The Spin Cycle
July 31 - August 24, 2008
Rubicon Theatre Company
Ventura, California

I think it was a summer night, but then, the happiest childhood memories always seem to have occurred in the summer.  Summer memories are even happier than Christmas ones.  Think about it.

Four young faces - the oldest is six - huddle in front of flickering shadows on a curved, pillow-shaped piece of glass.  From a nearby barn, the occasional bellow of a cow enduring the evening milking is an odd underscore to the scene playing on the television screen: in a child's bedroom, tall shutters swing open, and a laughing boy rises up and flies into the room.  We gasp - and squeal - shhh! - and watch.  Within minutes, we're jumping off the sofa, thinking lovely thoughts, believing that we, too, can fly.  An hour later, we're clapping our hands, believing in fairies, and eternal youth.

NBC-TV broadcast the Broadway musical Peter Pan starring Mary Martin only three times, yet I believe its enduring impact on the children who watched it was greater than Elvis, the Beatles or the Mickey Mouse Club.  Consider: it depicted humans in flight, our shared primordial fantasy, with pirates, Indians, and songs for good measure.  Best of all, it told us it was possible to never grow up.  And is was on television!  We were the guinea pigs for what the result of a childhood in front of the tube would be.

Somehow, we managed to raise children, and now grandchildren, without ever growing up entirely ourselves.  We never stopped wearing big sneakers, or wearing play clothes (casual Fridays, anyone?), or sitting in big chairs, or riding the school bus (the minivan spoke to our souls in a way our parents wouldn't have understood).  We still have playtime; we call it a workout.  Today's Starbucks drinks recall the big foamy Ovaltines and Nestle Quiks we loved.

Though we've managed to be both ageless children and adults at the same time, we've got a new balancing act now: our parents need us to parent them.  We've had children of our own, but later in the game than prior generations did.  And many of us didn't really settle into our life's work until our forties.  While this the terrain of The Spin Cycle, my hope is that the experiences of our characters will prompt you to think about the play of your life, your experiences - past and impending.

Thomas Wolfe famously said, "You can't go home again."  Wendy, the daughter in the play would finish the sentence, "without running back out the door screaming."  She and her brother learn, as we all may, that we must go home again in order to go on - though in our hearts we're still flying to the first star on the right and straight on 'til morning.

 - David Rambo
 

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805-667-2900

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