Which Way to Turn
By Dominique Paul Noth
The sixties were a watershed decade for me. I left Marquette University in 1964 and promptly moved to New York City, ready to do something in theater. I had success as an actor, a director of summer productions, even as a writer-lyricist plus multiple backstage duties. Becoming a journalist was far from my mind.
I didn’t know I could make a living as writer/editor.
My welcome to Manhattan may have been an omen. With a large suitcase I took the subway to the 42nd St. stop and as the door opened to Times Square a drunk immediately fell at my feet, vomiting all over my suitcase. So much for my triumphant arrival.
Like many theater hopefuls, because of the flexible hours offered, I landed a messenger/copy boy position at the Time-Life Building. Several fellow copy boys (no girls in this time frame) were also biding time for an acting gig.
I did get one fast -- an acting job with a shoestring non-Equity company (actually two of the actors in “The Rivals” were Actors Equity moonlighting for less than union wages, which confirmed for me how many theater people in New York were knocking on the same door for work).
This also led me to writing grant proposals and visiting states like Delaware about the expansion of professional theater. On the side, without realizing this would play a key role in my future, I delved deeply into foreign and domestic movies, mainly through revival houses.
I wrote down some reflections on the films and the film-makers (I found their transition from other professions to movies fascinating), not thinking these musings were for anyone but me. Until folks at Time-Life suggested my insights might be helpful as raw material for the actual writers (called editors on the Time masthead).
But I also got a letter from Uncle Sam. Now that I was out of college I was eligible for the draft – back then all young men were on call. I took the physical in New York.
I must admit that in 1965 I knew little about politics except no one was enthusiastic about going to Vietnam. But I was so blindly loyal to the country that took in my family as refugees that I was ready to go wherever they sent me.
They sent me home. I flunked the physical, mainly because of flat feet but also an Xray revelation that sometime in college I had broken my collarbone. Or at least nicked it, the doctor told me as he marked me 4-F and suggested remedial exercises.
The 4-F actually caused me to start weighing my career options. I felt healthy enough. My main bad habit was smoking. The way my father drank had made me a teetotaler, in a NYC where everyone drank and anyone in theater was expected to.
I recalled the physical pain I created for myself and endured in several roles (contorting my body, finding a different voice, jumping energetically, whatever would convey the age or visceral nature of the character). I began to wonder whether this was the future I wanted.
It seems a little silly today when I’m active in my eighties, but I was internally convinced I had a short life expectancy and had better use my brief time on Earth to make an impact. Every actor I admired seemed to have more energy and less doubts than I did about whether their body could take it.
I had particular success as the maniacal teacher in Ionesco’s “The Lesson.” So frequently was I called on to do this piece I went through several casts of frightened female student and tsk-tsking housekeeper. In my view it is one of the funniest and then most frightening examples of Ionesco’s theater of the absurd.
Walsh had me do it again and again at both the Teatro Maria (inside) and the Paul Claudel (outside). And I was always ready to throw myself into the role. Now I was wondering if that total commitment was physically possible – not just for the years in college but for the rest of my life.
I was going through a process of change that faces all college students – the “two roads diverge” issue in the Robert Frost poem. I may have been a know-it-all entering college, but life is a stern teacher. It often tells you what career is needed. Which road was getting more attention?
I had always been a prolific reader, a nut for movies, both high brow and low. It has always been my habit to learn every part in a play and dissect the meanings. I may have been deeply influenced by the Stanislavsky Method in acting but my entire approach relied on intensive physical control – technique so deep that you could forget about the technique and do the part again and again.
I began to wonder if I had the physical stamina to meet my vision. Was the 4-F draft telling me something? (One thing I quickly learned was that those objecting to this war had it right.)
Meanwhile I found that I could make money freelancing for regional magazines or getting wages from Time-Life as production assistant and an underground sort of stringer. I was writing short stories at this time mainly because that was how my mind worked and also poetry for Louise, who was still at Marquette through 1965.
When my brother Pierre called me and said with my writing skills he could get me a job at The Milwaukee Journal, I faced a decision.