It all began in silence.
I think even the Old Testament would agree with me there…..out of all that void, came all this.
I cherish silence. My ears, along with so much of the rest of me, have grown weary of all the noise, as our world becomes busier, and more frenzied, more in love with speed, grabbing onto success as fast as possible, and winning in the most public ways imaginable. Humans exist in a cradle of confusion , and part of that confusion is the noise.
Which brings me to ‘the lullaby of Broadway’ portion of this piece:
When you perform in Broadway
musicals, as i have for a deal of my career, once you enter the Stage Door, quietly put on your make-up, breathe deeply as your wardrobe dresser puts you into your first costume and wig, go to the place from which you make your first entrance, and then step on that stage, you enter a world of sound…..loud sound….sound loud enough for all to hear and sing over, sing with, blend into. I’ve learned through the years that once a number starts, your body joins in the “noise”, by pulsating, reacting, moving, feeling the music. It’s inevitable. Performing in a Broadway musical is a full-body experience, choreography or no.
Noisy in all ways, comprehensively physical, loud, even when soft.
So, after three hours and 15 minutes of a show like Les Miserables, and after performing in it for a couple of years, i began to seek as much silence as i could find. I’d go home after the show, light a couple of candles, usually order in Chinese, and turn on NO MUSIC at all. Not even the TV. After existing on a stage above a 35-piece orchestra playing at full blast, silence is golden, believe me.
And then the next night, out of as much silence as New York City could afford me, i’d enter into that world of sight, story, and sound all over again. Out of the silence of an empty theater, a world would burst.
One of my favorite things to do was to come to the theater early and sit alone on the empty stage and look out at the soothing darkness of an empty house filled with no one.
I could breathe easily there.
The utter dusty silence of an empty theater…..let’s just say it’s inspiring. Out of that silence , all is possible.
One year, earlier in my career, i went to Cleveland Playhouse to perform, and my two favorite things about Cleveland were its Botanical Society and its astonishing Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I spent lots of my down time in one or the other of those two places, one for its winter gardens, the other for what it taught me about silence.
That amazing Museum , the only one where I’ve ever seen teenage boys thoroughly engaged, the Museum of Rock and Roll is ingeniously designed so your surrounded totally by exhibits of all eras of American rock and roll music and how it grew into the British Invasion , coming from the brilliance of Southern Blues, etc. It is a fine Museum for all it shows and teaches: sheets of original music from musicians all the way from early Bo Diddley through the shock of Elvis, to the Wall of Sound, Motor City influences, Neil Diamond, the great American masters of the form, and The Beatles, costumes (I never realized how tiny Elvis actually was), stage settings, props, famous instruments….
…………it’s all there, organized into clever “pods” of history, chronological and influential….and each “pod” was thoroughly soaked in its own sound, its own music, so cleverly designed that when you left one space and entered another, the music changed with your journey. You cannot hear one soundtrack bleed into the next….clever sound design at its best , insuring the museum goer thorough immersion in site-specific music through a couple of huge floors of musical history. Total immersion in sound.
And then, you take the carpeted elevator up to the actual Hall of Fame and you enter darkness…darkness, and total (and i do mean total) Silence….Silence….soft, caressing Silence as if cotton plugs had been gently pushed into your ears.
A Silence that demands you relish this truth: that Music is nothing without the Silence it comes from.
Then , swaddled in that Silence, you stroll the Hall of darkness and Fame as gently glowing rays of light emerge, spotlighting each musician or group that is being quietly honored. They float toward you out of the dark. Brilliantly lit. In utter worshipful Silence. Then glide back into their obscurity as the next honoree floats forward.
It’s stunning.
It all comes from Silence.