This isn’t the way I’d planned on starting my blog, but you’ve got to start somewhere and I suppose this is a good a place as any. If you’re reading this, odds are pretty good that you heard about the terrible loss the Chicago theatre community suffered over the weekend with the sudden deaths of Molly Glynn and Bernie Yvon. I didn’t know Molly but I knew Bernie, he played my father twice 25-ish years ago (ye gods and little fishes.) He was a huge influence on me and even though I hadn’t seen him in almost a quarter century, his passing hit me really hard. I was nine years old when we first worked together in Matador, though we didn’t get much interaction on stage since he was killed at the end of the first scene and I was replaced with a grown up for, y’know, the show itself. Two years later though, in History Loves Company, I was the one doing the replacing (of a fake infant and subsequently replaced by an adult in the second act, but whatever) and getting to have a lovely scene with Bernie.
He’d just finished singing the best song in the show, New Words, which was a gorgeous ballad sung to his newborn son about how every day he would teach his son a new word. The lights go down and instead of a newborn, his son is now 10 years old and about to seriously flub his line. The line was something to effect of “Father, what is a drought?” to which he would reply “It’s our new word for the day.” Instead, the lights come up and I say, for no good reason and say “Is it going to rain soon?” in a tone that I recall being basically the same as though I was asking if we were there yet. Without missing a beat and in a deadpan that was only clear to the kid who’d just brain farted onstage, Bernie saves the day: “No, we’re in a drought, it’s our new word” and we were back on track.
I tell that story all the time. It’s one of my favorites.
I was still pretty new to theatre when I worked with Bernie, I’d been at it for about three years and I was 10 or 11, so I was very impressionable and eager to learn. How lucky I was to have a role model like Bernie; he was so warm and friendly and had to have been incredibly patient because I’m sure I was a hyperactive pain in the ass. We never reconnected which I regret, though I’m not sure I realized just what an influence he was on me until now, which is as close to cliché as I intend to get. I’m grateful for that influence though, and I always will be. He clearly touched a lot of lives in his career, I’m just one of those many and I find that immensely comforting.