Our Alaskan Honeymoon (1999)

Can you see Denali?

This has been a season of celebration. Since we dropped our youngest at college last fall and became “open nesters” (that’s the hip, new term for it) my wife and I have been spending a lot of time on each other. More time talking, more time lingering. More time viewing, too, movies and TV, as well as plays.

We have taken journeys, to the Southwest, to NYC. And to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary, we took a transatlantic crossing on the Queen Mary 2, and spent a few nights in London. We took in some shows there (see: Three Very English Plays) and last week held an open house to celebrate with friends.

We took our first cruise, together and as individuals, for our Honeymoon, in July 1999. When deciding what to and where to go she had first suggested the Caribbean. I said sheepishly that I would prefer not to go somewhere tropical. I had been married once before, visiting Hawaii, and I wanted to avoid any possible reminders. It was stupid, I know, but God bless her, she was disappointed for one moment, and then began conducting a web search Alaskan vacations.

The ship was the Holland America MS Ryndam (now the Celestyal Journey) departing from Vancouver, where we spent a day before boarding. At that time in my life I was manic about seeing shows, especially when I was someplace new. And they had to be unusual, not professional. It was all “research” for my work as the producer of the newly formed Bad Epitaph Theater Company.

That first night, we attended a performance of Moo by Sally Clark at the Vancouver Little Theatre in Heritage Hall. Quotes are from my journal: 

“One of those why-is-life-so-fucked plays. A dysfunctional couple, madly in love, and too proud to actually love.”

I was actually more interested in the space, always looking at spaces, because Bad Epitaph didn’t have one.

“Wild, rough space. Cheap. 60 seats on three sides, very low ceiling … canvas floor over wooden plans which creaked throughout the show.”

MS Ryndam

In my last post, I described the time capsule we had created twenty-five years ago, for which we both wrote letters to our future selves. We read the letters we had made for each other, and then those we ourselves had written. I was surprised at just how much anxiety I held at that time, but this is also reflected in my journal. I kept making random notes about the company. I couldn’t stop thinking about the work. For example:

“CAN WE GET A DEEJAY FOR THE SIN BENEFIT?”

Our sea voyage was along the “Inside Passage” with stops at Ketchikan, Juneau, Sitka, Valdez (where I would return in 2016), Seward, before disembarkation in Anchorage. We’d spend one day in that city, before getting on a train, first to Denali, and finally, to Fairbanks.

What can I say about the cruise. My own notes from that time are shocking, but I wasn’t as mellow as I am today. We were appalled, if not surprised, by the countless attempts to get extract additional cash from us, selling us inscribed things we couldn’t use or didn’t need and so many opportunities to pose with characters like the Wacky Fisherman or to Wacky Prospector.

We found many of our fellow passengers on this journey to be rude. And loud. We chose to spend as much as time as possible together on the bow of the ship, watching for whales, otters, seals and icebergs.

After seven days on board a ship where we were among the youngest passengers (yes, even at the age of thirty) we were thrilled to be on our own for a while and the very first thing we did was to pick up a copy of the free Anchorage Press to see what live theater might be available!

Hiking Taku Glacier

At the turn of this century, Anchorage had a population of about a quarter million people. While they did and do have a thriving arts scene, it is not as large as even Greater Cleveland. We chose to see Libby, a one-woman show adapted from Betty John’s book about her grandmother, Libby Beaman, the first European American woman to live on the Aleutian Islands.

Adapted for the stage by David Edgecombe and featuring Elizabeth Ware as Mrs. Beaman, the piece had toured several states before a performance at the Last Frontier Theatre Conference (now the Valdez Theatre Conference) and a month-long stand at Cyrano’s Off-Center Playhouse in Anchorage, which is where we attended. Several years later I would attend Last Frontier, where a large percentage of artists had experience at Cyrano’s, which is still a thriving endeavor.

“Cyrano’s bookstore was very quirky and I wondered what we were getting into when we stepped into the theater.”

Whitewater rafting in Valdez

Again, anxiety. At that time, I felt every performance I attended was some kind of gamble. If it wasn’t a transformative experience, then it was a wasted opportunity. And a two-act solo performance? That's a commitment. As it turned out I was tremendously moved, Ware’s performance stays with me to this day, and even informed my own monodramatic work.

“A very nice selection of local interest books. At one end a small movie theater – that night ('Libby' playwright & director) Edgecombe … was working on his new one-man show, ‘Syd’ in that theater.

“There was also a functioning coffee bar … A business plan … go in with Red Hen, get a space, Toni manages the bookstore, we share space. Starkweather space?”

Still, thinking about the company, the work, about space. Space was such a big deal for me at that time. We knew where we were to produce Sin, and were in talks about The SantaLand Diaries. But my journal indicates that the idea of producing Lysistrata was still only in the theoretical stages and I cannot remember how many different venues we visited to find a suitable location, before entering into a relationship with Cleveland Public Theater.

"Alaska or Bust"

At Cyrano’s, I bought a copy of Anne Higonnet’s biography of Impressionist painter Berthe Morisot, and that became my reading for the rest of the trip.

“Any shrinking of the will is a bit of substance lost. How wasteful, then, is hesitation! And only consider how immense the final effort necessary to repair so many losses!” - B. Morisot, February 23, 1862

“Amazing how similar our neuroses can be.” - D. Hansen, July 13, 1999

We, as well as a small number of our fellow former shipmates, departed Anchorage by train, headed for Denali National Park and Preserve.

Denali, as you probably know, is the highest mountain on the North American continent. You need special permission (and equipment, of course) to journey too close, as it is part of a protected wildlife reserve. Tourists can take a multiple hour bus trip to get as close as possible and hopefully take in some incredible views, which we did and were treated to remarkable sights on the drive there and back, and the mountain itself. We were fortunate about that last because most days of the year the peak can be obscured by a variety of weather conditions.

After the day-long journey I was delighted that my bride suggested we attend the Alaskan Cabin Night Dinner Theater! All-you-can-eat salmon, ribs, taters and corn, biscuits and berry cobbler while an ensemble of performers told tales of Gold Rush era Alaska and sang standards.

As I wrote in my journal, “My interests were purely anthropological, trust me.” Following the performance we got into a conversation with some of the performers, I was intensely curious as to how someone gets a job like this one. I was currently unemployed. One of the actors heard we were from Cleveland and excitedly told me he was from Akron, and I had no idea how to respond to that.

At last, onto Fairbanks.

“Thursday night we checked into the hotel and, while everyone else was scurrying around, trying to find their luggage or stretching their legs, we swiftly got a hotel shuttle to take us to a movie theater.”

What we had asked was "how close is the nearest movie theater," and the concierge responded, “You mean the movie theater.” 

Offering the shuttle to get there was a kindness, the Goldstream Theatre was a mile and a half away. The photo of Toni in front of the sign at midnight (right) is a reminder not only of how close we were to the Arctic Circle, but also what an outrageous year 1999 was for movies.

We chose South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut. My opinion at the time? “It’s very funny and about a half-hour too long.”