketch, made during the hour-long journey to the campus, was so poor a representation of the countenance before me that I would not show it to Roddenberry until he had begged me repeatedly. When he finally viewed it, he laughed, “You got my double chin!”

Just prior to Roddenberry’s talk before a standing-room-only crowd, my brother, a true Trekkie, used fishing line to hang his model of the Enterprise from the podium where Roddenberry would stand. This was in the days before models were fancy, and my brother had rigged up custom LED lights that flashed around the starship. Nice!

Roddenberry had the audience in the palm of his hand, and the bloopers were uproarious.

After the show, Rodenberry invited his three student hosts to have dinner with him. We drove him to a plush restaurant. The server took his drink order then carded us students. I was the only one under the legal drinking age. She asked me to leave the restaurant. Roddenberry’s face fell.

“You mean he can’t have dinner with us?” Roddenberry asked.

“No, he has to leave,” the server replied.

“If he doesn’t have a drink, he can stay here. Right?” Roddenberry continued the line of questioning.

The server gave Roddenberry a stern look. “No, he has to leave,” she repeated.

“Do you know who I am?” Roddenberry inquired.

“No,” the server admitted.

“I’m Gene Roddenberry. Have you ever seen Star Trek?”

“Yes, I love it!” the server broke into a smile. “I recognize your name.”

“Then can he stay?” Roddenberry leaned forward.

“No, I’m sorry, Mr. Roddenberry. I’m afraid he has to leave. It’s the law.”

In a gesture of exasperation, Roddenberry thrust his hands outward and exclaimed, “But he’s my son!”

“Well, if he’s your son, then he can stay,” the server said.

I was dazzled! I don’t even remember what I ate, but I recall the evening as one of the most exciting and most amusing events of my life. I tried to sketch Roddenberry, but the subdued lighting made the task too difficult. Besides, I was having too good a time to work at an illustration. I never finished the sketch, but I can see that it was far better than the portrait that I did complete. Roddenberry’s mischief flashes in the merry eyes of the unfinished work!

 

Unfinished Mirthful Portrait of Gene Roddenberry by Robert T. Rhode

We students dropped off Roddenberry at his hotel. On our way back to the campus, we conspired. At midnight, we met again and headed back to Roddenberry’s hotel. As quiet as the proverbial church mice, we taped newspapers across his door, so that, when he would attempt to emerge in the morning, he would confront a wall of newsprint. He loved practical jokes, didn’t he?

The next morning, we were anxious to learn what he thought of our escapade. When we reached his door, there was no trace of the newspaper or tape. Roddenberry greeted us with the same radiant smile and happy-go-lucky demeanor that we had come to love about him.

We chauffeured him to the airport, said our goodbyes, and returned to the university. We were sad to see him go. A week or so later, we attended a regular meeting of the board that sponsored guest speakers. The college official that ran the meetings began by saying that he had wonderful surprises for us students. He then distributed Enterprise flight deck officer certificates to the three of us. Roddenberry had signed them personally and had sent them to the campus.

Next, the official looked slowly around the table at each of us before he said, “Mr. Roddenberry also mailed this.” He displayed a large envelope from which he withdrew a thick sheaf of newspaper with tell-tale pieces of tape protruding here and there. “He included this note, which explains that he discovered these newspapers attached to his door. He thought they might belong to you, and he thought you might want them back, as he had no use for them.”

We wanted to crawl under our chairs. We could hear Roddenberry’s distant laughter echoing. I still do.