Laura and Itzhak

It’s been quite a weekend.  Yesterday at 2:00 PM I attended a performance of The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams at the Booth Theater in New York City.  Today at 2:00 PM I arrived, front row center, to experience a concert by Itzhak Perlman at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles.

Yesterday the painfully shy Laura made her startling yet entirely fitting entrance through the sofa at the back of The Glass Menagerie set.  Today the gregarious Itzhak moved on stage from the right wing, performing a double take to be sure the concert master handed him the proper violin – Stradivari or Guarneri.  He plays both.

What is the thread which connects these two appearances in distant cities?  Simply put, it is Laura and Itzhak’s disability.

In Tennessee William’s script we learn that Laura suffered from a childhood disease.  As a result she wore leg braces in high school and feared to attend class.  When she did, Laura would clump up the aisle to the back of the room, drowning in the real or imaginary silent ridicule of her classmates.

On Wikipedia we learn that Itzhak contracted polio at age four, made a good recovery, and walks with the assistance of crutches.  Today he wore a brace on each leg and needed to manhandle two crutches, grimacing at each step, when taking his place on stage.

Today, front row center, appreciating Itzhak’s charm, I truly enjoyed a concert of classical music.  My left hand almost cramped as Itzhak fast-fingered his violin.  After the solo he became my grey haired father as he played another, more complex instrument, the orchestra, with multiple instruments, sounds, and personalities.  His job was to direct and encourage each musician to have fun, to be at his or her best.

The concert master was an intense young man who seemed two days away from his weekly haircut.  An older musician toward the back of the first violins seemed closer to retirement than to his next trim.

Kojak bald, the first cello played with a smile and determination.  The cellist back of him stared into space, and clearly wanted to leave before the final crescendo.  Itzhak blended them all into a virtuoso company.

At intermission, his back to the audience, Itzhak struggled to descend from the conductor’s podium.  The first viola player, a slight woman with nondescript blonde hair, sensed he might fall and moved to help.  Itshak sharply waved her away.  The audience laughed.  For a moment she seemed like Laura, caught doing something horribly wrong in public.  She would have vanished if she knew how.

Each of us is a victim of our own circumstance and, more importantly, our own self-image.  We can disappear, we can prevail.  As Tennessee Williams put it, we may be disappointed but we do not have to be discouraged.

At the end of The Glass Menagerie yesterday Laura disappeared back into the sofa from which she had emerged, locked in the memory of high school leg braces which embraced her still.  At the end of the concert today Itzhak clumped off stage, as he had clumped on, tongue hanging out of his mouth like Michael Jordan, concentrating on the mere act of walking.

Each of us is the concert master, the old man, the rebuffed viola player, a cellist intense, or with unfocused mind. Each of us both fearful and daring, each of us young and old, all at the same time.

And we have a choice – to remain stage furniture like Laura Wingfield, or to command stage center like Itzhak Perlman.

Alan