Tom Judson is fifty and today is his birthday. What better way to celebrate than to stand in front of a sold out crowd in just a jock strap and some boots? Earlier in his dressing room, when the strap and boots were brought in, one of his friends asked if that was part of his costume. “Or is that your whole costume?” I added, half joking, although it turned out I was right.
The one man show is, quite literally, a singular sensation. I am not an actor but sometimes I think it would be fun to do such a showcase. For me, it is less about having something to say for ninety minutes and more about just needing to be the center of attention. Inside my head, I am the star of my own perpetual movie. For the most part, it is a quirky romantic comedy in the first two reels before the lead meets cute with whoever the romantic foil is supposed to be. Apparently I’m still waiting for the third reel to begin.
I popped out of the subway in Chinatown looking for the Dixon Place Theater. The saber dance was playing on my iPhone as I playfully leaped across the dirty sidewalks and dodged the dodgy characters at every turn. It was just like a movie. Once inside the theater, I made my way down to Tom’s dressing room for a pre-show party for his closest friends and me. I knew no one, which always makes me feel awkward. Everyone had some champagne, which I waved off because I don’t like it. But to seem like a team player, I helped myself to an olive from the food platter. Suddenly, it was time to leave the dressing room and scanning around, the room had no trash can. What am I supposed to do with this olive pit in my mouth? Cut to me abandoning any sense of dignity and quickly spitting it into a napkin that I left next to the sink as I made my hasty retreat.
In the theater, because the show was sold out, we all had assigned seats. There was naturally some confusion as to where I would be sitting, because in life no one ever seems to know exactly where to put me. But that earlier issue had apparently been resolved and there was my seat in the back row of the risers on the main floor. When I went to sit down, hidden under my name sheet was another name sheet, but before I had time to process this, I noticed a name sheet a few seats down that said Phillips. Clearly this is the seat of one Tony Phillips, who had wanted me to join him at the show, although Tom invited me personally first. I switch my name sheet with another name sheet so Tony and I were next to each other, giving myself a nasty papercut in the process.
While waiting for Tony, I struck up a conversation with the guy sitting next to me and who I had to climb over in order to switch seats. Then, a gay male couple of a certain age showed up but there was only a seat for one of them. Turns out the boyfriend’s name sheet was the one under mine. A quick discussion with the harried gay charged with seating led them to take one of the generic sponsor seats and we all shifted down one. So it was all fine. Then the guy whose seat I switched for my old seat shows up. He is a heavyset man and is walking with a cane somewhat sideways up the stairs, like Everett Sloane in The Lady From Shanghai. But because I switched seats, he has gone up the wrong side of the risers and instead of going down and around, decides to precariously slide past us in the aisle like a high wire act. I was certain with my luck tonight, he would tumble down like one of the flying Wallendas, and take out sections of the four rows below in the process.
Tony finally arrived and we settled into some quick 1950s movie banter before Tom made his appearance on stage in his jock strap and the show kicked off. In the show, Tom ran quickly through his notoriety as a porn star and talked about how the death of his boyfriend Bruce had started him down the road to this nude adventure. But before porn, Tom had a whole other career as a composer which until this moment, I had completely forgotten. Suddenly, he mentioned Whit Stillman's Metropolitan, which he had composed the music for. As the film’s poster flashed on the screen over his head, the soundtrack flooded through my memory. I had heard it so many times. Michael had loved it.
Tom’s show was already pretty emotional but suddenly I lost it. I had hoped that leaving the house and going to Tom’s show, I would be able to forget for a few minutes that Michael was dead. But then all at once he was before me. “I think the bourgeois are very charming. Is there more wine?” We would quote from the film, laughing as Michael let one of his signature Dunhill cigarettes dangle from his hand. I had forgotten that he smoked. It was so long ago.
Michael was never emotional about these things like I was. He met breakups with equanimity, practicality. He panicked for a moment after our car crash but I think he just wanted to drive away fast before anyone noticed what happened. I cry at anything: long distance commercials, the trailer for the Deep End of the Ocean (twice), even certain songs can get me going. I only saw Michael cry once. We went to see Thelma and Louise and he was an emotional wreck at the end. It really got to him! I was incredulous. I had never seen him emotional like this. “There isn’t a place for them in this world,” he said of the fun-loving gal pals turned fugitives. Maybe he saw a bit of himself in these rebels, an outlier always just a bit out of step with the world. I guess we all feel like that sometimes, but I think he felt it more deeply.
After the show, we all gathered on the stage to eat birthday cake, sip more champagne and laud Tom for his outstanding show. I consumed my weight in cookies that Bruce’s mother had brought while furtively checking out one of the handsome theatergoers who also lingered with his friends. It was business as usual for me, but a parallel experience in sharp contrast to the sadness I felt inside. It is like the soundtrack to a film: the scenes go on but with an underscore that sets the mood.
In my head, I try to imagine Michael sitting on the couch in the living room of the Vinedo apartment, the Metropolitan soundtrack going in the CD player on the sleek dark credenza he was so proud of when he bought it. Michael liked to set scenes, especially at home. The mood lighting, the carefully placed cigarette and just the right music. Like me, Michael lived in his own movie too but his production values were more elaborate.
I can’t shake the thought of him alone at the end. I think it is the hardest part of this loss for me. But ultimately we are all alone, standing nearly naked in a one man show of our own creation. The richness of the show is in the people we meet along the way and the sheer adventure of it all. Bruce lives on for Tom and now for all of the people who have seen his wonderful show. And Michael lives on for me. In his pictures and writings and remembrances of his laugh and that nickname he would use on me whenever he was trying to goad me into doing something I didn’t want to do. It is all part and parcel to the drama and the comedy and when the lights go down in that last moment, the experience echoes back through the audience for eternity like the gentle tones of a musical score.
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