Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in 2019 anymore

If there’s one play that brings me back to my earliest memory of contracting an infectious disease, it’s The Wizard of Oz. When I was 8 years old, I was cast as Dorothy in the second-grade production at Bethesda Elementary School. However, my much-anticipated theatrical debut never took place; I came down with a case of the chicken pox that required me to go into quarantine. 

Even though I was never again cast as a lead (sigh), that production ignited my passion for theatre and led to me to drive two hours to the Berkshires with my family earlier this month to see the Colonial Theatre’s production of this play that shaped my understanding of the hero’s quest. Dorothy, together with her sidekicks Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion must overcome a myriad of obstacles, not the least of which is getting the broomstick of the Wicked Witch of the West and bringing it to Oz. 

These days all of us are on our own hero’s journey, trying to navigate the new normal. Just when we think we’ve gotten our schedule down, there’s a snafu and we need to change course, call in the reserves, and re-address the plan. 

That’s precisely what happened last week when we got the call from the camp director telling us that our son would be barred from returning to camp for 10 days due to a possible Covid exposure—someone in his “bunk” had tested positive. 

“Are you sad, Mommy?” he asked me when I got off the phone.

I told him I wasn’t feeling sad, because he wasn’t sick. He didn’t have any signs or symptoms (his PCR test later came back negative).

But throughout the day he kept repeating the question, until I finally understood. He was sad!

Here it was the penultimate week of his day camp. This is the last year he’s allowed to attend. In fact, his camp had made an exception for him and a handful of other rising ninth graders who had not been able to attend last year due to Covid. 

So I did what I’ve found myself doing multiple times throughout this past year: apologize to my children that this is not the way it’s supposed to be. I’m sorry that their childhood has been interrupted, and that at times, there has been remote school and synagogue, no play dates, and no camp. 

I’ve also been sorry that they—we—haven’t attended the theatre over this past year. Yes, there was Alyson Gold Weinberg’s stellar play Object Relations live-streamed on Zoom, and we caught Hamilton on Disney Plus, but I’m talking the kind of in-person drama that we can experience collectively, at the very same moment. 

Before the pandemic, it was Julian who was going to the theatre more than anyone else in our family. Thanks to the amazing arts program at The Learning Spring School, he took frequent field trips to Lincoln Center and other theatres that were specifically tailored to an audience of kids with disabilities. Follow-up work was done back in the classroom, as one of Julian’s more challenging assignments was to actually write a play, for which his teacher then invited professional actors to perform. 

The curtailment of these kinds of productions and opportunities has been one of the quiet calamities of the pandemic. Sure, we can survive without theatre as most of us have done for the past year and half, but our lives are enriched when we experience creative artistry in real time, together. Theatre is a balm to solitary life.

To sit in the audience with my kids and watch them take in the very same songs and dialogue that so moved me as a kid was a joy. I felt utter delight in hearing them laugh at “Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh my”—something that I probably chant too frequently while we’re hiking in the woods—as well as in their recognition that the actor who played the evil Miss Gulch is the same as the Wicked Witch.

At the same time, watching this production brought me back to my own childhood. In this way, I experienced what one of my former teachers, Professor Marvin Carlson, calls “ghosting” so that while watching the brilliant April Vidal’s re-enactment of the Wicked Witch, I remembered, with uncanny clarity, how my childhood friend Carrie Gray had tried to scare me backstage with her green face paint during the rehearsals of our school production.

It also made me recall how my parents intentionally exposed me to the chicken pox virus, days before the production, with the hope that I would get sick enough to develop immunity without getting so sick that it would be life threatening. Their gamble worked: I developed a minor case (and one or two permanent scars) and recovered two weeks later. Much as I wish they had waited until after the production so I could have had my chance in the limelight, I understand why they felt the need to ensure that I develop this kind of natural immunity (remember: there were no vaccinations for varicella back then)!

I’m finally at the place where I can look back on that second-grade drama and be grateful that at least I had the opportunity to be in a school play, even if I never got to perform in the actual production. 

These days, it’s unclear when our kids will get to do that! 

Indeed, the one part of the Colonial’s production that didn’t resonate was the play-before-the-play. There, for the first five or so minutes, the character who would play the “Great and Powerful” Oz, appeared with an old-fashioned newspaper. Moments after glancing at the front page, he removed his face mask and beckoned to other characters on stage, all of whom were dressed in their Kansas country-folk garb, to come look for themselves, after which they too removed their masks. No words were exchanged, but their message was clear: the end of the pandemic is here.

Sadly, I think we can all agree that is absolutely not the case. Covid is still here, and masks are still necessary when we are gathered together indoors. It’s premature to think that things are going to return to a pre-pandemic mode this year, which is why I’m grateful to live in a school district where masks will be required of all students, regardless of vaccination status. 

It’s not what I wanted for my kids or anyone else’s, but it’s a necessity, and for that too, I will apologize.