I Was A Teenage Angel

When I was in high school, I became an angel.  I was not the kind of angel with wings, halo, and harp.  Instead, I became a Broadway angel, the kind that bankrolls Broadway plays.

Actually, it was an off-Broadway play.

A high school classmate invited a bunch of his friends to a play reading in his parents’ living room.  The playwright, the director, and the producer of a play were there seeking financial backers.  I was thrilled to be in the same room as real theater people. 

The play was called “Angels of Anadarko”.  As portions of the script were being read aloud, I was swept up in the story about an immigrant family that moves to Anadarko, Oklahoma.  The family struggles to learn American ways while dreaming of striking it rich.

Shares in “Angels of Anadarko” were one hundred dollars each.  Ten of us high school students chipped in ten dollars each, and bought one share.  We became angels.

I went to see the play after it opened off-Broadway.  Although I only owned one-tenth of a share, I considered the play to be my own personal achievement. 

On stage was a modest Oklahoma house with a modest exploratory oil well in the front yard.  We watched the immigrant family struggling with American ways --- mainly, they struggled to learn the rules of baseball.  We watched the family dreaming of striking it rich --- sure enough, the oil well started gushing during the second act of the play.

I left the theater bursting with pride.

Then I read the review in The Village Voice:

I can imagine no useful purpose in an extensive analysis of "Angels of Anadarko", which is among the worst plays --- in production --- that I have had the misfortune to see in a legitimate off-Broadway theater.  Certainly no useful purpose was served by its being produced.  My personal feeling is that no one has the right to inflict this kind of incompetent trash on an audience in the professional theater, and it makes me angry.

The review made me angry.  But maybe I should have been proud instead.  Not only had my ten dollars helped finance a play, it had helped create the worst theater review in New York history.

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You can read the complete issue of that Village Voice online (October 18, 1962).  To rub salt in my wounds, the week that Angels of Anadarko opened was also the week that Edward Albee's "Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?" opened.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1299&dat=19621018&id=lUtPAAAAIBAJ&sjid=1I8DAAAAIBAJ&pg=4084,4439512

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com