Bye

When I began this blog, it’s coming on three years now, round July 4th - I promised my readers I would curtail my dream sharing to once a year. This one is a doozy. 

I have worked and played with my good friend Bob for over  a over half century now. He was the only staff director at 13. We worked on hunddreds of projects together. 

Hit the lights. 

It’s a parody of West Side Story and - more exactly - The Dance at the Gym … where Tony and Maria first meet.  Everyone freezes, the room blurs then vanishes.  They spot each other and do their little dance and click their fingers quietly number  … da da da da da … da da da … da da da … da da da da da. Click click. They turn in circles and know - at the speed of light - that they will be with each other from now - straight on through to the other never stopping side side.

There is a girl - my sister Jessie and I called her The Ugly Girl in the Gym … who looked like Sandy Dennis in Up the Down Staircase … mousey blond hair, horse teeth, small breasted, bad posture.  Naturally, they stand her right next to Maria - for contrast - as they enter the gym and take in the action.

The dancers rumble it out on the dance floor but in my movie … they dance more crazy, wild, off the hook 60s style - frugging, mash potatoing, jerking, watusing. The dancing stops and we indicate time has passed by streamers and confetti and other crap strewn all over the empty except for one couple dance floor. 

Bob shoots extreme CU’s of their shoes as they dance in silence - slow, quiet, arm around her waist. Slowly, the camera pans up their bodies.  The Ugly Ducking is dancing with Bernardo - Anita's - Marias sisters - boyfriend ... who later  kills Tony dead forever. 

I just watched five minutes of On the Waterfront and geeezzz- there is such classic movie magic in the scene/that movie. Brando and Eve Marie Saint in CU display why they have such right to be on the screen. Their beautiful faces, angles, choices, making us marvel and believe in them so fully - their Everymanishness, their regality -   their fragility, neediness, entrapment. She strokes his check. He asks her to dance even though I'm not wearing my tuxedo. His ssdness almost makes him look Asian. She reminds me of a rare white petal about to drop to the ground.