I dated a while and to pass the time, I got back into community theater, where I eventually met my first wife. We met at tryout rehersals in Holyoke for a play called "Seperate Tables." Now I had never heard of this show nor knew anything about it. Thought it might be about carpenters making fine furniture, and as I love to work with wood I thought this would be perfect for me. I even had my own tools.
I entered this building off Appleton Street to a large room with several chairs and was greeted by a smiling lady with salt and pepper hair. She said, "Good Evening, I'm Eileen Hall and I will be your director." WOW..guess I got the part already. Her first words to me sounded like a female version of the old Alfred Hitchcock TV show, complete with accent. A few others showed up including the woman who would be my first wife, and by the end of that evening I had the part but was not too thrilled with it as Seperate Tables is somewhat of a stuffy English play but there was nothing good on TV that month so I figured what the hell, I'll do it.
That evening was my first encounter with Mrs. Hall. That was what everyone always called her. Not Eileen..nobody would do that. It was from then on, "Meeses Hall."
We rehearsed for several weeks and did the play 5 times I believe to small audiences and that was that. I did strike up quite a friendship with this amazing woman, we parted our ways, and that was that.
A few months passed by, and one evening the phone rang. I answered and was greeted by, "Well hello George, this is Eileen Hall, and I think I need you dear." I said, " Mrs. Hall, I like you but I don't think it would work because of our age difference." Dead silence. Then rolling laughter. She said she missed me for things like that,but getting down to business, she asked if I had ever heard of the Late Christopher Bean. I said, "No, did he live in Holyoke?" Again, dead silence and then laughter, She said," No,no silly boy, it's a play. I informed her I had no idea and I think I questioned her as to where she found these odd plays. I was told I would be perfect for the show and I was to meet her at the Holyoke Soldies Home as that's where we would be putting on the show. I thought this will be curious. Doing a play for World War One soldiers who were in their eighties. We would have to talk louder I guess.
We had a guy she cast in a part that got bombed out of his skull during every rehersal. After a few weeks of this, Mrs. Hall said she will have to talk to him about this. That night she did. She kept him in the show. He stayed popped, but assured here on the performance nights, he would be sober.
We did two weekends there and he was tanked. One night they found him passed out somewhere a half hour before the performance, but the show must go on. Most of the dialogue with him was with my character and he remembered about 4% of his lines, so I found myself rewording things to fill in for him, all impromptu every night. Somehow we got through it and although I loved Mrs. Hall, I vowed I would not do another dippy play that she was directing.
Christopher Bean was in the summer of 1971 and I got involved in another theater group doing some other play in Westfield. I had not heard from Mrs. Hall for some time. In early December of that year that all changed.
I had spoken with her several times on the phone over the past year and I noticed something about her unique style. She had a veddy English dialogue, and when she wanted you to do something, she wouldn't ask, rather, would premise her request by saying, " I need you to"....whatever. This was her way and it was perfectly acceptable to me.
So the phone rings..." Well, hello there George, this is Eileen Hall." Oh, great. She wants me to be in the musical Jack The Ripper I bet. She continues."I need you to be at my home on the 17th please..terribly important"
" You need help with something that day, Mrs. Hall?'
"Well, dear, please just be here at 7 that evening, and I'll explain. Goodbye dear." What the hell is going on now?
I left my house around 6:30 on the 17th and drove to her house near Irene Street in Chicopee. There were a few cars in front of her house. I was greeted at the door, and recognized some people, actors, and a few others I didn't know. House decorated, goodies and wine on every table. Mrs. Hall appreciated a nip or 12 every now and then, but only on special occasions. Like the wind blows or a car drives by. I questioned those I knew as to what is this all about? Just a Christmas party? No one knew.
A few more show up and now there's about 12 of us. Mrs. Hall enters the living room and instructs all of us to sit. She then reaches into a bag and removes a handful of what look like scripts. Oh no...please say it ain't so Joe. She passes them out to everybody. Nobody has any idea what these things are. We look at these things. Scripts? No....no, that would be too expected. They were books of.....are you ready? Christmas carols. The whole group of us we were told, were going to go out in the neighborhood, up and down the streets, singing Christmas carols...accapella. The looks on everyone's faces were like people looked the day the twin towers went down. Christmas carols? This is a gag, right?
"And here's a small flashlight for everyone."
Why me Lord? Why me?
So we all don our gay apparel and head out into 10 degrees to sing Christmas Carols, slowly parading down the street. First song, nobody had their voice right. Sucked, but this was Mrs. Hall, and I guess she was the director. She was giving us voice lessons as mad Christmas shoppers drove around us blowing their horns.
Then something amazing happened. We sounded good...we sounded together. We were beginning to like this.
In every old Christmas movie some carolers are featured somewhere outside singing. Seems nobody ever does this any more, but we were actually singing live carols, on the street, and starting to sing our hearts out. People were actually coming out of their houses to listen. All of us were invited into two houses and fed snacks and spiked punch or eggnog or both. It was the most amazing feeling. I finally got it...the Christmas spirit. For the first time in years, something came over all of us and we started singing our hearts out.
We were out there for about two hours, we with our carol books, Mrs. Hall with the flask of something in her bra...to keep warm no doubt.
We went back to the house, sat briefly and all shared this amazing feeling that happened in a neighborhood on the side streets of a Massachusetts city.
Folks started to leave, and as I was getting ready to go, she gave me a huge hug and thanked me so much for coming.
I said, " Mrs. Hall, why didn't you tell everyone what you were planning tonight?" She responded with, " Well then dear, you wouldn't have come now would you?"
She was right and I know I would have thought it was a stupid idea. A stupid idea? Why is it then, after 40 years, not a Christmas arrives when I don't think of that warm wonderful night so long ago. The simple things in life, always free. Christmas Carols with friends, and a lifetime memory for those of us who were there.
I did one more show, The Odd Couple. She said she needed a slob type to play Oscar...so of course she cast me.
I moved out of state for a few years. Tried to contact her when I got back, but she had moved and I didn't know where she was.
One night I was watching something on PBS and they ran a promo for a program called Independant Lens. The next show they were airing was featuring a singing group from Northampton named "Forever Young" This is a group of senior citizens singing fairly new rock music, and right in the middle of this promo I see this full face of a woman singing,"Should I stay or should I go?
" I think I jumped out of the chair. It was Mrs. Hall.
The next day I called Dave Frasier at WGBY and asked him where these people could be contacted. He called me back an hour later and told me the show was filmed over a year earlier, and that a few of the members had passed away. I asked him who they were. The first name he gave me? Eileen Hall.
I did cry..just another grand example of Murphy's Law. Think of her every year, finally find out where she is, but find out too late.
Some people never leave your heart and some people who do something that can change your life, never leave your life. So is the case with a loony English woman who loved the theater, a bawdy joke, a pint of Guiness, and a lot of laughter. I wish all who read this could have known her. She'd be in your heart always too.
Thanks, Mrs. Hall...sleep in heavenly peace.
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