by Lee Kalcheim
“Oh, I guess I’m wrong then.”
She got the idea. Though it was tough for her sometimes. When I paid her a compliment she learned to just say “Thank you.” It didn’t necessarily comes easy for her, but, it came—a simple, “Hey, thanks,” which really confirmed my love for her and how she looked. Sam, on the other hand, responded to our compliments with, “Yes! Thanks! That was great! I loved it. Thanks!”
Immediately you were buoyed by his enthusiastic response. Some days later I sat alone with Gabriel and asked him why it was so tough to accept a compliment.
“But Dadoo, do you want me to say ‘Thank you,’ when I think they’re wrong?”
“Yes!”
“I can’t be a hypocrite.”
“You’re not being a hypocrite. They loved what you did. They don’t care what you thought. They want their compliment acknowledged.”
“But if I lie, and say ‘Thanks’ …”
“You’re not lying. They didn’t ask what you think. They’re telling you what they think.”
“But what if I don’t agree with them?”
“This is not the place to disagree with them. They feel good making you feel good. That’s all the moment is about. You can’t take that away from them by being self-critical.”
“It just doesn’t feel right.”
“It felt weird for me too when I first did it. But I practiced the “Cleveland Response,” and I got used to it. It became automatic. And I found, giving back pleasure was very satisfying.”
“Being a hypocrite?”
“NO! Being generous!”
I took his face in my hands. “Be generous. Try it. You’ll be surprised. You’ll feel good doing it.
“Well …”
“Try it.”
It just wasn’t easy for Gabey. He was so hard on himself. So self-critical. I couldn’t figure out whether he wore it as a badge of honor i.e.: “I’m harder on myself than anyone else could possibly be!” or whether he just didn’t have enough confidence to recognize his worth. To acknowledge it. I gave him a big hug. I realized that a ten-year-old boy is not going to see the difference between his brother’s enthusiastic reaction and his critical one. He’s not going to have a Cleveland moment. It took me twenty-six years. I learned that I was going to have to be patient and coach him toward “Cleveland.” I learned that it was tough for him, living day in and day out with a super-confident brother. I learned that I had to respond to his self criticism with respect, “Gabe, you may have botched a few lyrics in that song. It’s great that you want to get better. That you want to be perfect. But …”
“I know … I can’t rain on their parade.”
“Yes.”
I gave him a kiss and left him alone in his room. As I walked down the hall, I could hear him singing, “I’ve never been in love before. Now all at once it’s you, it’s you for evermore.”
(SCENE: BEDROOM OF THE NEW YORK APARTMENT.)
(Lee is packing for a trip to Los Angeles.)
GABE
Dadoo, when you write a play, do you think of the idea first or story first, or the characters first, or what?
LEE
It’s different every time.
SAM
The play you’re going to do in Los Angeles. Which came first?
LEE
Well, I read an article in a magazine that interested me. The subject matter—but I realized that it wasn’t enough for a play. It was just an interesting subject. So … . I had to think of a dramatic situation in which I could use the subject matter. And characters who would be involved in that situation. That’s the hard work. The actual writing is easy.
SAM
Did you do the same thing with the TV series?
LEE
Well, no. The TV series was based on our family life. And the characters were based on you guys and me and mommy. So … I just had to make it work as a TV series.
GABE
But why didn’t it work?
LEE
Well, you know … there were just too many people, with too many ideas of what it should be, and it lost its integrity.
SAM
What’s integrity?
LEE
It’s … like honesty. It’s … like … well … If I asked you to do something you didn’t believe in. You’d say, “I can’t. I would lose my integrity.” It’s … the thing that makes the thing … a special thing.
SAM
Uh … huh.
GABE
Is your play going to lose its integrity?
LEE
I certainly hope not.
SAM
If it does, can you find it before we get to see the play??
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
LETTING GO
In May of the year the boys turned ten, a new play of mine, Defiled, was produced at the Geffen Playhouse, in Los Angeles. It starred Peter Falk and Jason Alexander and was directed by my old friend Barnet Kellman. I wanted the boys to see it. It would be the first play of mine that the boys had ever seen. The only thing they’d seen that I’d written was the TV series. They knew this wasn’t my best stuff. They knew that the theater was my first love, but they’d only heard about plays of mine produced before they were born. They knew I did something when I holed up in my study. I was not one of those writers who could not be disturbed. When they came home from school, and my door was open, they knew they could romp in and kibitz, and I’d stop and play. If I was seriously into a scene, I’d close my door to let them know not to disturb me. But then, of course, they’d just open the door and say, “Dadoo, are there any extra bagels from breakfast?” I’d reply, “Honey, I’m working,” and then of course came, “I know, but are there any extra bagels?” Fortunately I could weather these distractions and dive back into work. I may have sent the message that Dadoo can’t be doing anything too important because he’s always available. On the other hand, they got the message that I loved what I did. And it resonated in their own lives.
But in their short lifetime, the only play of mine produced that they could have seen was produced when they were four, at the Williamstown Theatre Festival—a terrific production, but over the heads of four year olds. Even these four year olds. Now, ten, I was sure they’d understand this play, Defiled, but I wondered, shouldn’t I wait until a production is done in New York? No, that might never happen. Seize the day.
It was also the first time the director, Barnet, and I had worked together since our ill-fated television series. Time may not heal all wounds, but working together on something you love, with little interference from above, heals exquisitely.
The play was about a librarian, Harry Mendelssohn (Jason), who, upset that they were going to remove the old card file system and replace it entirely with computers, threatens to blow up the library unless the files remain. A police detective on the verge of retirement, Brian Dickey (Peter), arrives to dissuade him from this mission.
I had done a rewrite of the play based on a reading we’d had with Peter and Noah Wylie the previous February, and, when we read this new version with Peter and Jason, at the first read through, Peter raised his hand at the end and, almost Columbo-like with one of his patented afterthoughts, he said, “Uh … The first version I read … that early version … that was good. That was just terrific. Golden. Could we … uh … could we read that version?”
Barnet took a deep breath. “Peter, why don’t we work on this version awhile. See how it goes.”
“O—kay. But … that early version was golden.”
For a full week, after each rehearsal, Peter asked again, “Couldn’t we just take a look at that early version? It was … it was … golden.”
Finally Barnet, in hopes of finally putting and end to Peter’s daily, insistent requests, said, “Okay. Let’s do it. Let’s read the early version.”
There were moments after I did the rewrite that I thought, “Are these necessary?” The producer is afraid that the play unfolds too slowly? But is he right? Am I forsakin
g the very integrity I’d lost in the TV series—that I’d championed with Sam and Gabe? I didn’t know. Fortunately, in the theater, rehearsing a play, you have time to find out. Copies of the earlier version were brought to rehearsal and we read it. All the way through. At its conclusion, Barnet turned to Peter.
“Peter … You’re right. It’s better.”
And Peter was right. Bless his soul. He felt it, and he just kept insisting. I couldn’t have done it. I didn’t have the clout. But dear, dogged Peter persisted, and we started over with the “golden” version.
Peter’s doggedness was not always productive. While Jason sailed through rehearsals, learning his prodigious number of lines easily, Peter scared us. Could he learn all the lines? When the set went up, Peter went onstage and walked around in it. He realized that a step unit (which had only been lines on the floor in the rehearsal room) were going to make some of his action difficult.
“Do we have to have these steps?”
A long drawn out debate ensued. So long that Jason went home. Barnet went home. And finally I was left alone with Peter in an empty theatre. Completely frustrated I finally just said, “Peter, they are not going to spend ten grand to rebuild the set. Get used to it!”
And I went home.
Mr. Falk was brilliant. He never dropped a line. He never tripped on a step. His comic timing was immaculate. Jason, early in the play, showing him the prized architecture of the library says, “This building is so magnificently constructed that you can sit at one end of this room and hear a pin drop at the other.” Peter, pauses perfectly and says, “Is that good for a library?”
Jason’s manic energy and a slowly revealed vulnerability were the perfect foil for Peter’s measured professionalism. Watching them slowly, slowly form a bond was delicious. Obviously in a two-character play, the two actors must click. And click they did.
Julia took two days off from work to come out for the opening. When would the boys see it? They had never seen one of their father’s plays. And this production was electric. We decided to have them fly out alone, after school ended. Could they fly out alone? (Well, alone with each other.) They’d never done it. We knew kids did it all the time. Sam and Gabe had traveled a great deal with us, but not without us. Was I more worried about them coming alone, or coming at all? They were finally going to see the product of all those hours their father spent in his study. They had no idea who Peter and Jason were. That wouldn’t impress them. They were coming to see their father’s work. I was both excited and nervous. We decided they would fly out for the last performances in July. I met them at the airport, expecting to hear dire stories about “turbulence” and “inedible food,” but they ran off the plane laughing, accompanied by a smiling stewardess. I asked her if they were any trouble.
“No, they were a riot!”
Of course, Frick and Frack.
“The pilot let us watch him fly the plane.”
These were in the days when that was routine. A friendly pilot would show off the cockpit to kids on board. Gabriel volunteered, “When I grow up I’m going to be a pilot-violinist!”
“How would that work?”
“Well, after the plane is up, and we go on autopilot, I could walk back and play for the passengers.”
“Great. I’d fly that airline.”
That night they came to the play. They looked at the poster outside. They watched the audience coming in, filling the theater, and leaned to each other to whisper their impressions. I started to breathe a little faster. The play was in good shape. It had been running for two months to full houses. But would they like it? Maybe this was a bad idea. I was their father, so they must have figured that I was good at what I did. Why chance it by actually showing them what I did? Why did it matter what they thought. They were ten years old. The play wasn’t written for them. It was written for adults. Like the L.A. Times critic, who hated it. But the audiences loved it. The adult audiences. What was I doing? This was supposed to be an exhilarating experience. Was I going to over-examine it to death? So, they were ten. They were pretty sophisticated ten-year-olds. They would get it. But how much would they get? The blinking lights in the lobby rescued me from my inane preoccupations. We went in.
There’s a magical excitement about a filled theater. The hum from an expectant audience. Of course if you listen to any single conversation, it’s sobering. You think they’re all going to be talking about your play.
“Honey, did you turn off the oven before we left?”
“I hear Peter Falk plays a detective. Is that all he can do?”
“Y’know, Jason Alexander sings.”
“In this play??”
“No. He’s been in musicals.”
“This is a musical?”
“No, forget it.”
It was an incredible set. The main reading room of a soaring old library, the check-out desk, large library tables, and, along the front, old wooden card files were built in under the stage apron. The theatre is a wonderful, old, tudor-style building, and the set designer used that architecture, the actual walls of the theater, as part of the library, so that the entire theater seemed to be an extension of the library itself. The audience was sitting inside the library.
When the play opens, Jason, as Harry the librarian, is checking out explosives he has set up around the library. The phone rings. Jason, picks up the receiver and takes it off the hook. Then from the back of the house, we hear Peter as detective Dickey on a bullhorn, saying that he’s coming in … just to talk. He walks down the aisle, entering the library
HARRY
Don’t come in here. I’ll blow the place.
BRIAN
I’m not armed.
HARRY
Stay back I’ll set this off.
BRIAN
I’m here to talk.
HARRY
I don’t want to talk. I want action. I’m gonna do it.
BRIAN
Don’t do it.
HARRY
I’m going to do it.
BRIAN
Don’t. Please, don’t.
HARRY
Please? Who are you? Are you with the SOLC?
BRIAN
SOLC?
HARRY
Save Our Libraries Committee.
BRIAN
No, I’m Detective Dickey.
HARRY
A cop.
BRIAN
Yes, but I like libraries.
HARRY
What’s the last book you took out of a library?
BRIAN
I don’t remember.
HARRY
You don’t remember? How long ago was it?
BRIAN
I don’t know. Forty, fifty years.
HARRY
The last time you were in a library was fifty years ago?
BRIAN
Maybe more.
HARRY
What the hell are you doing here now?
BRIAN
I’m trying to stop you from blowing it up.
HARRY
You? Why do you care? You wouldn’t miss it.
BRIAN
You’re probably right. But it’s my job.
HARRY
What’s your job? Saving libraries? They could at least have picked a guy who used one occasionally.
BRIAN
That’s not my job.
HARRY
What?
BRIAN
Saving libraries. My job is saving lives. I’m a police detective.
HARRY
When’s the last time you saved a life?
BRIAN
Day before yesterday.
HARRY
Really? Who?
BRIAN
Can we talk about your life? Can we talk about what’s going on here?
HARRY
Who did you save?
BRIAN
It doesn’t matter.
HARRY
It matters to me.
BRIAN
&nb
sp; Hector Rodriguez. He was gonna jump off a bridge.
HARRY
Who is he?
BRIAN
He’s a painter. An artist. He got rejected at the Art Academy.
HARRY
Like Hitler.
BRIAN
What?
HARRY
If they’d accepted Hitler into art school, millions of people’s lives would have been saved. So shortsighted!
The boys and I all sat together in the back of the theater in a row set aside for the staff. Gabe, in fact, decided to sit on my lap and as the play unfolded, I sat with my arms around him, while Sam leaned to me, his arm locked in mine. Every so often they’d whisper a question, but by and large they said nothing and moved not at all. Beginning to end, they were caught up in the play and I … was caught up in holding them while they watched it.
The play is in real time. Ninety minutes. The time is takes for the negotiation. The last book the detective can remember reading was a Hardy Boys book as a kid, and yet he slowly, skillfully burrows into the librarian’s life, trying to dissuade him from this radical adventure, by just talking … talking about himself and how, though not an intellectual, he might understand the young librarian.
BRIAN
When you get older, what you want changes. It’s a nice thing actually. You gotta recognize it when it happens. Fast cars are important when you’re young. I’m lookin’ at retirement in a couple of years. I’m lookin’ maybe to go off to Ireland, where my grandfather came from. Go back to the upper reaches of the Liffey River and fish. In God’s green country. That’s what I want now. That … and to stay alive. My wife’s always worried that something’s gonna happen to me, cause I’m getting to retirement. She thinks I oughta be doing safer work at my age. It’s no picnic being married to a cop. Lyin’ to your wife and kids. Wonderin’ if some nut’s gonna … So, I’d like to go and fish in the Liffey. Isn’t there some place you’d like to go?
HARRY
Sure. I’d like to go to Paris. Or to Italy, where I was supposed to go with my girlfriend, but we … I went alone and it was wonderful. But …
BRIAN
So, hey. Go back. That’s somethin’ to want. That’s somethin’ you can have. As a matter of fact, that is something I can help you get. Right now. You give all this up … Harry … I’m gonna tell you right now, I will get you a free ticket to Paris or Italy. Take a friend. That’s something, huh?