angels in america

I got myself perked up with the thought of seeing 'Angels in America".  Nathan Lane plays Roy Cohn in the Broadway show.

The Berkeley Rep is a great theater, often previewing shows that land on Broadway. And it happens to be doing 'Angels' now but, whoo-ee, the tickets for Berkeley's Angels in America are something like $175. I can't swing that.  I need a date with money to spend on me!

So maybe I should try to see it in NYC where it is, strangely enough, less expensive than Berkeley. Whodathunkit?

Thinking about 'Angels' reminded me that my daughter was still considering a career in acting as the world awaited Angels in America. She was in all the plays at her first college, always iwth a lead role. Always great. She also worked with a professional group in a play based entirely on Emily Eickinson journals and poetry. She got rave reviews. She could have been an actor but she shifted.

In her still-considering-acting days, her dad called me once to complain to me, as if it were my choice that our daughter was acting. He said she might starve and what was I thinking 'letting' her act.

To which I responded something like this:  "you are probably right, that the odds of her making a living as an actor are slim. And she might not make it. But think about the skills she is building. First her dancing:  she learned to perform emotionally and brilliantly as a dancer, revealing her soul to audiences and doing so scantily clad as dancers often are. And now she is learning how to present herself. She is building skills that would serve anyone in any field.  Leave her be. She's smart. She'll find her way."

I also believe, now, and this is very painful for me to think, that he was phonig her in those years too, denigrating me, saying whatever he could to put a wedge between her and me.  (should that be first person singular? -- I don't care).

After that, he told her he would support her if she went to NYC to try to get acting work, which was something she was briefly considering. Mia Farrow, whose son Ronan was ten and going to the same early college she did, had told her she was good enough to go to NYC, get an agent and get acting. I wanted to throttle Ms. Farrow. Farrow's parents were both movie world stars so of course Ms. Farrow easily got an agent at age sixteen.

But Katie came with some build in wisdom and smarts, I guess. She found her way with, whether she thinks so or not, my considerable help.

Oh:  I am thinking of Katie as I consider getting tickets to see Angels in America on Broadway on this trip because she asked me to buy her a copy of the play (so maybe my memories are wrong and Angels was already out?!) so she could prepare a solo from the play for auditions. Even as a student in college, she had to audition.

Her small first college did one 'big' play each of the four semesters she was there. She had the female lead in all of them.

I love her. I miss her.