Chapter Eleven
After returning to America in 1995, I went back to Ireland in the summer of 1996. Peter Sheridan was directing a production of Neil Simon’s Brighton Beach Memoirs and wanted me to play the role of Kate. We would open at the Andrews Lane Theatre in Dublin, move to the Theatre Royal in Waterford, then take the show around Ireland. Peter never doubted that the universal humor and familiarity of the interactions among Simon’s Jewish characters would resonate with Irish audiences. During rehearsals, when Peter wanted to help me find an emotion, he’d relate an anecdote from among the many he’d accumulated growing up in a large Irish Catholic family in North Dublin. Invariably the story he chose evoked the desired emotion, though I had yet to find exactly where Kate was in me.
As the only Jewish American cast member I became the default dialect coach for the Irish and British actors. My biggest challenge was young Alan King, who eventually overcame his thick North Dublin accent to become entirely convincing as Kate’s son Stanley. I consulted my father, then eighty, over the phone about such details as what type of head covering my character should wear while lighting the Sabbath candles. He recommended I go to the Jewish quarter in Dublin. And could he remind me of the melody of the Chanukah prayer? He could and did. At the end of every performance, when my character lit the Chanukah candles, it was I, Carole, who sang the prayer my father had taught me with the tune that he had learned when he was a little boy:
“Baruch atah Adonai, eloheinu melech ha’olam, asher kidishanu b’mitz’votav v’tsivanu l’hadlik neir shel Chanukah. Ah-mein.”
In the late twentieth century the melodies of many traditional Jewish prayers were being modernized. I was not a fan of the major-key version of the Chanukah prayer. In 2011, at the suggestion of my daughter Louise, who produced my album A Holiday Carole, I recorded the traditional Chanukah prayer with its traditional melody. Louise arranged the prayer into a song form, then she and her son sang it with me. The last vocal we hear on that track is then eight-year-old Hayden singing, “L’hadlik neir shel Chanukah…” Tears come to my eyes every time I hear the prayer of our ancestors marching forward to future generations through my grandson, my daughter, and me.
Neil Simon’s character Kate was around forty. I was then fifty-four, but women of Kate’s generation often looked older than their years. In fact, Kate’s life experience was not unlike that of my Grandma Sarah. The problem was that I had no personal knowledge of my grandmother at Kate’s age as anything but “Grandma.” Though Peter’s stories had been helpful, I still hadn’t found Kate in me. My mother came to the rescue. She traveled to Dublin to celebrate her eightieth birthday with me and coach me in the role. Her gift for directing actors, familiarity with the character, and understanding of how to convey her knowledge to me gave me enough confidence to feel on opening night that I had command of the role. With audience reinforcement, my confidence continued to grow until the night I found myself channeling my grandmother. I had experienced something similar with Mrs. Johnstone, except this character was someone whose genes I carried. When I spoke Kate’s lines that night I was deeply affected by my grandmother’s frustration. Thankfully, Peter helped me make the distinction between myself as an actor and the emotions of my character. The run lasted nearly three months—long enough for me to explore different facets of Kate, but not so long that I grew weary of playing her.
When the show was over I went to a castle in France to write with other songwriters at a semiannual gathering hosted by Miles Copeland. Miles was known for managing the Police and creating music industry companies with three letters and three periods. The best known was I.R.S. During my week at the castle I again connected with music and established friendships with songwriters that continue to this day. After my return to the United States in the fall of 1996, the rest of that year was not a happy time. John and I saw the end of our relationship approaching, and by the beginning of 1997 it was time. Though an ending had been understood from the beginning, I took it hard. I was stuck in pain, grief, loss, and depression for nearly eight months. It was one of the rare periods in my life when I was too miserable to eat—a diet I do not recommend. I was just beginning to rediscover my happier self and appreciate my status as a free, independent, unattached woman when I met Phil Alden Robinson in October 1997. I was already familiar with his work as the screenwriter of All of Me and the screenwriter and director of Field of Dreams. I became romantically involved with this kind, intelligent, and gifted man and remained with him for seven years until we realized that his ties to Los Angeles and mine to Idaho made us geographically incompatible.
In 1998, with encouragement from my friend Carole Bayer Sager, I coproduced an album called Love Makes the World with Humberto Gatica, whose collection of Grammys for producing and engineering would require several mantels. Humberto is known for his work with artists whose superior sound is as instantly recognizable as their first names: Céline, Barbra, Bette, Chaka, Mariah, Cher, three Michaels, and three Kennys.* Then there are the Latinos: Gloria, Julio, Marc, Ricky, Olga, and two Alejandros.†
I lost my father on November 10, 1998. He was eighty-two.
Yizkor elohim et nishmat avi mori…
May God remember the soul of my father, my teacher.