Notes on a Cowardly Lion by John Lahr Read Free Book Online Page B

did not work; he would not even try. “I was like a caged animal in school,” he says, remembering his teacher Miss Shea, who found his books tucked back in his desk after class and brought them home to Mrs. Lahrheim with stern admonitions about her son’s behavior. Lahr had tacked her attendance book to the table, and had been calledbefore the principal for throwing a book at her. He could not explain to his parents about the classroom—the anxiety over gray walls and long rows of wooden seats, the sadness of the winter stench of damp clothing and mothballs. In school, Miss Shea and others like her were watching, judging, ready to scold him for his obvious inadequacies. “I didn’t feel free at school; it just didn’t mean anything—nothing.” The careless instruction in every lesson from mathematics to civics for an adult life in commerce upset him. “What do numbers mean, when you have nothing to count?” The only discipline Lahr enjoyed was penmanship. He had a fluid hand; he practiced writing out his name, spelling it in different styles, and always in dignified arabesques.
    The only memorable event in Lahr’s academic career was the Eighth Grade class show. It was the first time he had ever participated in a school activity. Although Lahr harmonized on summer evenings with friends on the benches of Crotona Park, he had never performed. The entertainment at P.S. 40 was a Kid Act, modeled on the popular Smith and Dale routines, which spoke not only to the boredom and rebelliousness subdued in school life, but also with the babble of familiar dialects. Lahr remembers the laughs he and his group of friends got on stage, mimicking the deeper, more outrageous accents of their parents, and wearing penciled mustaches like pintsized adults.
    He remembers how nervous he was waiting for that first cue and wondering if he could growl the broad “Dutch” dialect with the panting “h” and the rolled “r” like his father. But on stage, the words seemed to speak themselves. Gestures happened smoothly, impelled by a laughing audience. Lahr liked other people laughing at him. He was amazed at the effect of even the ordinary words he spoke. These same words which had seemed so matter-of-fact when he had memorized them now moved people to laughter. He found himself making up new movements that had nothing to do with the script. When the boys rushed off the stage after their final gag, the audience applauded until they had to hurry back for a bow. Lahr recalls how the experience filled him with a satisfaction. He felt completely in control on stage, proud and curiously powerful. He had enjoyed it all—the make-up, the clowning, the noisy laughter. As he left for home after the performance, his teacher stopped him at the door. “Well, Mr. Lahrheim,” she said, “if you don’t go on the stage, you’ll probably go to jail.” Lahr was astonished that Miss Shea talked to him about anything except his laziness. “All I could think to say was—‘thank you.’”
    The weeks that followed his performance were more exciting thanhe had ever known. His friends and even vague acquaintances greeted him with the “Dutch” dialect he had bellowed. Sometimes they threw up their arms in the same wild rhythm. They knew him and showed they understood more about him. They challenged his reticence; and he basked in this new recognition. “He was such a success,” recalls his sister, “that Gus Edwards heard about him and wanted to put him in a school act. Mother and Dad wouldn’t hear of it. But after that performance I remember a teacher said he was the clown of the class and they couldn’t do anything with him.”
    Lahr himself never quite feared the life of delinquency his parents kept predicting for him. Yet, when he failed his eighth-grade year and was ordered to repeat it, the question that plagued him was