The Spectrum

Spent a good part of the day reading (or re-reading) some of the extraordinary letters of TB patients from the 1930s and 1940s that we have been lucky to find -- this for the scripts we will use for our vocal auditions taking place on Sunday, March 2, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Warwick, R.I. I was struck, again, by the sheer power of our material. Not to get carried away, but I really do believe we have found a tableau, a canvas, call it what you will, on which timeless themes are writ. Man, if we can't bring this across on screen, we need to hang it up.

Here's an example of the numbing sadness -- laced with a still-strong sense of youthful optimism and hope -- that a teenage girl experienced. Sadly, Barbara was doomed to die of the White Plague, at age 18. This is from a letter she wrote to a relative in 1949, almost exactly one year before she died at Wallum Lake. Everett is the man she loved, but as her disease intensified, he turned away:

``Gee, I haven’t had company all week. I’m so lonesome. If I ever know anyone in a place like this when I’m well, I’ll visit them as often as I can. Poor Alma goes two, sometimes three weeks without a visitor. At least I know you’ll be here Sundays. Dad promised he’d be up this week, but I haven’t seen nor heard from him. I wish he’d call me and tell me he’s not coming. Or write. Everett, too.
``I get ready for company every single Thursday and I have company, all right: Disappointment, that’s about all. Good thing we have movies…''

And here's the other extreme, a letter in the 1930s from a young TB patient to his beloved Nina, a young woman who had recovered from TB and was now a nurse, carng for TB patients like Ed. They had a happy ending, marrying and having a child and spending the rest of their long lives together. We like happy endings! Check out the last line -- could a love letter possibly be more sweet???

``Oh, Darling, I wish I could see you more often. I feel so much better when I see you and then, too, I can kiss you at least once in a while. I’m afraid that when we’re married you will grow so tired of my loving you all the time. I’ll be kissing you all the time and on the very slightest excuse. Will you mind? I love you, darling, and I hope that next year we can begin to live as we should live.
``Please get to bed early, darling, and remember I’m thinking about you all the time and want you so close to me. Gee, I love you.
``A million, million kisses to the dearest little girl in all the world.
``Yours ‘til the moon drops in the sea.
``Ed.''