One thing about being a drug addict: I never felt high. I was constantly chasing the buzz, trying to feel higher, never feeling like I had enough drugs in my system, though to the outside world I looked and acted incredibly high. Friends would call the next morning to tell me what I’d done the night before. It was never a pretty discussion, and it would always sicken me. When I told one friend I didn’t want to know what I’d done the night before she said, “No, you have to know,” and proceeded to tell me how I’d passed out at a school theater party. She was being a good friend and saved me from second guessing what horrors I could have inflicted upon the party. Conversely, when I was sober, I knew I was sober.
Driving down the 101 freeway to my first day of work at The Mark Taper Forum I was drunk on sobriety—If you’ll excuse the expression. As I cut through the Cahuenga Pass I felt exhilarated. For the first time I could be a productive part of a business; I could cooperate with others; be on a team and a worker among workers. I didn’t fear not being able to show up for work or making excuses for why I couldn’t get there. I would be able to process and remember information and casting is a memory game. This would begin a golden age of both sobriety and casting for me.
The casting office at The Taper was downtown and housed in a big square, one story building across from the theater itself. The casting office was an open space which I shared with my boss, Amy Lieberman. Amy was easy to work with,though blunt to a fault, you always knew where you stood with her. All in all Amy was a good boss, and with sobriety on my side I felt an inner peace I didn’t know my heart needed.
The first play we did during my time at the Taper was The Immigrant, about a Jewish couple who arrived in Galveston Texas from Russia after escaping the pogroms. The play was written by and starred Mark Harelick. I was proud of myself because I had found the understudy for Mark’s role at my hair salon of all places. But then again, LA was crawling with actors. You need only throw a rock at a tree for a thousand understudies to fall out. In this case the understudy simply had to look Jewish; but this was my first piece of casting and I felt an enormous sense of accomplishment.
The second production that season was Ghetto which Amy described as a “musical about the Holocaust.”
“Does that mean I own 120% of Springtime for Hitler?” I asked,
Amy stared at me quizzically and then after a long pause said, “You’re silly.”
The comment turned out to be more flippant than I would have liked once I found out how heartbreaking and elegant the play was. Written by Joshua Sobol, it told the story of the Vilna Ghetto where 50,000 Jews were massacred by the Nazis. My relatives were from Vilna, and some of them had been massacred. The poetry that was Ghetto, was the haunting choreography by the brilliant Yehuda Hyman. The play culminated in a groteque, yet beautiful, rendition of the song Swanee where members of a Jewish theater troupe,some of the last few remaining Jews in Vilna, starving and sick, had to perform said song and gut-wrenching dance as they were taunted by Nazis. The piece, with its Brechtian overtones, stunned me.
Yehuda would stand at my desk and say, “The cast hates me.”
“No they don’t,” I’d respond consolingly. He had an artist’s sensitivity which I adored. He’d stop by the office every day, and we’d make inappropriate casting choices for the upcoming season. The leading lady of our fake reperatory company was Yoko Ono. We were casting her in our minds for a lot of roles for which she was entirely wrong—even if she could act. Such as Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie and Emily in Our Town.
On Saturday I went with my friend, Diane—we were each other’s wingmen—to a party given by a gay production company. It was being held at a home in the Hollywood Hills.
Diane and I found ourselves in a line on a staircase when I spied a raven haired, dark eyed woman. Our eyes locked. She was standing with an older woman whom I pegged at about 50. The four of us struck up a conversation while we waited. Within minutes of meeting her I was in love. I found out she was an attorney as was the older woman. Her name was Natalie, and her friend was Sue and they’d been invited by one of the partners of the company. I guessed she was Middle-Eastern, perhaps Persian and her body seemed electric. I tried not to focus too intently on her as I didn’t know if she and this older woman were an item.Somehow all four of us managed to exchange cards, and eventually Diane and I left the party. Though I carefully placed her card in my pocket, I didn’t think I’d ever see her again.
I’d all but forgotten about Natalie as the Rodney King riots were practically happening in my own backyard. Hunkered down in my apartment and glued to the TV with the rest of Los Angeles my phone rang suddently rang.
“Hello, is this is Cara?” said a pressurized voice (common with high-powered attorneys and people going through bi-polar manic episodes.) on the other line, “This is Natalie Corn.” My heart quickened. It was the woman from the party. I was filled with glee.
“We met at Steve Wolfe’s party the other night.”
“I know exactly who you are.” I said.
She was nervous and so was I.
“You’re a casting director right?” She said,
“Yes” I answered, though I was really only a casting assistant, actually I wasn’t even an assistant, I was a paid intern who functioned as an assistant.
“My friend Lynette is looking for a casting director, would you like to have dinner Friday night?” She got to the point so fast the sentence was almost a non-sequitur.
I replied with a speedy “yes.”
We made arrangements to meet that Friday at a restaurant called La Boheme in West Hollywood, the gay epicenter of LA, which neighborhood my mother referred to as “The Swish Alps.” I was excited all week to see her. I had a date with Natalie Corn Esq.
On Friday I entered the darkly lit romantic restaurant, still not sure if this was a date or a business dinner. I saw Natalie across a crowded room seated in a booth. She wore a starched white man-tailored shirt with suspenders and an ascot. She was a female, Persian Oscar Wilde—what with her Edwardian flair for fashion. Seeing her took my breath away.
“I’m glad you came,” she said grabbing my hand in both of hers as I edged into the booth.
It was dawning on me that this wasn’t a business dinner. I remember little of what we spoke of that evening, but if anyone were to look over at our body language the words “You fascinate me,” would come to mind as we gazed into each others eyes.
And I wasn’t tempted to drink. This was my acid test: being in a restaurant/bar with a woman on a first date and not ordering a drink. Natalie ordered a vodka but nursed it throughout the evening. I would have had six to her one. I should have been squirrely without a drink, but that evening at Jan’s scared me straight. Which is not to say I never had cravings, I did, but they were superseded by the fact that I’d end up not knowing what I did or how I got home. Natalie sat all night with one vodka while I sipped my Diet Coke.
Tosca came on over the restaurant’s speakers. I pointed toward the speakers,
“Ah Tosca,” I said.
Natalie, trying to show me she was cultured I guess, smiled and said “La Tosca!”
And then she said it again and again, “La Tosca, La Tosca, La Tosca.” Like a parrot with a vendetta against opera.
“I think it’s just Tosca, no La” I said finally.
None of her quirks bothered me though, I was too taken with her. I thought she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever met. I even sent my best friend, Arthur a photo of her.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” I swooned over the phone to him.
Arthur, never one to mince words, responded, “Beautiful?? She looks like the gargoyle that flew off Notre Dame.” Followed by, “What do you know about her anyway?” He was very protective of me and I’d already been through one crazy romance. I chalked it up to Natalie having the kind of beauty Arthur couldn’t understand as he tended to go for pretty boys. On the other hand, maybe he could see something in her I couldn’t. (Arthur also called another girlfriend of mine, the Velociraptor, which he was kind of right about).
Suddenly a group of naval women in uniform entered La Boheme and were seated at a long table in the center of the restaurant, thank god, putting an end to the Tosca vs.La Tosca discussion. All lesbian eyes were on this group and the room got quiet.
“Fleet’s in” I said.
The two lesbians at the table next to ours were staring at the sailor ladies (If that’s what they’re called) so overtly that I suggested they go introduce themselves—one could take the rank, the other the file.
When dinner was over Natalie and I walked out to the valet and I noticed for the first time the way she moved in space. When I was in drama school in London the movement teacher: the renowned June Kemp, said that, kinetically, people could be broken down into categories: there were gliders, pressers, flickers, and a host of other categories I no longer remember. Natalie was definitely a flicker. . . and a darter, though darter wasn’t one of the categories. She walked and gestured in short, fast, staccato bursts. The darting would come later and boy would it.
I’d gotten through an evening without ordering a drink. All in all a good evening. Natalie and I parted ways but not without making a date for the following week. I knew we were meant to be together. There was no doubt in my mind.
I love this. I get that the title should be "Sober Once Upon a Time." BUT I LOVE "The Swish Alps." Think of that for another segment! Great work - keep going!!!