Steelbound and Pouring the Sun: An artistic connection with a people's yearning

For two weeks in September this year, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, resonated with its history and culture in a way that only theater can accomplish. In fact, the theater experience for the Bethlehem audience in those two weeks was as extraordinary an artistic event as can happen. People witnessed their own stories, the stories of their own forebears, heroes and demons, their own hopes and fears tangibly, sensationally alive in front of them, thrumming in their ears and chests and bellies.

This does not happen very often—either in Bethlehem or anywhere else in our modern, western world. All too often theater is experienced, for those who attend plays, as a nearly antiquated art form that can occasionally astonish, more often entertain, and sometimes, for those who like that sort of thing, challenge. Rarely anymore does theater strike the deep chords of cultural recognition and communal revelation. It used to do that, once, when theater spoke the stories of the people for whom it was performed. It can do that now, when theater makers and communities are in league with one another, willing and anxious to share, when there is an artistic connection with a people's yearning.

Iron Foundry at Bethlehem Steel, site of Steelbound, photo by Linda Frye Burnham

Storyteller Jay O'Callahan and theater makers from Touchstone Theatre and Cornerstone Theater listened to the stories that have flowed out of the pain of losing the economic (and mythic) heart and soul of this community—the corporate giant called Bethlehem Steel. This is the town that made the steel that built the skyscrapers of New York City, the bridges of San Francisco and the paper clips of the nation. This is where the fabled American dream lived and breathed for 100 years. Hungarian, Polish, Puerto Rican, Italian, Dominican, African American, Irish, Russian, Pennsylvania Dutch—they all made livings, built houses, raised families, sent children to college making steel. Four years ago, the descendents of five generations of steel-making people lost their vocations, their sense of who they are, where they might be headed, what they are worth. The pain of that loss might have slipped away after the last TV Special on the closing of the last blast furnace had aired, might have slipped into the bars and social clubs of Bethlehem's Southside, might have rested on the shoulders of the unemployed. Where else does the pain of this kind of social upheaval play out?

In the midst of all this, the artists at Touchstone Theatre in Bethlehem felt a connection between the terrible loss in their community and the ancient story the Greek playwright Aeschylus told of Prometheus—that pioneer of civilization who brought fire from the gods and was eternally tortured for his efforts. Touchstone has been making theater in Bethlehem for 18 years. They have created new plays, adapted existing plays and produced contemporary scripted material. Nonetheless, a cynic might shudder at the prospect of a small theater ensemble attempting to produce a classic Greek tragedy for a grief-stricken audience of typically non-theater-going Americans. Fortunately for all concerned, there are no cynics at Touchstone.

Instead, at Touchstone there are tough, determined, pragmatic artists with real knowledge of their own home. They took four years to build the partnerships, forge the collaborations and do the work necessary to make their dreams come true. They brought their own expertise to bear, conducting extensive research and translating it into theatrical material. They joined forces with the public, private and corporate partners in Bethlehem to root the project in the community. Touchstone's vision drew extraordinary artistic allies from across the country.

A powerful artistic collaboration was crafted with Cornerstone Theater—another small ensemble, also committed to making theater within specific communities, now based in Los Angeles, California, after many years of touring the classics in rural America. Together they produced "Steelbound," their modern adaptation of Aeschylus' ancient play "Prometheus Bound." There was an exceptional bond of imagination between "Steelbound" and its audience. Touchstone, Cornerstone and all the artists involved in the production were able to drop their work right down into the caldron of their audience's imaginative, historical, mythic belly and let the event loose. When this happens it can remind theater artists just exactly what they do this art for, and it can make audiences vibrate with life where no audiences ever even existed before.

Astonishingly, across town, the same rare theater accomplishment happened with another of Touchstone's artistic partners. This was, after all, a festival, but just how many times can a festival nail the artist-audience relationship? In this case, at least twice a night, which meant that they were batting a thousand. Storyteller Jay O'Callahan, a frequent performer on Touchstone's own stage, was engaged to join them in building the Steel Festival. O'Callahan, a Massachusetts-based artist, knew nothing about steel making or the histories of any Bethlehem folk until he started talking and listening and collecting stories from people all over town. After three years of interviewing scores of people, touring steel plants, viewing steel making videos and the many other research tasks he embraced, O'Callahan told the story of Ludvica Waldony, a Polish woman who immigrated at 18, alone, in 1907. He called the story "Pouring the Sun." Ludvica and her husband Fritz raised a family amidst a steelmaking heritage that, as O'Callahan says in his program notes, "helped shape a nation." Their second son, John Waldony, became a steelworker as a teenager and a union organizer soon after. His leadership helped build the union movement and made him an honored citizen in Bethlehem. As O'Callahan humbly notes, the story he tells could have been about any of thousands of steelworking people. As it is, it is a story of one, individual person and her family, told elegantly, powerfully and with sweeping artistic agility.

In remarkable contrast to the highly theatrical events of "Steelbound," O'Callahan's performance was simply himself telling a story, with a chair and a small table on the stage. He gave a brief, thoughtful introduction and launched into Ludvica's life. This storyteller is a highly sophisticated writer, able to entwine multiple layers of plot, character and action, and he is an accomplished actor, with the skill to realize many characters while juggling complex narrative. He told about Ludvica and he became her. He found her Polish accent and her personal rhythms. He laughed her laugh as she peeled potatoes for her soup. He became her husband, the piano playing steelworker who loved to play Chopin until he lost three fingers to a steel lathe and a merciless foreman. He wept her tears when she lost her firstborn son. He became all of her children and her friends. He mesmerized his audience, transporting us into the lives and heartbeats of a whole town.

And just like the performance of "Steelbound," O'Callahan's audience was entranced into its own histories. As the storyteller breathed out his story, the audience breathed back its resonations. Our imaginations were linked, each anticipating the other in the unique coupling that live theater in its own home can create. John Waldony was in the audience that night. He stood at the end of the performance, white haired, stooped. People, already on their feet, roared. They knew him, now, in ways no one had never before experienced. They knew him through his mother's story alive on the air in that little theater. His granddaughter was there. His two-fingered father's great granddaughter, and she played three selections of Chopin as an opener to the storytelling, but we didn't know who she was until O'Callahan introduced her at the curtain call. People wept and shouted and clapped, not out of sentiment but for the joy of accomplishment, success and survival that this family had given us all.

The artist in a community is a medium of the spirit. Jay O'Callahan, Touchstone, Cornerstone and the people of Bethlehem showed us all how this can be true.

Bob Leonard is an Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre Arts of Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Va. He heads the MFA in Directing program and teaches Directing, Acting, and Improvisation in the undergraduate program. He brings to his classroom 25 years of experience as founding artistic director of The Road Company, a nationally acclaimed theatre ensemble based in Johnson City, Tenn. Under his direction The Road Company created two dozen original plays reflecting the history and issues of the Upper Tennessee Valley and Central Appalachia. He is a founder of the Community Arts Network.

Original CAN/API publication: October 1999