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Sawdust Memories

© Thomas James Martin

Love is now the stardust of yesterday
The music of the years gone by.
~Stardust by Hoagy Carmichael and Mitchell Parish

It's evening at the Sawdust Theatre in Coquille, Oregon, and Darling Dearheart, a heroine dressed all in white, enters stage left; the audience Oohs and Ahs as she puts her hands together, starts to say her line, and then sneezes for what seems like the "twenty-third" time in the play. No one minds; everyone just laughs and smiles for the twenty-third time.

"Boo!" cries the audience as the dastardly villain appears dressed in black, sporting a V-shaped moustache and, screaming, "Curses, foiled again!" No one minds; they laugh and yell at Hadrian Heartless, once again for the twenty-third time.

The players who come from Coquille, Bandon, Coos Bay and other cities of the South Coast and refer to themselves as "Sawdusters," take the stage every year from May to September to act, sing and dance their hearts out. They continue a city tradition that goes back 37 years.

They are ordinary people from the South Coast area; a few have professional experience; a few more maybe acted in a high school play or appeared in other local theater. Mostly though, they are people from all walks of life: Title clerks and social workers, bus drivers and school superintendents; fathers and grandfathers, mothers and daughters.

They come in all shapes and sizes, just like ordinary people, from svelte to chubby, from blonde and brunette to gray and balding. Some are players who act in the comic melodramas; some are olios.

A bit slow on the uptake, I finally figure out that an olio is a performer who sings and dances or participates in sketches before the curtain during set changes. Later, I discover that the heyday of the olio was in Vaudeville. Examples of the olios (sketches and performers) are seen in the movies Hello Dolly and The Seven Little Foys.

A lady olio, in skimpy dress and fishnet stockings, lifts her long legs and braving male catcalls and other taunts, dances from stage left holding a sign that says These Cinderellas. When she reaches center stage, she flips the sign over and it reads, Sure Get The Fellas as she dances off stage right.

Sitting between my wife and her aunt, I try-- unsuccessfully I fear--to avoid staring at those shapely "be-stockinged" legs. Joyce good naturedly punches me in the side with her elbow, and I stare straight ahead for a while. Finally, I look at her smirking face and pretend to hang my head.