The fledgling Wingate Street Micro Theatre
practices the art of not being seen within

The Very Microbes of Haverhill

By Douglas McDaniel
Mythville MetaMedia

In a better world, instead of the convergent one imploding with too many icons and multi-media diversions, the medium cool of the Merrimack River would be the message in Haverhill.

This river that runs through New England, called the Mer O Wac by the original aboriginal people who first found it useful, has banks laden with gorgeous red brick “satanic mills.” These dirt-rent cheap antiques from the post-industrial world are now rendered into technological target zones for the post-new economy.

Such towns as Lawrence and Lowell are communities crying out for renewal. While Lowell, in celebrating its past, everything from its literary native, Jack Kerouac, to its national park legacy to the quilt masters of yesteryear, some fret that Lawrence is a lost cause, while others, true believers trying to make something happen, are looking that self-defeating demon right in the eye.

Haverhill is somewhere in the middle. The true believers of Haverhill are celebrating the self-defeating demon. The riverside town’s very gravitational force can be found in the glorious past (and perhaps, present) of its Masonic Lodge in the center of town, overlooking everything. Indeed, the mysteries of Freemasonry lend an insidious quality to the place. And most of the locals you talk to kind of dig it.

“There’s something weird about this town,” says, maybe winks, the co-owner of the Invester’s Internet Café, across the street from the Masonic Lodge, which is also the home of Haverhill Beef, a place recently targeted by tricksters who threw a bag of white powder at its front steps as, perhaps (perhaps not), a pre-Halloween prank, and, another hassle for HazMat.

Yes, there’s a lot of drama in Haverhill, and comedy, too. A self-effacing, Rodney Dangerfield sort of funny. As the birthplace to the original Archie’s comix and current home of all kinds of shoot-yourself-in-the-foot style socio-political shennigans (hardly unique to Haverhill, except for the mean-spirited style that might take place in such a world-weary town), it has been said that when it comes to show business, if you can fail in Haverhill, you can fail anywhere.

A good example of that can be found in the ad-hoc slogan for the Wingate Street Micro Theatre: “This is a good place not to be seen.” That’s because most North Shore residents who know better couldn’t be forced to go to Haverhill even if they were bound, gagged and nailed in a coffin to be dragged there. Go ahead. Try it. Tell someone you want to see political satire at the Wingate Street Micro Theatre, 45 Wingate St., in the Haverhill Arts District, and they will look at you like a deer with headlights in its eyes.

Which is why Brian Longwell, the theater’s owner, decided to first try to use the available materials, that is, draw from the locals, to get his micro theater project started in the old Kelly Block building. Fortunately, he didn’t have to look too far. One of the better Irish pubs in the vicinity, the Peddler’s Daughter, was located at the basement level of the Wingate Street facility.

“I wanted to do the theater, and I felt the first thing I need to do is get a good restaurant,” Longwell said from his software company’s office on the third floor of the building. “So I associated it with a better class of drunk,” he says, borrowing a line from the Peddler’s Daughter proprietor, Michael Conneely.

Next, he and his wife, Joan, collected all of the books they could find. In fact, their love of books is more than apparent. It’s wall-to-wall apparent. The entrance to the theater and its box office has a half-dozen or so tall shelves of used books, and theater itself, which has a seating capacity of 48, has its walls covered with books to give it a special sense of warmth, a sense that the masonry bricks of literature are the things that bond us, truly, as opposed to the red-brick kind.

“It doesn’t have to sell books,” he said of the bookstore. “Just cool books. With books on the shelf, it helps to keep the riff-raff out.”

The theater is a less-in-more venue, with four rows of seats before the stage, which in the long run results in an intimate experience for the audience. Set up for multi-faceted kinds of performances, a video projector, sound system and theatrical lighting ---- even a off-stage curtain for the so-called “man behind the curtain” or “exit, stage right” ---- allow it to be a nice hotbed for anything from political satires to musical events. With so much utility and efficiency going for it, it works best for comedy sketches, or, just stand-up jesters, Longwell says.

Call it 21st century schizoid vaudeville.

A good example is Walsh Station, an improvisational troupe that made Saturday Night Live look like the tired old warhorse that it is. Contact with the audience was everything, and the group, made up of seasoned, skilled, well-practiced wannabes who are regulars at comedy night clubs in Cambridge, delivers a riotously funny show: before just a dozen people, in Haverhill, that is. Other regulars who come to the theater not to be seen include Jimmy Tingle, the street-wise comedian Tony V and political satirist Barry Crimmins, who recently performed his one-person show, “The Dawn of a New Error.”

After an off night when nobody came to see a performance by Tony V, “Failure, a Success Story,” the observational comedian was rather matter of fact about the lack of turnout. “There will be days like these,” he mused, more concerned about how to get some dessert downstairs at the Peddler’s Daughter. Of his show, which was not shown, he says, “It’s about being comfortable with failure, and how you can set your own tone for succeeding.”

All of this talent has been gathered together for widespread disregard in Haverhill with the expertise of a true impresario, Robin Hordon, who has been serving as the artistic director and manager since the theater’s opening in October. The former artistic manager at the former Catch a Rising Star in Cambridge. In the entertainment biz, Hordon has only a few rules, but mostly he’s a no-holds barred sort of guy, which is music to the ears of a performer who would like to break out of their mold, especially their own.

“You just have to keep your clothes on,” he says, “and you have to be a good soul. You can’t be a tramp. This isn’t a place for the devious or the negative. I’m not looking for striptease. I’m looking for people that would be much more concerned about us, as opposed to concerned about themselves, who are concerned about love, healing and have a different perspective on things.”

Just like a true man behind the curtain, Hordon is the sort of man who can go on, and on, and on. His energy is as contagious as his point of view, and since he sincerely believes the best product that can be delivered is based on an artistic sense of freedom, he’s also a bring ’em in, let it happen sorta guy, too.

“Audiences enjoy to see the artist go someplace they haven’t been yet,” he says. “We market this as an artistic sandbox.”

For Hordon, the only real bottom line is humor, the very water of life, fun and renewal.

“I really believe that humor is a significant ally to understanding, healing and love,” Hordon says. “It’s been known to unfold the tightest of folded arms, gets them to be human a bit, something in spite of who they are, and what they actually think.”

That, in a nutshell, is Haverhill, too. A strange town, with a wacky sense of itself, a place with a river of humor running through its rough and knotty exterior shell.

Douglas McDaniel is a freelance writer, poet, playwright, philosopher currently living in Haverhill, MA. His new book of poetry, “The Road to Mythville,” at iuniverse.com. Other evidence of his passage can be found at http://mythville.blogspot.com/ or the much-recommended http://kachinason.blogspot.com/. He can e-mailed, for as long as we have electricity, at mythville@yahoo.com.