Oscar Wilde once said that the act of reliving and remembering his life was like “a dream of music.” When I came upon that quote, I knew that my play needed to allow Wilde to speak for himself, as in a dream of his own making, but with the collaboration of his audience, and with original music.
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This is not to say that THE WILDE SPIRIT is a musical; I never intended it as such, but rather as a play where Wilde’s memories are interwoven and underscored with music. In performance, my character of Wilde never sings any of the songs, but the recorded voices around him do. And when performing a song as Wilde, I do, as Rex Harrison did in MY FAIR LADY, talk my way through it.
The evolution of this play happened over the course of decades, not only from performing the show in all of the long-running productions, but also in solo professional engagements as a Guest Artist all across America. |
As any playwright will tell you, a play is meant to be performed for a live audience, and only thru seeing the play presented and observing the audience’s reactions, can a playwright hope to know how best to keep what works and tweak what doesn’t. As the show’s playwright but also as its solo performer, I was in a unique position to learn from my audiences what worked and what didn’t.
In traveling the country, in all regions and cultures of America, including the Bible belt, the Mormon west, the deep south, the liberal coasts, and seemingly everywhere in between, I came to understand that the American public was as receptive to Wilde in my time, and in even the most remote parts of the country, as they were when Wilde toured America in the early 1880s.
In traveling the country, in all regions and cultures of America, including the Bible belt, the Mormon west, the deep south, the liberal coasts, and seemingly everywhere in between, I came to understand that the American public was as receptive to Wilde in my time, and in even the most remote parts of the country, as they were when Wilde toured America in the early 1880s.
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I performed the play in every type of theatrical engagement and in every sort of venue, all across the country. I once performed the play on a makeshift platform in the middle of a community college cafeteria before an audience of less than five people. I also presented the play to packed houses of more than 2,500 on concert hall stages at some of America’s best-known universities. I played Las Vegas and I played Danville, Virginia.
In touring, I would arrive with a bag containing my makeup kit and all of the costumes and hand props to be used on stage. The university, arts center or regional theatre provided furniture props to be used on the set, which varied from deluxe to bare, as well as the lighting and sound equipment, and the staff to run the cues, as well as to act as ushers, etc. |
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Whether performing at a regional theatre or at a university, I would arrive at the venue early in the morning. First, I would get the furniture set in place on stage for an all-day technical rehearsal. Often there would be a time-out for some sort of interview with the local television station or press club. I would do a full dress rehearsal as quickly as possible, then run backstage to get into my costumes and makeup, and voila! The curtain would open, the show would begin, and I would then perform the play for the next two-and-one-half hours.
Those days left me no time to eat or even to breathe, until I took my final bows and collapsed backstage, feeling more energized than I have ever felt in my life. Only an onstage performer knows how much adrenaline kicks in during and after a live performance. I would feel utterly spent, as though I had given my last drop of energy to the audience, only to feel all of that love and energy returned to me by the audiences in waves of applause, and often with standing ovations.
Those days left me no time to eat or even to breathe, until I took my final bows and collapsed backstage, feeling more energized than I have ever felt in my life. Only an onstage performer knows how much adrenaline kicks in during and after a live performance. I would feel utterly spent, as though I had given my last drop of energy to the audience, only to feel all of that love and energy returned to me by the audiences in waves of applause, and often with standing ovations.
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The critical acclaim and the public reaction that came as a result of the play and my performance, so heartfelt and meaningful to me, continued to inspire me, and challenged me to perfect the piece even further. I found from each and every appearance over the years, that I was continually trying new things, working toward perfection both in the writing and in my acting. The play evolved as I evolved. The power of the play grew as my power as an actor and author matured.
One can see, for example, in the photographs displayed on this page, how even the design concept for the play evolved over the decades. What began in 1977, with youthful exuberance and a unique idea that the Ghost of Wilde, |
still a non-conformist, should appear as he never did in his lifetime, with a full beard, became in the 1980s a far more sophisticated Wilde, yet with my Wilde still wearing a moustache. Finally, in the Off-Broadway production in 1996, I appeared precisely as Wilde did in his lifetime, and with a set, costumes and lighting that were all completed according to a highly sophisticated design concept.
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Prior to opening WILD OSCAR in 1977, I was cautioned by many people in the film industry that opening a gay-themed play in Hollywood, would be ruinous to my budding acting career. At that time, being seen playing a gay character was an anathema for any young actor trying to establish himself professionally. But, like the young Wilde, I was unafraid...and plunged ahead flamboyantly.
As I look back on it now, I believe that as a young actor, I did pay a price in Hollywood for using a play like THE WILDE SPIRIT as a launching pad for both my acting and writing careers. It seems clear to me now that my acting career would have gone quite differently in Hollywood had I not ventured into this then taboo territory. After all, I could have played ultra-macho roles, as I had the look…but the call to do something meaningful and artistic, was far more important to me then as it is now. Like Wilde, in my life I have strived to create good art, rather than art that would do good. At that time, Hollywood was incredibly homophobic. Most of the male casting directors of that era, for example, were gay themselves, but were also terrified that they would be thought of as ‘casting their boys,’ if even a whiff of homosexuality was sensed in the young men they submitted for roles. |
As Kerry appeared in 1977, during the opening run of the play.
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In 1977 Hollywood, my play was cutting-edge and the design concept of the original production was avant-garde. To say that the play pushed my personification of Oscar Wilde into the face of Hollywood is not an exaggeration. This had several personal repercussions for me.
As I readied to open WILD OSCAR in its premiere at New Playwrights Foundation in Los Angeles, I hoped that at least some of my family could come from Idaho to attend. It was not possible for my father or for the rest of my family to make the trip, but on Opening Night, June 7, 1977, my mother, Millie Jane Ashton, was there to see me take my first bows as Oscar Wilde.
Mom was my greatest fan, and it was she who started the standing ovation on Opening Night, an ovation that lasted several minutes. She was proud of me, and also bewildered.
My mother was a remarkable woman, a Mormon lady who didn’t understand why I had chosen to write and perform a play about Oscar Wilde. I remember when we got back to my tiny studio apartment in Hollywood, she asked me, “Kerry, why did you have to go into that...ho-ho-homosexual...aspect?”
I guess she saw the look of hurt cross my face, and so she rushed to continue. “You know I loved the play. And you were wonderful in it! But why the...ho-ho-homosexual part?” The word ‘homosexual’ stuck in her throat...again! It was all she could do to say the word out loud, and even harder to have to keep saying it. “Couldn’t you have left that part out?” she pressed.
I was flummoxed as to how to respond. My mother had encouraged and understood my love of the theatre. She had taken me to all of the shows at Idaho State University in our hometown, when no one else in my family wanted to. She was the one who understood my talent and desire to be both writer and actor, and one of those people with lots of hyphenates after their name. She believed I could do anything that I set my mind to; she taught me to believe that achieving my dreams was not only possible, but also inevitable.
As I readied to open WILD OSCAR in its premiere at New Playwrights Foundation in Los Angeles, I hoped that at least some of my family could come from Idaho to attend. It was not possible for my father or for the rest of my family to make the trip, but on Opening Night, June 7, 1977, my mother, Millie Jane Ashton, was there to see me take my first bows as Oscar Wilde.
Mom was my greatest fan, and it was she who started the standing ovation on Opening Night, an ovation that lasted several minutes. She was proud of me, and also bewildered.
My mother was a remarkable woman, a Mormon lady who didn’t understand why I had chosen to write and perform a play about Oscar Wilde. I remember when we got back to my tiny studio apartment in Hollywood, she asked me, “Kerry, why did you have to go into that...ho-ho-homosexual...aspect?”
I guess she saw the look of hurt cross my face, and so she rushed to continue. “You know I loved the play. And you were wonderful in it! But why the...ho-ho-homosexual part?” The word ‘homosexual’ stuck in her throat...again! It was all she could do to say the word out loud, and even harder to have to keep saying it. “Couldn’t you have left that part out?” she pressed.
I was flummoxed as to how to respond. My mother had encouraged and understood my love of the theatre. She had taken me to all of the shows at Idaho State University in our hometown, when no one else in my family wanted to. She was the one who understood my talent and desire to be both writer and actor, and one of those people with lots of hyphenates after their name. She believed I could do anything that I set my mind to; she taught me to believe that achieving my dreams was not only possible, but also inevitable.
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“Well, Mom,” I said finally, “you have always taught me to tell the truth, and that is what I am trying to do with this play: to tell the truth about who Oscar Wilde was, and try to capture his spirit.”
“Yes, but why bring up that he was…homosexual?” she asked again, and this time the word did not stick in her throat. “That was part of who he was, not all of who he was...but you can’t tell his life story without including that aspect. Society made him pay such a high price for acting on that part of his identity.” “But homosexuality isn’t right. It isn’t normal!” My mother’s religious conviction was coming to the surface, and suddenly I knew that we were not talking about Oscar Wilde at all, but about her precious baby boy. How should I respond, I thought? I wanted to be honest. I also wanted to be loving and caring. Mom had come from Idaho to see my performance. I thought long and hard before I spoke. “Mom,” I said slowly and quietly, “it was normal for him.” |
Kerry's Mom in the lobby of the New Playwrights Foundation in Hollywood, during the play's World Premiere in June, 1977
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Now it was her turn to stew. She sat and eyed me up and down, the way that knowing mothers do, and finally she said, “Well, maybe it was normal for Oscar Wilde, but not for anyone else!” Meaning not for her son.
Kerry with his parents in Los Angeles, 1978, when the play was still in its two-year run.
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My mom died in 1980, at the age of fifty-three. She died way too young. And I have missed her every day since. If Oscar had his Lady Jane, I had my Millie Jane. As Oscar noted, “I was greatly influenced by my mother. Of course, every man is when he is young.”
In 1982, less than two years after my mother’s death, I returned to my hometown of Pocatello, Idaho, to perform as a professional Guest Artist at Idaho State University on the same stage where, with my mother, I had seen my very first play and fallen in love with the theatre. My father, his new wife, my sister and my niece were all present to see the show, as was my drama teacher, Joan Kisling, and nearly every other person in my hometown whom I had grown up with or gone to school with. Among all these special people, there was one woman, Connie, who had worked with my mother as a fellow teacher at the same elementary school. After the standing ovation, Connie came running up onto the stage, and threw her arms around me. |
“Oh, Kerry!” she gasped, “Your mom always told me how talented you were, but now I know she wasn’t just bragging! She would have been so proud of you tonight. I only wish she could have been here.”
I, and my play, have come a long way since that evening in Idaho in 1982. I directed every production of my play, after its initial bow in Los Angeles in 1977, but when mounting the Off-Broadway production in 1996, one that I had worked years to finance thru numerous backer’s auditions and innumerable meetings with private investors, I chose to hire a seasoned Broadway director, Robert Kalfin. Mr. Kalfin had a well-deserved reputation as a director in New York, and with many Tony Awards and Tony nominations given to his Chelsea Theatre Center to back up that reputation.
I, and my play, have come a long way since that evening in Idaho in 1982. I directed every production of my play, after its initial bow in Los Angeles in 1977, but when mounting the Off-Broadway production in 1996, one that I had worked years to finance thru numerous backer’s auditions and innumerable meetings with private investors, I chose to hire a seasoned Broadway director, Robert Kalfin. Mr. Kalfin had a well-deserved reputation as a director in New York, and with many Tony Awards and Tony nominations given to his Chelsea Theatre Center to back up that reputation.
Regrettably, I felt then, and still feel, that Kalfin’s Off-Broadway staging did not present the best version of the play. Nor was his production as faithful to the play as all other productions had been before or would be after. I say this without casting blame on Kalfin or on anyone, except perhaps upon myself.
A theatre production is always collaborative and, in this case, the collaboration worked against my artistic vision. That this happened after so many years of successful productions, still saddens me.
This is not to say that Robert Kalfin did not make positive contributions to the show; he made several, particularly in helping me look as much like Oscar Wilde as possible. In that sense, the play’s design concept finally came of age. And some of the other elements that Bob added to the play were exciting.
A theatre production is always collaborative and, in this case, the collaboration worked against my artistic vision. That this happened after so many years of successful productions, still saddens me.
This is not to say that Robert Kalfin did not make positive contributions to the show; he made several, particularly in helping me look as much like Oscar Wilde as possible. In that sense, the play’s design concept finally came of age. And some of the other elements that Bob added to the play were exciting.
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But I allowed Bob to make three artistic decisions that undercut the play and my performance. At the time, as I was a neophyte Off-Broadway producer, I thought that Bob, with his Broadway-level experience, must know best. In this, I believe I know deeply how Wilde felt when he wrote in DE PROFUNDIS, “My mistake was in allowing it to happen.”
The first mistake that I allowed Bob to make was in his choice to cut all of my original music and all of my songs, except one, AN IRISH LULLABY, and to replace my original score with new original background music by John Clifton. |
I had no problem with Clifton’s music, but the play already had an original score that I had spent years perfecting and tens of thousands of dollars recording and rerecording, a score that worked superbly and one that audiences loved. But more than that, the songs and all of the music and voice-overs that I had always used to underscore the play, kept things very interesting on stage.
One of the many things I learned from performing the play over the decades prior to Off-Broadway, was that the original music and the voice-overs, so integral to the play, helped to hold an audience spellbound and in my thrall for over two hours. Bob removed that, and undercut my performance and its effectiveness.
The second mistake I made was in allowing Bob to remove all the furniture and hand props from the stage, while adding very expensive rear and front projections and smoke and mirrors. Smoke and mirrors are very nice, but they can be costly, often unnecessary and sometimes distracting. Removing all of the meaningful physical items from the stage that allowed my performance as Wilde to be grounded in his own memories, so that both he and the audience could relive those memories in context, was a huge mistake and a costly one.
Without any props on stage, not even a chair to sit in, and using instead magnificent but expensive projections on massive, moveable panels, scrims and all manner of things that went up and down, sideways and turned, my performance as Wilde was subjugated to the status of narrator for an impressive, but distracting and overly expensive slideshow.
One of the many things I learned from performing the play over the decades prior to Off-Broadway, was that the original music and the voice-overs, so integral to the play, helped to hold an audience spellbound and in my thrall for over two hours. Bob removed that, and undercut my performance and its effectiveness.
The second mistake I made was in allowing Bob to remove all the furniture and hand props from the stage, while adding very expensive rear and front projections and smoke and mirrors. Smoke and mirrors are very nice, but they can be costly, often unnecessary and sometimes distracting. Removing all of the meaningful physical items from the stage that allowed my performance as Wilde to be grounded in his own memories, so that both he and the audience could relive those memories in context, was a huge mistake and a costly one.
Without any props on stage, not even a chair to sit in, and using instead magnificent but expensive projections on massive, moveable panels, scrims and all manner of things that went up and down, sideways and turned, my performance as Wilde was subjugated to the status of narrator for an impressive, but distracting and overly expensive slideshow.
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My third and final mistake was in accepting Bob’s directorial approach to my performance itself. He kept insisting that I “tone it down,” and stupidly I acquiesced. Thus a performance that was acclaimed throughout America, was “toned down” for Off-Broadway, the last nail in the coffin.
These mistakes were not merely artistically wrong but calamitous financially, as they blew apart the production budget, eating up most of what was set aside for advertising and promotion. As such, on Opening Night we were utterly reliant on a rave review from The New York Times in order to have a long run. When Ben Brantley’s review came out in The New York Times, it was mixed. Essentially, Brantley loved the spectacle of the production but thought that my Oscar Wilde was a bit too ‘toned down.’ Hmmm! Where had I heard that before? As a result, a show that had been a hit in virtually every corner of America, that could have and should have played for years Off- Broadway, a “Can’t Miss,” as we call it in show biz, closed far sooner than it needed to. |
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That I allowed Bob to make the choices he made was disastrous, for only I knew what could be and should be the effect upon an audience when the right theatrical choices were made. Bob, after all, and in fairness to him, had come very late to the party. I had been doing the play for decades; I knew what worked and what didn’t. And Wilde’s words haunt me still: “My mistake was in allowing it to happen.”
Of course, it makes me sad even now that the audiences and critics who saw Kalfin’s staging at Theatre-Off-Park in its Off-Broadway engagement, did not see the best version of my play, even though I had worked so hard for twenty years to bring my play to Off- Broadway.
But at the time, I was much more than saddened; I was devastated. What began in the 1970s as a project had become by 1996 my life’s work and my life’s purpose. As it was, the show was forced to close after only a few weeks of performances, and it felt like I was closing down my heart and my life when the curtain came down. My greatest achievement as an actor and as a writer became, in my view at the time, my greatest failure. Just as Wilde lamented what he had gained and lost during the tragic period of his life at the end, I too looked back in lament, feeling my own personal tragedy in a truly deep and awful way.
Had Ben Brantley of The New York Times seen my version of the show on Opening Night, who knows what might have been or how differently he might have reacted?
Of course, it makes me sad even now that the audiences and critics who saw Kalfin’s staging at Theatre-Off-Park in its Off-Broadway engagement, did not see the best version of my play, even though I had worked so hard for twenty years to bring my play to Off- Broadway.
But at the time, I was much more than saddened; I was devastated. What began in the 1970s as a project had become by 1996 my life’s work and my life’s purpose. As it was, the show was forced to close after only a few weeks of performances, and it felt like I was closing down my heart and my life when the curtain came down. My greatest achievement as an actor and as a writer became, in my view at the time, my greatest failure. Just as Wilde lamented what he had gained and lost during the tragic period of his life at the end, I too looked back in lament, feeling my own personal tragedy in a truly deep and awful way.
Had Ben Brantley of The New York Times seen my version of the show on Opening Night, who knows what might have been or how differently he might have reacted?
Such troubling questions as these can never be answered. No one can turn the clock back and rewrite history, no matter how much we wish we could. As Wilde observed, “Most people discover when it is too late that the only thing one never regrets...are one’s mistakes.” But the fact remains that the mistakes I made as a producer in 1996 brought about cataclysmic changes in my life, so much so that I have only now, in 2013, fully come to terms with, and to appreciate, all that happened to me after the show closed.
The failure of the Off-Broadway production left me drained in every conceivable way, but particularly spent emotionally and financially. I believe strongly that all of the stress and heartache greatly contributed to physical meltdown that followed.
After the show died, I gave up show business. In 1997, I took a job taking and writing up classified advertising at The New York Times, and started a new life beyond and outside of the professional theatre. I began working at the Times first on a part-time basis and initially did not have health insurance with the company. That was when I had my experience with what I now call the "rubber band effect": Having stretched myself too far, too long, too hard and too thin, at the point of burnout, I fell apart physically and, truth be told, emotionally.
The failure of the Off-Broadway production left me drained in every conceivable way, but particularly spent emotionally and financially. I believe strongly that all of the stress and heartache greatly contributed to physical meltdown that followed.
After the show died, I gave up show business. In 1997, I took a job taking and writing up classified advertising at The New York Times, and started a new life beyond and outside of the professional theatre. I began working at the Times first on a part-time basis and initially did not have health insurance with the company. That was when I had my experience with what I now call the "rubber band effect": Having stretched myself too far, too long, too hard and too thin, at the point of burnout, I fell apart physically and, truth be told, emotionally.
Ashton in Hawaii in 1998, just prior to the first signs of a serious medical condition.
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For whatever the reasons, I became seriously ill in the fall of 1998 with mind-blowing anxiety attacks, fainting, severe and sustained vertigo, chest pains, pains down my arms, numbness in the extremities, and many more bizarre symptoms. I was hospitalized twice in the fall of 1998 for several weeks each time. And both times, it was a life-threatening situation with such severe symptoms that the doctors suspected that there was something wrong with my heart.
They were right, of course: My heart was broken, but not in the way they were thinking.Eventually I was put into Intensive Care, and the doctors performed an angiogram catheterization, as they believed I had a blocked artery leading into my heart valve. This minor surgery proved that my heart was perfectly normal and healthy but did not answer what was wrong with me medically. It seemed a mystery. After the fall of 1998 I got better for a time. But, as I did not have health insurance during my first two hospitalizations but had way too much income to be considered a welfare case, I was left with nearly $75,000 in medical bills and no way to pay for this enormous debt. |
Stupidly, I paid off about half of the medical bills, before being forced to declare bankruptcy in 2000. The added stress caused by all of these overwhelming financial difficulties probably contributed to another attack in 1999 when I was hospitalized again for several weeks.
It was in 1999, when I began the rounds of doctors, seeing every specialist imaginable, trying to determine what was medically wrong but to no avail. Mysteriously, I got well again for several months; then, in September 2000, my physical symptoms returned with a vengeance, and this time they did not abate.
Then, in October 2000, while at work, I passed out in the hallway and ended up being carried out on a stretcher to the hospital. That was the last time I worked at The New York Times, and it was then that I became officially “disabled,” and eventually forced to subsist on a meager Social Security income.
In late 2000, I was finally diagnosed with an incredibly rare form of endocrine cancer, called Pheochromocytoma, a condition that affects only about one in a million people.
A Pheochromocytoma is almost always a benign tumor that is very small, usually smaller than the size of a needle. This type of tumor affects the endocrine system, causing exactly the kinds of symptoms I was having. Essentially, the tumor secretes an enzyme that forces the body's adrenal glands to produce far more adrenalin than is normal, causing the blood pressure to rise dangerously, and also to fall precipitously when the tumor stops secreting the enzyme, causing havoc in the person’s body.
Usually a Pheochromocytoma is found in the adrenal glands and once it is found, it is removed surgically and within a week or two, the patient is completely well and able to go on with a normal life. However, in about ten percent of the cases, the tumor is somewhere else in the body and as it is so small and so rare, it is often impossible to find.
As it turns out, I was that one in ten million case, and my tumor was not to be found in the adrenals or anywhere else. I was sent for all kinds of scans, MRIs and an unbelievable numbers of other tests. My life became a nightmare of doctor appointments, hospital stays, and on and on. I was even seen by doctors at the National Institute of Health who, in what felt to me at the time like a death sentence, referred me back to my Endocrinologists in New York City.
There was a moment after returning to New York, when I was so sick that I had to use a walker to get to and from the bathroom. At that time, I contemplated throwing myself out of the bedroom window of my apartment, and I lived on the 42nd floor! I felt I had nothing left to live for.
It was in 1999, when I began the rounds of doctors, seeing every specialist imaginable, trying to determine what was medically wrong but to no avail. Mysteriously, I got well again for several months; then, in September 2000, my physical symptoms returned with a vengeance, and this time they did not abate.
Then, in October 2000, while at work, I passed out in the hallway and ended up being carried out on a stretcher to the hospital. That was the last time I worked at The New York Times, and it was then that I became officially “disabled,” and eventually forced to subsist on a meager Social Security income.
In late 2000, I was finally diagnosed with an incredibly rare form of endocrine cancer, called Pheochromocytoma, a condition that affects only about one in a million people.
A Pheochromocytoma is almost always a benign tumor that is very small, usually smaller than the size of a needle. This type of tumor affects the endocrine system, causing exactly the kinds of symptoms I was having. Essentially, the tumor secretes an enzyme that forces the body's adrenal glands to produce far more adrenalin than is normal, causing the blood pressure to rise dangerously, and also to fall precipitously when the tumor stops secreting the enzyme, causing havoc in the person’s body.
Usually a Pheochromocytoma is found in the adrenal glands and once it is found, it is removed surgically and within a week or two, the patient is completely well and able to go on with a normal life. However, in about ten percent of the cases, the tumor is somewhere else in the body and as it is so small and so rare, it is often impossible to find.
As it turns out, I was that one in ten million case, and my tumor was not to be found in the adrenals or anywhere else. I was sent for all kinds of scans, MRIs and an unbelievable numbers of other tests. My life became a nightmare of doctor appointments, hospital stays, and on and on. I was even seen by doctors at the National Institute of Health who, in what felt to me at the time like a death sentence, referred me back to my Endocrinologists in New York City.
There was a moment after returning to New York, when I was so sick that I had to use a walker to get to and from the bathroom. At that time, I contemplated throwing myself out of the bedroom window of my apartment, and I lived on the 42nd floor! I felt I had nothing left to live for.
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Eventually I came to see that it was all up to me: that I could either sit in the chair and die, or I would have to heal myself.
Desperate, I found a psychic healer who came to visit me. Her name was Suzy and she never charged me a dime because she knew I had no money. She came to my apartment at first, because I couldn't get out of the chair. Largely thru Reiki and meditation and other spiritual practices, she helped me to access my own inner ability to heal myself. The experiences that came with this healing process became part of a tremendous spiritual growth in me, some of which I am still learning about to this very moment. Eventually, I was well enough to go visit Suzy on a regular basis. |
When illness struck: A photograph taken of Ashton in 2002, shortly after settling into his hermitage at the cabin.
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As my health improved a bit, I came out to the Pocono Mountains to stay at a friend’s home, and discovered that it was much easier for me to control my symptoms in a calmer and more peaceful environment than midtown Manhattan.
My friend John and I spent a year after that looking for houses in the Poconos, and I eventually found a beautiful waterfront log cabin in a peaceful and serene setting. When I got my disability settlement retroactively, I used part of the money as the down payment on my cabin, which I bought in January 2002.
When I first bought the cabin, I still had plans to keep my New York apartment, as I was still employed at the Times, though unable to return to work, and hoped that I could eventually return to the job. After a year, I realized that I could no longer sustain both households and I made the decision in January 2003 to leave my former life in New York City once and for all.
I left Manhattan after twenty-four years, taking up residence in the Pocono woods. It was quite a transition, moving from my midtown apartment on the forty-second floor, overlooking most of the city, to a quiet log cabin by the Bushkill Creek. Where I used to look out on traffic and millions of people, I now looked at bears, ducks, geese, fish, and bald eagles nesting at the top of the mountain on the other side of the creek.
My friend John and I spent a year after that looking for houses in the Poconos, and I eventually found a beautiful waterfront log cabin in a peaceful and serene setting. When I got my disability settlement retroactively, I used part of the money as the down payment on my cabin, which I bought in January 2002.
When I first bought the cabin, I still had plans to keep my New York apartment, as I was still employed at the Times, though unable to return to work, and hoped that I could eventually return to the job. After a year, I realized that I could no longer sustain both households and I made the decision in January 2003 to leave my former life in New York City once and for all.
I left Manhattan after twenty-four years, taking up residence in the Pocono woods. It was quite a transition, moving from my midtown apartment on the forty-second floor, overlooking most of the city, to a quiet log cabin by the Bushkill Creek. Where I used to look out on traffic and millions of people, I now looked at bears, ducks, geese, fish, and bald eagles nesting at the top of the mountain on the other side of the creek.
Ashton at his cabin in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, 2003
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Settled into my cabin by the creek, I found that I thought less and less about the life I once had in the big city. Like a bear going into hibernation, I went into the solitude of the woods. I used my cabin like a bear cave, where I could slowly lick my wounds and begin a truly deep healing of all that still hurt, not merely my physical afflictions, but the wounds of the heart, spiritually and emotionally and yes, even intellectually.
I gave up writing altogether and gave up any thoughts of acting again. At the time, it was all out of the question. |
Instead, I focused my creative energies on slowly remodeling the cabin, as my health would allow. This too, was part of my healing process. I am grateful that after twelve years of remodeling, I now have a home that is most comfortable and beautiful.
Despite the pessimism of my doctors, my medical condition gradually improved. My doctors were stymied, of course, as to why I improved so dramatically. They didn’t accept the fact that my healing has taken place metaphysically, thru spiritual and emotional growth. But I know that that is the case.
I still have some medical symptoms, of course, but between the fact that my doctors eventually found the right mix of medicines to stabilize my symptoms, and that I have learned to control my symptoms to a greater degree, most people, unless they know me well, are not even aware that I am still considered disabled; they simply think I retired early.
So, after life-threatening illness, many hospitalizations, staggering medical bills and bankruptcy, I own a little piece of heaven at my cabin in the wood, and happiness is the outcome.
It is beautiful and peaceful here. And this healing place, which was once the cave where this bear hid away from the world, is now the place where I am emerging from a long and self-imposed exile. As a spiritual advisor told me recently, “You are coming back out into the light of day. You are choosing to rejoin the flow of life.”
Despite the pessimism of my doctors, my medical condition gradually improved. My doctors were stymied, of course, as to why I improved so dramatically. They didn’t accept the fact that my healing has taken place metaphysically, thru spiritual and emotional growth. But I know that that is the case.
I still have some medical symptoms, of course, but between the fact that my doctors eventually found the right mix of medicines to stabilize my symptoms, and that I have learned to control my symptoms to a greater degree, most people, unless they know me well, are not even aware that I am still considered disabled; they simply think I retired early.
So, after life-threatening illness, many hospitalizations, staggering medical bills and bankruptcy, I own a little piece of heaven at my cabin in the wood, and happiness is the outcome.
It is beautiful and peaceful here. And this healing place, which was once the cave where this bear hid away from the world, is now the place where I am emerging from a long and self-imposed exile. As a spiritual advisor told me recently, “You are coming back out into the light of day. You are choosing to rejoin the flow of life.”
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My reemergence, after so many years since the closing Off-Broadway, means I have returned to writing and acting. And it makes publishing this play possible, after decades have passed. This play is my legacy, and publishing it now provides me closure, so that I can go on to other projects. My next play, by the way, is going to be a one-man biographical play, about my experiences in surviving cancer and in choosing to return to the land of the living. As I sit at my desk, writing this essay from my cabin office, looking out over the Bushkill Creek and the wild and beautiful scenery, I am thinking back to the day after my show closed at Theatre-Off-Park, Waverly Place, New York City, 1996, when my heart was breaking. |
Kerry Ashton as a reemerging Bear, triumphant over cancer, in 2013.
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Happily, as I still had the theatre under lease at that time, I decided to restage the show, combining the best elements that Robert Kalfin introduced, but returning the play and performance to full strength. I also reincorporated the furniture and hand props, and removed most of the smoke and mirrors, while retaining the best of the projections. I then invited several audiences to see my fully realized “dream of music,” with all of my original music and lyrics restored.
Judging from the audience’s reaction, this restaging was by far the best version. Luckily, thru the benevolence of one investor, I was also able to film that version as well.
What is very healing for me, and gives me great closure, is that the definitive version of the play, with original music and lyrics, the culmination of thirty-eight years of performance experience, is the version presented here. This version is also available to the public on DVD.
And it is this definitive version that I intend to tour with again, when I am available to do so…as this particular Bear has left the cave, and is writing and acting again.
Judging from the audience’s reaction, this restaging was by far the best version. Luckily, thru the benevolence of one investor, I was also able to film that version as well.
What is very healing for me, and gives me great closure, is that the definitive version of the play, with original music and lyrics, the culmination of thirty-eight years of performance experience, is the version presented here. This version is also available to the public on DVD.
And it is this definitive version that I intend to tour with again, when I am available to do so…as this particular Bear has left the cave, and is writing and acting again.
