We have been spending weekends out east going through 54 years of memories, well, actually far more years than that since there is so much theater memorabilia dating from the 1940s. My family bought our old farmhouse in 1958; my brother and I were tiny children and we spent every summer and most weekends during our school years driving out in the dusk to the tiny town where potato farms ruled. Amagansett at that time was a drive-through town between East Hampton, a gentile old town that moved slowly, even in the summer, and Montauk, a more rough and tumble beach community. Our house was one of the few on Miankoma Lane.
As I peruse through piles of photos, old Playbills, scripts, letters from long past actors, it is hard not to think about my parents, my actor father and my ballet dancer mother. Their personalities still move through the air of the house. My mother was the gifted dancer who moved to New York City in her late teens to become a dancer, traveled Europe during World War II in a dance troupe, and joined a number of musical comedies in the dance corps during the heyday of the musical. My father had friends from every corner of the theater world and indeed of the globe. Images of happy young women, handsome men, old character actors mingle with family pictures of us growing up.
This house has known happiness within its walls, as well as its share of small tragedies. But the atmosphere is one of subdued light, the tinkling of glasses, laughter and music still seem to echo faintly. the house, in its silence still suggests lives well lived.
