The topics for this current essay do really flow from one to the next, and the first two also once again involve the Spanish language, which we discussed recently from Mexico, and will continue to discuss leading up to my upcoming trip to Portugal, Spain, and England in May and June.

Sounds & Symbols   I won’t dwell on this too much, but I’ve mentioned in the past, and will continue to mention again, that the concept of many laymen of what language is, is skewed. The reason why is simple. Everyone with normal hearing learns language “automatically” as a child, and by this we do mean what is sometimes referred to as “spoken language”, but saying “spoken” before “language” is redundant, other than to differentiate it from what is referred to as “written language”.

Let’s simplify this, away from the layman’s image and to the reality that linguists see. There is the reality of language and there is the transcription of this reality. Language develops naturally in childhood. Its transcription does not, and has to be taught. Because of this, learning the transcription of language (reading/writing) becomes exalted as something to be achieved, while language itself (speaking/listening) is downgraded as something “everyone can do”.

This line of thinking results in the layman visualizing that what is written is “real language” and not just the transcription—accurate or out-of-date--of what people say. This line of thinking is reflected in the below Latin phrase, which translates exquisitely into German, but translates into English only by adding a lot more words.

Translations notwithstanding, the point remains that this Latin phrase exalts the “written language”, although in modern times, it is equally possible to transcribe voices as it is to write words down. Just think of the phone machine and voice mail, not to mention tapes, sound films, and other voice transcriptions running parallel with written records.

But to the point: let’s put aside voice transcription, since that just imitates what is spoken. What we are comparing here are the sounds of the reality of language and the symbols of its (written) transcription.

In some languages there is a very high degree of correspondence between sound and symbol: you say “sit” and spell it S-I-T. Couldn’t be simpler, right?. But as you know, it doesn’t always happen that way. Very frequently, the symbols often show the way the sounds USED TO be.

Some languages have high sound-symbol correspondence (SSC), Czech, for instance, and Italian is pretty good, too. Others, like French and English have some very irregular SSCs, but one of the worst examples of bad SSC is poor Irish Gaelic.

Note that, following the above discussion, I will usually be giving the REALITY of the sounds first, and only then followed by the symbols of the TRANSCRIPTION.

Italian says Milano and writes Milano. This sort of thing is the highest SSC, and no one will be fooled going between what is spoken and what is written. The symbol H is used in most Italic (Romance) languages, but it corresponds to no sound. To its great credit, Italian, except for a handful of special cases, doesn’t use an H. For instance “hour” is the same word in both Spanish and Italian: O.ra, and Italian does spell it “ora” with 100% SSC, while Spanish spells it “hora”, including an H as a useless symbol. Four symbols for three sounds is 1/3 overkill.

When you know how Italian is spelled, it is extremely easy to read, but this does include some problems for the uninitiated. Italian utilizes the H in combinations such as GH (spaghetti) and CH (Chianti), and outsiders might be misled, not realizing that it’s Kianti that’s the reality for the spelling Chianti.

And when an S occurs before that CH, many of the non-initiated get confused. I’ll use two examples of Italian words for foods that occur in English that are so frequently mispronounced: maraskino and brusketta. Since the actual spelling for these words is maraschino and bruschetta, just listen and hear how many people visualize a German SCH such as in Schubert and pronounce those Italian words with SH.

One last example for Italian: way back in 1957, on my first visit to Europe, I noticed that there was a city on the mainland across the lagoon from Venice whose name has stayed with me all these years. Eventually I knew that the city was KYO.dja, but until I learned that fact, the spelling Chioggia always bamboozled me.

I’ve always teased French because of the low sound-symbol correspondences in so very many words, and this will be a repeat of things I’ve said in the past. The towns of Po, Mo, So are actually spelled Pau, Meaux, Sceaux. Po/Pau, two sounds/three symbols, has 50% more symbols than needed; Mo/Meaux is worse, and So/Sceaux has triple the number of letters of the reality of the sounds, or an overkill of 300%. I also like to refer to the beautiful, walled town in the south of France we visited a few years ago. At the time I spelled it Egg Mort, but that should really be shortened to simply Eg Mort. And you’ll recall that the actual spelling of Eg Mort is Aigues Mortes. Look at the poor SSC. Not only do we have six sounds/twelve symbols, it is also misleading to the uninitiated that E is here spelled AI.

English is notorious for poor SSC, and following most other examples, I’ll use place names here, too. On the Hudson River, Pukipsi is actually spelled Poughkeepsie. Tuson is Tucson, Conneticut is Connecticut, Arkansaw is spelled Arkansas. In Britain, Edenbra is spelled Edinborough. English speakers say Check and spell it Czech (others don’t).

Let’s look at the capital of the Czech Republic as an example. Czechs say Praha and write Praha, with 100% correspondence. Italians, Spaniards, and Russians say Praga and write Praga/Прага, also 100%. Germans say Prag, and write Prag, 100%. The French and English also say Prag, but spell it Prague. This is 50% overkill, but at least the French can claim an excuse because of technicalities in their phonology. English speakers have no excuse. They’re just slavishly copying the French spelling. This also has led to the town of New Prague in Minnesota, which I referred to recently, to be pronounced New Pray-g, which is now the standard pronunciation for that town.

I won’t go deeply into the reasons why, except to say that language (the spoken reality) changes, but people are leery of changing the spellings to correspond to new realities. Take the word “time”. It was once pronounced in English as it still is pronounced in Swedish: TI.ma (I as in SKI). Visualize that TI.ma did correspond to the spelling “time”. Then the pronunciation changed from TI.ma to TAIM (AI as in aisle), but the spelling never changed and remained in its antiquated form, so today TAIM is still spelled “time”.

Poor Irish Gaelic. Perhaps it has so many antiquated spellings since it was repressed for so many centuries. As people tried to preserve it, they were more loath than ever to update spellings. The example I’ve given before is worth giving again. The port that serves Dublin is in reality Dun Liri (I as in SKI). In English Dun Liri is spelled Dun Leary, which isn’t too bad. The first I is spelled EA, although the second I is spelled Y. But in Irish Gaelic—and this is what you see on signs as you get off the ferry coming over from Wales, Dun Liri is spelled Dun Laoghaire. Although that last I is spelled E, the first I is spelled AOGHAI. One sound—five symbols, that’s 500% overkill.

“Spanish has no V”   Above is the language theory background. Now let’s get on to Spanish, where that will help us with the following very provocative statement: Spanish has no V.

Eek! What about ¡Viva México!? And Venezuela, Valencia, Veracruz? What’s going on here?

Well, English and other languages do have a V, and all those words are properly pronounced with V. But if you want to know a bit more about Spanish, accept that statement, and realize the difference between reality and its transcription.

Spanish certainly has a B. However, B has two spellings. Sometimes B is spelled B, but sometimes B is spelled V. Ha!

Here’s a parallel in English: “sit” and “siti”. One has to learn that “sit” is spelled sit with an S, but “siti” is spelled city with a C. Which letter you use for the S sound, S or C, depends on the word you’re spelling. In Spanish, whether you spell B with a B or V also depends on the word you’re spelling.

Spanish has no V at all, and you’ll never hear a Spanish speaker using one. As a matter of fact, Spanish speakers have difficulty with the sound of V in English and other languages. I once worked with a woman from Cuba who taught Spanish, who spoke English with a thick accent, and who regularly called me Bince (I as in SKI).

In Spain (to Spanish speakers) the two major cities on the Mediterranean coast are Barcelona and Balencia. Barcelona is spelled Barcelona, no problem, but Balencia is spelled Valencia, with a V. When in Valencia, you will hear natives talking about Balencia. Do not let spellings misguide you as to the reality of the language (even if other languages pronounce Valencia with a V).

There are some curious spelling variations involving the letters B and V. Most languages say and spell “automobile” with a B. The Spanish word is “automóvil”; say a B, but write a V. Most languages refer to the Basque language, by both saying and writing a B. In Spanish it’s Vasco; say a B, but write a V.

Two more cities, very near each other in Andalusia: in English they are Cordova and Seville; for both cities we say and write a V. In Spanish they are pronounced KOR.do.ba and se.BI.lya--both pronounced with B, but written Córdoba and Sevilla, one with B, one with V.

Someone saying Biba Kuba will spell it Viva Cuba, with the three B’s (B-B-B) spelled V-V-B. And Benezuela and Beracruz are spelled Venezuela and Veracruz. Spanish speakers say Laz Begas, but spell it Las Vegas like everyone else.

[Note: not to confuse the issue, B at the beginning of a word sounds like a clear B, but B within a word does appear as an “open B”, a B where the lips don’t quite touch in the very center. If I use an apostrophe to indicate an “open B”, I’d write the above pronunciation as Bib’a Kub’a, with one regular B and two open ones. If that confuses, then forget it, since it’s not overly important in the present discussion and was added just for the sake of completeness.]

So: although the letter V is used in transcription (spelling), Spanish has no V. I rest my case.

Castilian   It’s time to turn our attention to the Spanish of Spain, partially because it’s worth knowing about (I think it’s perfectly beautiful), partially because I’ll be going back to Spain in May for the first time since studying there in 1990 and will be discussing it, and partially because it’s pertinent to topics later on in this essay. The Spanish of Spain is named after the region in central Spain where it originated, Castile in English, Castilla in Spanish, a region obviously named after the castles located there, as in the expression “castles in Spain”. It’s referred to in English as Castilian Spanish and in Spanish as Castellano, although “Español” and “Castellano” within Spanish can be used as synonyms for each other, without any reference at all to the distinction between European and American Spanish, which is a given in these cases.

It should not be surprising that Spanish differs on the two sides of the Atlantic, since that’s true about all four “colonial” languages, those from the European countries that settled the Americas: French, Portuguese, English, Spanish.

Continental French differs considerably from Canadian French, which many non-Quebeckers find difficult to understand, including me, and Continental Portuguese shows numerous differences from Brazilian Portuguese (as with Spanish, I strongly prefer Continental Portuguese, which I am reviewing for use there shortly).

As for English, it’s hardly necessary to point out the differences between British and American English. Different pronunciations are obvious, as are vocabulary differences (elevator/lift). More subtle are grammatical differences, such as how collective nouns are treated, as with the American “The public is welcome” to the British “The public are welcome”; “IBM says that...” versus “IBM say that...”.

[Do note that it is misleading to think there is just one American English or one American Spanish, any more than there is one British English or only one variety of Castilian Spanish. We are discussing here in each case some sort of a neutral norm, representative of the area. Also, comments here will be generalizations, to help laymen understand the situation more clearly.]

As with French, Portuguese and English, the differences between Castilian Spanish and American Spanish deal with vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. Since this discussion is meant for the layman, and the most noticeable difference for the layman is in pronunciation, the discussion will limited simply to that.

To keep it nice and simple, even travelers in Spain who do not speak Spanish will nevertheless be struck by three clear-cut differences in the speech of the natives around them from whatever few Spanish words or Spanish place names they may have heard from Spanish speakers using American speech, which by far prevails in English-speaking America. (Similarly, Castilian Spanish is more familiarly heard by non-Spanish speakers elsewhere in Europe.)

1. [kh] instead of [h]   We see “José” and we know to say Hosé. We see “Juan” and we know to say “Hwan” (although the combination HW being difficult for English speakers, many often totally drop the H here and say “Wan” instead). Similarly, Jorge/Horhe; Jesús/Hesús; Baja/Baha; Geraldo/Heraldo. The famous bell tower of the Cathedral of Seville, La Giralda, is pronounced La Hiralda.

American Spanish has the sound [h]. In its written form, it is spelled most frequently J (Baja), but it is also spelled G before E (Geraldo) or before I (Giralda).

Not so in Spain. Castilian does not have an [h] sound at all. What it does have is the [kh] sound. This is the sound in the Scottish word “loch”, pronounced lokh. It is also the correct sound of the name of the composer Bach, pronounced Bakh, not Bak. It is also a Russian sound, as in the name of the Russian city of Archangel: Архангельск (Arkhangel’sk), where the spelling KH is actually used in transliteration of Russian X.

Castilian Spanish joins German and Russian in the use of this lusty, vibrant sound, in the very same places where American Spanish uses [h]. Try saying the above words this way, which is what you’ll hear in Spain: José/Khosé, Juan/Khuan, Jorge/Khorkhe, Jesús/Khesús, Baja/Bakha, Geraldo/Kheraldo. And in Seville, be sure to ask directions to La Giralda accurately by saying La Khiralda.

2. [ly] instead of [y]   We are not talking here about the Spanish spelling, Y, which represents just that, a Y, as in the Mexican celebration Cinco de Mayo, or the artist Goya. We are talking here about the Spanish spelling LL. Spanish words that have an LL do so for a good reason, but that good reason has been dropped in American Spanish, where LL just doubles as an alternate spelling for Y, so that tortilla is pronounced tortiya, pollo is poyo, the beach resort of Marbella is Marbeya, Castellano is Casteyano.

If that is what you are used to, in Spain you have to disabuse yourself of that notion. The spelling LL is reserved exclusively for the pronunciation LY, which most Italic languages have (more in an essay in the next series). This is a single sound, not two sounds. Set your tongue to say Y but then make it sound L-like. (As an alternative, go ahead and fake it by making it two separate sounds after all.) I should be clear that American Spanish has shortened the LY that it may have once had to just the second element, Y, so that the spellings LL and Y now correspond to the same sound.

If you have any doubts in Spain that tortilla is pronounced tortilya, they try saying TORTILLLLLLLYA until it sounds right. Then, when asking directions to Marbella, ask for Marbelya, for Sevilla (Seville) ask for Sebilya, for Valladolid ask for BalyadoLID (watch out for all those “hidden” Bs), and you will then be speaking Castellano----and that’s Castelyano!

3. [th] instead of [s]   This is undoubtedly by far the most distinctive feature of Castilian Spanish. When you hear this, you have no doubt whatsoever that you’re hearing Castilian. If you have been unaware of it up till now, it would be absolutely typical for you to look incredulous and say “You’ve...gotta...be...kidding”. I kid you not.

As with the Y above, we are not talking here about the Spanish spelling, S, which represents just that, an S, as in Sevilla or in Teresa. We are talking here about the spelling Z, or alternatively C before E or C before I.

In American Spanish, Z and C(E), C(I) do not represent any distinctive sound. They are just alternate spellings for the sound S. As with the Y sound being spelled either Y or alternatively LL above, here the S sound is spelled either S or alternatively Z or C(e), C(I). Let’s use Spanish numbers as examples. In American Spanish, you hear the number dos (2), and you write it dos, with an S. Tres (3) is written tres. But you hear sinco (5), and have to know it’s written with a C as cinco. With seis (6) you’re back to S, twice: seis. But you hear dies (10) and have to know to spell it diez.

In Castilian this is not the case. Castilian has a sound that American Spanish does not have: [th] as in “think”. Please get used to that fact. When the sound [th] occurs before an E or I it’s spelled C, otherwise it’s spelled Z.

Let’s go back to the numbers and read them as you will hear them in Castilian in Spain. Remembering that S is S, otherwise you’re dealing with TH, this is what we have. Dos is dos. Tres is tres. Cinco is thinco. Seis is seis. Diez is dieth. When you get over your incredulity, let’s proceed.

When someone thanks you, gracias is grathias. I can assure you that the Spanish tenor Plácido Domingo is Plathido to his friends. The actress Penélope Cruz pronounces her last name Cruth. The writer of Don Quijote, Cervantes, is Therbantes (watch that B). Watch what happens when a name has both sounds: Francisco is Franthisco, where you hear both TH and S. Some very familiar names may seem less familiar: Pérez, Gómez, López, Martínez are Péreth, Gómeth, Lópeth, Martíneth and González is Gontháleth.

In Spain, a speaker of American Spanish (or an English speaker using it) will be easily recognized as such, just as a speaker of American English would be in Britain, and that’s all well and good. But native Spaniards of the middle and upper classes use ONLY Castilian. A native Spaniard speaking differently (and some local dialects do resemble American Spanish) would stand out as quite working class, perhaps not quite Cockney, but presenting himself or herself quite differently than from what is heard in the media, from politicians, professors, and others with any reasonable amount of education. Consider a native Spaniard applying for a job and wanting to make the best impression on the interviewer. Which version of Spanish do you suppose he or she would want to use? This is no joke. It’s serious stuff.

You can analyze what has happened to American Spanish as well as I. In two cases, it’s dropped a sound (LY or TH), and the words that had that sound have fallen together with other sounds, so that the Y sound is spelled either Y or LL, and the S sound is written either S or Z/C. But when you go back to the Mother Country, these reductions have not taken place, so you distinguish LY and Y, TH and S.

In Spain you hear catha and know to write caza (hunt); you hear casa and know to write casa (house). In America all you will hear is casa and, out of context, you don’t know to write caza or casa.

Or, you hear malyo in Spain and know to write mallo (mallet); you hear mayo and know to write mayo (May). In America all you can hear is mayo, and, out of context, you don’t know to write mallo or mayo.

I hope the reader’s incredulity is diminishing, especially if you never heard this before, because it’s real. In Mexico in January in the Copper Canyon I was speaking with this British family in front of a roaring fireplace. They knew Spanish, and, coming from Europe, it was Castilian Spanish. We had a bit of a chat in Castilian in a Mexican context, which was sort of unique. When Beverly and I studied in Málaga in 1990, it was in Castilian that we spoke and were given our oral tests. When I’m back in Spain in May (mayo) I’ll be glad to get back to it.

Regardless of how Barcelona and Valencia may be pronounced in English and other languages, if you’re asking directions to either one in Spain and wish to sound as authentic as possible, ask for Barthelona and Balenthia.

Then there are those to whom this is new who will say this is nothing but lisping. That’s a reasonable first thought, but on second thought, you’ll see it’s nonsense. Consider the English sentence “I think so”. There is no lisping there, all is normal. But if someone says “I think tho”, THEN they’re lisping. Similarly, for the name Francisco, saying Franthisco is not lisping, it’s normal. A lisping Spaniard would in this case say Franthithco.

Note the two Spanish names Federico and Vicente. Also note that the first one has lost an R that Frederick still has, and the second one has lost an N that Vincent still has. Now in regard to this: in the 1960’s we had an exchange teacher in the language department where I taught who was from Spain, Teresa. Although we all used American Spanish as is usual on this side of the Atlantic, Teresa used Castilian, which is not odd. Just consider someone with a British accent among Americans and you’ll see the parallel. As it turns out, Teresa was from Zaragoza in Spain, and it was a thing of beauty when she said Tharagotha. Being from Europe, Teresa was a little more formal than we were. She knew me well enough that she didn’t want to use last names, but she felt awkward jumping right to first names as Americans will do, especially talking to a man. Therefore, she availed herself of the crutch that Spanish (and Italian) provides. She included the honorific “Don” and regularly called me Don Vicente. (Vicente has three syllables.) But how do you think she pronounced it?

She said Dom Bithente (note that don alters to match the B). And it sounded so grand to me. After all these years I still remember her calling out in the hallway between classes ¡Dom Bithente! !Dom Bithente! It seemed so stylish.

Suppose someone named George is from Marbella in Andalusia, the large province in the South of Spain. When you see the sentence below, read it first in American Spanish, then in Castilian. It has a bit of everything we’ve been discussing.

What you are doing in Spanish is the equivalent of flipping in pronunciation between American and British English.

Finally, let’s visit the Prado in Madrid, the art museum on an equivalent of the Louvre in Paris, the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, especially regarding Spanish art. Let’s say you’re standing in front of a painting and the plaque with the name of the artist is missing and you ask a guard or fellow patron if what you’re looking at is an El Greco:

In your very best Castilian (This is Spain! This is Madrid! This is the Prado!) ask about Goya, Picasso, Dalí (stress the LAST syllable) Murillo, Zurbarán (stress the LAST syllable), and Velázquez.

Goya and Picasso are easy. Dalí is da.LI. Murillo is mu.RI.lyo. Zurbarán is thur.ba.RAN. And then there’s Velázquez.

In English, saying ve.LAS.kez is quite reasonable. Try saying ve.LAS.kwez and watch me go for your jugular.

But if you want to impress the guard at the Prado with your impeccable, most upper-class Castilian, it’s be.LATH.keth, nothing less.

Middlebury Theatricals   The theatricals referred to are ones given at Middlebury College in which I, or Beverly and I, took part. There were several, from almost the beginning up to the big show, the cabaret that Beverly and I had major part in, both in writing and in performing. That will be described in Series 6. But let’s start at the beginning.

In 1959, at 19, I went away to the Middlebury German Summer School (all sessions ran for six weeks). It was my first time living away from home, I adjusted quickly, and the Deutsche Schule is where I really got to be able to use German. However, I was not involved in any theatricals in this first summer.

Barbarities   In 1960, at 20, I went back to Middlebury for my one and only time in the Spanish School. The Escuela Española also got me into using Spanish with fluency, and apparently I had enough confidence to getting involved in two different theatrical events.

The first one was called a variety show, but it was much, much better than that. Now, as I reflect back after 47 years, I really think it was really a cabaret in disguise, which means I started my theatricals with a cabaret performance and ended them some years later with our big cabaret performance. Given the humor through satire and parody in this variety show, it has to be considered a cabaret in the comedic sense (to be discussed later). In this show I also experienced the funniest thing I’ve ever heard, and had the laugh of a lifetime.

Let’s first work on its name, which involved a pun in Spanish. Humor explained is never humorous, but I want you to be able to appreciate the name.

The name translates initially as the Spanish School Varieties. Sort of. Varieties in Spanish is variedades, so the name would theoretically have been Las Variedades de la Escuela Española. But you now know that this word is pronounced bariedades. Double the first syllable of the pronounced form, and you get barbariedades. Now you have the Spanish word for barbarities. So the name ended up as Las Barbariedades de la Escuela Española, the Spanish School Barbarities, but the pun works only in Spanish because of the B/V thing. In any case you can see the wild spirit of the show building up even in the punned title. I now do understand that the parody and satire we did then was in actuality great cabaret.

The Barbarities were scheduled early in the summer, with the regular Spanish School play coming toward the end. This show must have been done regularly in those years, because kids (well, twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings) that had been in the Spanish School earlier were familiar with the format and with what to do. As a matter of fact, I don’t remember any faculty advisor. A few of the kids got things going, we wrote text, planned the show, and put it on, all while going to three classes a day, plus homework. It seems so simple saying this, but all this was done with everyone involved being very enthusiastic and gung-ho. In retrospect, I’m a little surprised at myself, with no stage experience, just plunging in, writing text—in Spanish—and agreeing to perform.

What I remember of the show was the faculty parodies, and not anything else, but of course, they were the best part. Actually, I just remember mine, and then the very funny one. We had a professor who every day after lunch would read a summary in Spanish of the news to the entire school. The particular gentlemen sweated profusely in the summer heat, something that I have no difficulty in imitating. I wrote a number of pseudo-campus news gags, got up on the stage and “read” them, mopping my brow. It was received pleasantly and politely, but at least I’d performed in Spanish.

Calling it a stage is an exaggeration. The Barbarities were held in Mccullough Gymnasium, with some 300-400 students and faculty on hard wooden folding chairs. The stage was just a slightly raised platform at one end of the gym, with no proscenium. We just waited at the side of the stage, in view of the audience, for our entrance.

But the other parody I remember was vastly better than mine, and was the funniest thing ever. There was one professor from Spain, whose name I think might have been Ruiz (ru.ITH). He was very popular, in spite of some visual eccentricities he had. Everyone knew him well, since twice a week after lunch the entire school would gather on the lawn and Ruiz would lead us all in folk singing. He was quite good.

However: the dear gentleman was rather slight in stature. He had a rather bony head, which wasn’t improved by his wearing his hair quite short. Nor was it an improvement that he wore large, black, horn-rimmed glasses. To top it off, he always wore a sports jacket, but one that was a size or so too large for him, so that it came down beyond his wrists, and so that his head rose rather bird-like from it.

He was a parody made to order. Do understand that all these parodies were good-spirited, and the professors came up after the show and congratulated us. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

There was a young man from Puerto Rico in his twenties, who liked to play golf and did so regularly during the summer, who said he’d do a parody of Ruiz. I remember that even up to the final rehearsal, he just said he’d be holding a golf club and do this or that, so really, even the cast members didn’t have a full idea of what he was going to do, so we were as unaware as the audience.

The genius in what he ended up doing was that it was so short, and so precise. It came in two very short parts, one right after the other. Now I know you really had to be there, but this is how it went.

When it was his time, he stepped quickly onto the stage without anyone having had a chance to see him in advance, and took a golf stance with his club. He himself was slight of stature. His head was just a bit bony, and his hair short. He had found some large, black horn-rimmed glasses that he was wearing, and best of all, he had come across a sports jacket that wasn’t one size, but perhaps two or three sizes too large for him. The first part of what he did consisted just of him standing there like a statue, preparing to swing, looking into the distance at about the two o’clock angle.

The sudden visual image, and recognition of what everybody had noticed about Ruiz but nobody had ever discussed, was such, that the gym exploded. People were howling, people were screaming, people would give a clap above their heads. It was a huge laugh. But it was only the start, since the guy onstage had the old one-two ready. He stood there motionless for about thirty seconds, then, before the laughter subsided, which is an essential point, he moved to the second part, which was also exquisite in its simplicity. He suddenly took the golf swing, then shielded his eyes from the “sun”, still looking in that two-o’clock direction, and said something.

I only wish I could remember what he said. It was short and quite simple, such as “I wonder where the golf ball went” or something of that nature. But he said it in Castilian.

Ruiz was one of the few on the faculty who was from Spain and used Castilian (virtually none of the students did), and that was enough for everything to just go over the top. As he stood frozen on the stage shielding his eyes, the gym disintegrated. People fell forward on their knees, some resting their forehead on their hands on the back of the folding chair in front of them. It was as though all the air was suddenly sucked out of Mccullough Gymnasium. A second huge laugh while the first one was still at its height was more than people could bear. Those people sitting next to the aisles fell downward that way, and some were on all fours, laughing. It was the one and only time I actually experienced the expression “he had them rolling in the aisles”. He really did.

Barbarities indeed.

Zarzuela   The theatrical performance later that summer in the Spanish School turned out to be a zarzuela (thar.THWE.la). This very typically Spanish genre is a type of musical comedy. The parents of Plácido (Pláthido) Domingo were both zarzuela performers, which provided him with his musical background, and he started out as a zarzuela performer himself. The zarzuela selected was one meant for children, and was by the famous Quintero Brothers. It was a fairy-tale-type story with a king, queen, and princess in medieval period costumes, a little off-beat, but since the zarzuela is so typically a Spanish genre, I was glad to be in one. When you’re at Middlebury, you do experience the world. It was called La Muela del Rey Farfán (1910), translated as King Farfán’s Molar, also King Farfán’s Toothache. It was a little odd, but fun to do. After all, we were doing zarzuela!

[Did you ever think that Plácido Domingo’s name can be translated as Placid Sunday? Think about that the next time you find yourself enjoying a Quiet Sunday.]

I’ve always considered “Farfán” a little off-beat and obscure, but doing further research, I googled the title as I was preparing this, and I’m amazed to find it’s actually being presented at an Off-Off-Broadway children’s theater here in Manhattan for four weeks now from April into May.

My only recollection of my involvement was as a non-speaking extra, one of the townspeople. I did get to wear a period costume. Some of us townspeople were in brown tunics and tights. Of course it being a period piece, I couldn’t wear my glasses, and went around the stage half-blind. They brought in a director from New York, Roberto Rodriguez, who I visited in New York after the summer session was over.

Let me modify what I said about non-speaking. I’ve always admired those actors in the background of scenes, such as in a restaurant, who seem to be carrying on an animated conversation, yet mutely. I don’t know how they can do it. As townspeople, as the royalty went through what they were doing, we were supposed to be doing stylized gossiping, with animated gestures, in the background. It was hard, especially in Spanish. Roberto kept on yelling ¡Comentarios! ¡Comentarios!, but we had a hard time getting improvised commentaries to flow.

And, the story coming from Spain, the entire performance was in Castilian.

I’ve said my mind’s eye does lie. It looks back and only sees me as an aldeano, a townsperson. That’s what I’ve remembered all these years. So I opened up our memory box and found I had the program to “Farfán” dated 5 August 1960, which lists the cast in order of appearance. Sure enough right at the beginning, there’s my name among the ten aldeanos. But a bit further down, there’s my name again, and this time not in a group of extras, but next to the name of a character called Peransúrez (pe.ran.SU.reth). That mind’s eye of mine does not have me in any speaking roles, so this is really a surprise to me, although the name Peransúrez does slightly ring a bell. But a named character still doesn’t necessarily have any lines. And later on, I’m listed as one of the ten in the coro/chorus, about half of which had also been aldeanos. Did we sing? I don’t remember, but if it was a zarzuela, we must have. So much for memory.

Particularly enjoyable is the story of the pageboy, which is a story I remember very fondly. We needed a little kid to play a page/paje (PA.khe) who would announce the entrances of the Princess. At the time—I don’t know if this is still the case—each summer school had a methods class to teach aspiring teachers how to conduct a language class. It was a great opportunity for local kids from Middlebury on summer vacation to learn the beginning of a language free of charge for six weeks. Like everything else at Middlebury in the summer, it was all done in the language, without any English.

For our pageboy, Roberto had the idea to raid the Spanish methods class, and he found a little kid named Phillip, maybe 10-11 years old. We had been rehearsing for some time, but since the kid only need to say two words, he wasn’t brought in to join us until close to the dress rehearsal.

They dressed Phillip in the cutest little velvet pageboy costume, including tights and a floppy hat. His job was to enter from the right ahead of the Princess and walk across the entire stage to the left with his torso turned to the audience, his left hand trailing behind him toward the Princess while loudly announcing:

So what could possibly go wrong?

Well, for starters, he pronounced it La Prinsesa, which certainly reflected the American Spanish he’d been learning all summer. But we were doing the show in Castilian. So Roberto, himself a Puerto Rican, took him aside and clued him in. OK, let’s try it again. What could possibly go wrong now?

In comes Phillip, arm extended, announcing:

Well, it looked like Castilian was going to do Philip in. “Printhetha” is not Castilian, but THERE was an example of a lisp, which would cause an audience to laugh in the wrong place. Wouldn’t you know, one of the two words he had to say ended up with both a TH and an S. The entire cast found it very cute and hugely funny, but you don’t want to spook a new language learner, and especially not a little kid, so it was bite-your-knuckle time for the cast to keep from laughing. So, while King, Queen, Princess and townspeople, all in costume, tried to contain themselves, once again Roberto and Phillip did a little buzz-buzz off in the corner, and Phillip tried making his Grand Entrance once again:

“Printhesa” was fine. Success at last.

I have dug out of the memory box two black-and-white cast photos. There I am in costume with all the others, including Phillip, La Princesa, Roberto. I estimate that Phillip would now be in his upper fifties. I wonder if he remembers the La Printhetha incident as fondly as I do.

Brecht   The following year was 1961, I was 21, and for the third summer in a row I went to Middlebury, but this time it was again the Deutsche Schule, enrolled in its Master’s Degree Program. After one summer in Middlebury, it was a year at the University of Mainz in Germany to complete the degree. This was the summer I met Beverly, she was in the same Master’s Program, and the rest is history. Rita, whom I had known in the late fifties when we were both students in the Queens College German Department was there as well. She, by pure chance, was Beverly’s roommate that summer, and since she was also in the Master’s Program and scheduled to go to Germany, they remained roommates in Mainz for the year.

The previous year was the end of my meager stage experience in Spanish; anything since then was in German. I’ve never appeared on stage speaking English.

That summer of 1961 the Deutsche Schule took on a major theatrical project, and the three of us became involved. We were doing nothing less than Bert Brecht’s Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder/Mother Courage and her Children (1939), a title usually shortened to the first two words. All three of us leaped at the opportunity to do Brecht.

The action takes place during the Thirty Years’ War, 1618-1648, where Protestants fought against Catholics, and Northern Europe fought against Southern Europe, with the battling taking place mostly in Germany, which lay right in the middle. Mother Courage travels in a wagon, trying to keep her three adult children together with her as a family unit. Many of the costumes consisted of ragged clothes. All three children end up getting killed; given the year the play came out, Brecht was trying to show the dreadfulness of war three centuries earlier, attempting to speak against the rise of fascism and naziism.

Rita played a major role. She was dressed as a herald and introduced each of the twelve scenes, also holding a sign with date and location of the action. This is very Brechtian; he felt the action is more meaningful is the audience disassociates itself from the action. Two doors would swing open in the upper portion of the proscenium to the right for Rita’s proclamations. Beverly’s involvement was backstage, doing makeup.

I had a very small bit part, but at least it was a speaking part. Well, if you consider one line a speaking part. But we were doing Brecht! In any case, I looked MAGNIFICENT! I played a soldier, very colorfully dressed. Big, long, orange puffy sleeves with black stripes, a white collar, brown studded tunic strung closed, a large belt buckle, brown tights, high boots, holding a tall lance at my side with an ax-like end. I was about ¾ the height of the lance as it stood on the floor. I also had a fierce, fake moustache. And an eye patch, to boot. Magnificent.

I have five slides of the show (and no longer a projector). One is a portrait of me, backstage, looking duly magnificent. On one, I’m on stage standing near a wagon, lance pointing downward, threatening someone.

As I look at the program I see that my role was that of Zweiter Soldat/Second Soldier. I frankly didn’t remember any Erster Soldat/First Soldier, but now have found one on a slide where he and I are taking someone prisoner. He’s dressed as I am, but seems to have a bright metal helmet and a flowing, bright red cape, so he looks a little more magnificent than I do!

I have two comments about my one line. It didn’t take much memorization, since I just repeated, and reworded, the line that was fed to me. But worse, it was a line in ungrammatical German. My big chance doing Brecht, and I get to speak ungrammatical German! Is there any justice in this world?

Someone had asked one of Mother Courage’s adult sons, who was a bit feeble-minded, if he knew where a path was. He answered:

(ß=ss) That clumsy English is the closest translation to that clumsy German. So then I snarl sarcastically—snarl, mind you:

My big line from Brecht—almost just a repeat of what I was fed, and in bad German at that. But at least I looked magnificent.

That wasn’t quite all. There were three times I can remember in my life where I was sick at a particularly awkward time. The third time was in the eighties, teaching middle school, where I insisted on giving the orals to all my final exams in German and Spanish with a fever, then went home early, and it turned out I had walking pneumonia. The second time was taking my final exam in Mexico City in 1967 with a roaring fever, when Beverly had to lead me slowly down the streets of Churubusco to the school (Reflections 2006 Series 16).

And the first time was the night in 1961 that we did Brecht; the program tells me it was August 5. It was a raging fever again, but I got into that massive costume. The costume was hot, so I was sweating. I had a fever, so I was sweating. I was about to go onstage, so I was sweating. I have a tendency to sweat, so I was sweating.

And the additional problem was that, because of those very high thigh boots, I couldn’t sit down. Here I was exhausted with fever, but had to stand up, leaning against a cinder-block wall backstage waiting for my scenes, lance in hand, trying to rest, with makeup-lady Beverly mopping my brow. But I looked magnificent.

Last summer (2006), for four weeks in August and September, the Public Theater in New York put on Mother Courage. None other than Meryl Streep played the title role, and names such as Kevin Kline and Austin Pendleton were also in the cast. There was no word as to who played the Second Soldier.

But I just wonder how magnificent the Second Soldier looked.