Hurricane Harvey shows that adversity often can make us stronger.
After Harvey, arts community sets example for an entire city
Port-a-potties are necessary evils I’ve come to expect when attending large outdoor concerts or festivals while wearing ratty blue jeans.
Port-a-potties are not what I expect when I dress for a special evening out in my best gown and heels. The first time I attended Resilience Theater, temporary home to Houston Grand Opera, it took only a preperformance encounter with the restroom to alert me to the fact that the evening would be full of surprises.
My tickets for “Julius Caesar” listed the venue as Wortham Center, but it was only about two months after Hurricane Harvey, and I knew from the news reports that floodwaters had wrecked the theater for the season, if not the year. HGO had been forced to take up residence in the less venerable George R. Brown Convention Center.
That night, I stood in front of the daunting façade of the convention center wondering how an opera could be staged in such a cavernous venue. A friend had warned me to bring a pillow to cushion the hard seats. How would the typical opera patron — one who expects luxury and grandeur — accommodate what might lay inside?
HGO was not the only arts company struggling post-Harvey. Houston Ballet got back into the studios at its Center for Dance quickly but lost its performance home at the Wortham. The Alley Theatre, only a year out from extensive restoration, was hit hard and opened its season at the University of Houston, although it now is back at its own building. Jones Hall reopened fairly quickly, but the Houston Symphony lost revenue from several canceled concerts.
Houston Ballet began its rebound by opening its season late at the Hobby Center. A glorious premiere performance of “Meyerling,” boasting vital, male-dominated power, seemed to bode well. It took ingenuity to move so quickly to a new stage, but the company also had more lasting trauma: It lost a trove of costumes for its repertoire of one-act ballets that were stored in the Wortham’s flooded basement.
Before the storm hit, staff had dashed in to move costume boxes and racks off the floor, remembering that Tropical Storm Allison had filled that basement with 4 feet of water. Unfortunately, Harvey brought a lot more.
The ballet, opera and theater companies suffered financial losses in the millions, amounts that could continue to mount if they don’t fill every seat this season.
The post-Harvey struggle may be most viscerally exemplified by HGO. For me, “Julius Caesar” had the disorienting quality of “Alice in Wonderland.”
I entered the convention center without any assurance that an opera was really taking place there. After walking what seemed like half a mile along the full length of the building, I finally found a scattering of small signs directing patrons up an escalator. At the top was a banner sporting “Welcome to Resilience Theater,” and the concourse was gussied up with modern white furniture, potted trees and bars for food and drinks. Yet nothing was really the same — these flourishes looked like islands in a sea of hallway.
Beyond them, behind a large black curtain, were makeshift risers. Chairs created rows of seating — fortunately not the bleachers I had feared — but surely not as comfortable the Wortham’s velvet seats.
The stage had no back wall, so it couldn’t accommodate traditional opera sets. Instead, the orchestra was behind the singers. This created visual interest but also a problem. Since the conductor stands just in front of the musicians, he was behind the singers. Who, then, conducts them? HGO’s answer was ingenious. A second conductor stood at the front of the stage, mimicking the orchestra director’s motions.
The set design for “Julius Caesar” incorporated a large tank (on which the Roman General entered) and portable clothing racks that suggested the singers were actors in some grand theater. Ironic, since this production took place in a fantasy theater.
Most importantly, though, HGO’s musical performance retained its auditory beauty. That, at least for me, suggested that nothing meaningful had been lost.
Indeed, something had been gained — the costumes, sets, direction and general energy of HGO implied a vigor with new luster. Sheer toughness insisted that the show must go on.
The performing arts offer an ongoing reminder of what is so amazing about our city. Like so many others, the people involved are struggling operationally, psychologically and financially, post-Harvey. Yet they have not missed a beat. Bravely, they continue to delight and enrich us.
So as I anticipate endof-year giving, I will be shifting contributions to helping out Houston’s arts organizations. I may pick a favorite or I may give to the Harvey Arts Recovery Fund (harveyartsrecovery.org), which is assisting organizations of all types and sizes. Either way, I’ll be acknowledging how much the arts give to me — despite and even because of their trials and tribulations.