Was this the wrong room? People were running in circles, fists pumping, heads back, darting and dodging for space. And against a glassy wall at Bard’s Gehry-built arts center, a small woman with long red hair watched, fist at mouth, the other hand holding a sheaf of papers to her chest. No. This was the right room. Caitriona McLaughlin was preparing her actors to rehearse the first act of Ibsen’s “The Wild Duck.” “Remember. Hold on to the relationships you have with each other,” she cried out. “And watch your energy level,” all said with sing-songy inflections. Then she set three actors to one side, to speak their lines. The other five were to improvise party talk at the other end of the room, gesturing, jocular, rocking on their feet, laughing as assistant director Clare McKenna called out numbers: “Seven” for loud chatter, down to “two,” for low. The idea, here, was to move the action back and forth across the stage, making it natural seeming. Spontaneous. For the next hour, McLaughlin ran her actors through maybe 90 seconds of stage time. “OK. That’s exactly it,” she told them. And then she would run them again. “OK, guys. Back to the beginning. Try it once more.” “Lovely. Once more again.” It was different every time. McLaughlin is a 30-something Irish-born woman who defied her parents to study acting in secret. They thought theater people and theater life were seamy. And bleak. But they think better of her work, McLaughlin says, now that she has made a name for herself in the United Kingdom and in this country. Last summer, she directed “Judgment Day” at Bard, a weighty production complete with trains, atmopherics and serious intent. Now she is working on Ibsen’s “The Wild Duck” in a new and “lean” translation by English writer David Eldridge. This is a complicated piece about attachments, motives, class, the way people live and the lies they tell themselves to survive. To get all this across she has to reach her actors in a way that may be new to some of them. “I want my actors to learn the larger picture,” McLaughlin tells me after rehearsal. “American actors are not used to ensemble acting as I see it. There’s an attitude that you come out and you do your bit and go. But I want them to know they all have a voice that feeds the whole.” She studies them: “I’m trying to see how they work and what they will do in a corner. Then I can say, ‘You are going to the safe reaction,’ ” an isolation from the whole she aims to overcome. “The actors are finding it a little bit difficult, but they’re all going for it.” “I hope it works,” she tells me. And if it doesn’t? A lttle shrug. “We can always simplify.” Henrik Ibsen’s “The Wild Duck” runs at Bard’s Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, July 13 - 23. For tickets and information, call 845-758-7900, or go to www.fishercenter.bard.edu.
Latest News
HELP WANTED
Carpenters Wanted: Local established company looking for qualified carpenters. Segalla's TurnKey Housing, LLC is looking for a few carpenters with varying levels of expertise to join an established team. Must be able to work well with others performing a varied list of tasks from siding and framing to finish trim. Competitive wages, 401K, paid holidays, vacation and health insurance offered. Please contact us at 860-824-0019.
Wanted: a mechanic to service my small Husqvarna Z254F zero-turn lawn mower. I'm in Lakeville. 860-435-2660.
Full-time Warehouse and Office positions available in Sharon, CT. We're looking for dependable, self-motivated individuals who are ready to work and take pride in doing a good job. Pay is $22 to $30 an hour, depending on experience. Applicants must have reliable transportation, be dependable and on time every day, be self-motivated and able to work independently, have a positive attitude and good work ethic. Interested? Call Mike or Greg at 800-245-8222 for more information.
TAG SALES SALISBURY, CT
ESTATE SALE 76 Factory St. Salisbury, CT. Furniture, Rugs, Household items, Art, Books, & More. Friday-Sunday October 9, 10, 11. 9-3 pm. No Early Birds.
TAG SALES LAKEVILLE, CT
ESTATE AND FAMILY TAG SALE 27 Indian Mountain Rd, Lakeville. Saturday, October 10, 8 am-4pm. Rain Date, October 11. Lots of arts and crafts supplies plus artwork old and new, jewelry, games, household items, and furniture. Many items are one of a kind. Everything priced to sell. Cash, Venmo, and credit/debit cards accepted. Easy parking.
HOUSE FOR RENT
2 Bedroom House. Millerton, NY. Quiet. 4 miles from town. No Dogs. $2400 monthly, plus utilities. 518-567-8277.
Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.
Dick Hermans in the Oblong Bookstore on Millerton\u2019s Main Street in 1985.
Provided
For Hermans, the award has prompted some reflection about why he has spent so much of his life involved in community projects.
“I was thinking about it this morning: Why do I do what I do?” he said. “And I think no matter what I’ve done, whether it’s been school board or rail trail, I’m trying to be useful to the communities I’m associated with.”
Hermans is perhaps best known as the longtime co-founder and steward of Oblong Books in Millerton, a business that began almost by accident. He and his former partner, Holly Nelson, were living in Millerton and looking for something to do during the winter. They had been painting houses, including the Grange Hall in Millerton, a job Hermans got through his aunt, who belonged to the Grange.
At the time, Hermans was also working in insurance for his father, doing collections.
“It was fine except I was doing collections, and it really kind of left me cold,” he said.
He and Nelson began thinking about what they might do together. Nelson was an avid reader, while Hermans had studied journalism and had worked in a record store. They noticed a chain of book and record stores operating elsewhere in the Hudson Valley and decided to follow that model.
And so Oblong was born.
Dick Hermans in the Oblong Bookstore on Millerton’s Main Street in 1985.Provided
“We really learned it by the seat of our pants,” Hermans said.
The business would eventually become a beloved and integral part of Millerton’s commercial life. But although Hermans may have learned the book business as he went, his affinity for retail — and for the connections that happen across a counter — had begun much earlier.
As a child, his second-grade teacher operated a little cardboard pencil shop in the classroom, and Hermans still remembers the satisfaction of selling a pencil for a nickel.
“I really liked selling somebody a pencil for a nickel,” he recalled. “I can remember that experience, and it was so pleasant.”
Later, while living in Arizona, he helped establish a food co-op and worked at the counter.
“I kind of knew that I liked doing that kind of thing,” he said. “It’s a nice way to be pleasant with people, but without making too much commitment to them.”
His relationship with Millerton also predates Oblong. His grandparents lived in the village, and he first came to Millerton as a baby. Over the years, he has watched the town change through several generations.
He remembers a Millerton with a much broader array of businesses, when stores such as Delson’s, the Main Street department store that stood for nearly 40 years in what is now Millerton’s Antiques Center, seemed to carry almost everything a resident might need.
“You could find everything from a set of dishes to a shotgun,” he recalled.
The rise of shopping malls changed that kind of downtown retail, he said, but Millerton has remained a lively commercial village.
“For us, it’s been a great place to have business,” Hermans said. “It’s a busy village.”
For Hermans, running a store was never simply about selling books and records. It was a way of being part of a place.
Music has remained another constant. Hermans continues to sell music at Oblong and hosts the radio program “New Harmony” on WKZE. The business of selling music has changed dramatically over the years, particularly with the rise of streaming, but Hermans has adapted.
He was initially reluctant to bring vinyl records back into the store because of their expense. But about four or five years ago, he began stocking LPs again, and they have become the main form of music the store sells.
He finds that many of the customers buying them are reconnecting with music they loved years ago.
“I do best with classic albums that people may have had when they were young,” he said. “And now that they’re retired, they want to hear it again.”
Hermans still reviews between 700 and 1,200 new music releases each week through the store’s distributor, Alliance Entertainment, carefully deciding what belongs on Oblong’s shelves.
That same commitment to place has led Hermans into a wide range of community projects. His work with the Harlem Valley Rail Trail is among the efforts he mentions when reflecting on his years of civic involvement. He has also served on the school board and has been involved with the Millerton Business Alliance and the Irondale Schoolhouse. He is now involved with The New Pine Plains Herald, which he sees as complementary to the work of The Millerton News and The Lakeville Journal.
“I really think that the important thing about this award is that people understand what a newspaper does to connect them to their community,” he said. “And if that means anything to their lives, they gotta support it.”
Hermans knew Mary Lou and Robert Estabrook and remembers them as people who were deeply conscious of their responsibilities to the community.
“They were really nice folks,” he said. “They were very conscious of what their role in the community was.”
There is, in fact, still plenty on his plate. Hermans admits he needs to scale back because he has taken on more than his current abilities can comfortably accommodate.
“To be given this award is very special,” he added. “But I don’t feel like I’m done.”
This article has been changed to reflect that Hermans and Nelson were partners. A prior version states that they were married.
Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.
