Being an actor, I find is a lot like being a student for life. The necessary homework in order to wrap your head around a time, place and circumstance which you will inevitably be asked to portray and know nothing about, is only part of why acting ain't for sissies.
…And I am one. An actor, that is.
Last assignment took me on a tour of Holland and Ravensbruck Concentration camp in the 1940's as a 50-year-old Dutch woman named Corrie ten Boom. This time, I've been cast as Jewish-Atheist-Materialist-Communist Joy Davidman, turned Christian writer and wife of beloved biblical essayist and children's author, C.S. Lewis.
Being a non-denominational Irish/Latina raised by a Catholic mother, obviously I have quite a lot of work to do between now and this February's Opening Night. As such, I launched in knee deep online and at the library in search of essential biographical materials to point me in the right direction beginning a scant month ago.
Having collected a sizable amount of general knowledge thanks to web searches before launching into bookwork, I was surprised to find quite a number of interesting facts, not least of which included a sizable body of literary work by Davidman before she had even met Lewis, as well as a shared Poetry Award with Robert Frost. How is it then, that I could know next to nothing about her, save the well published fact that she was the wife of possibly the most influential Theologian of modern times?
Born April 18, 1915 in New York to middle-class Jewish immigrant parents, Joy Davidman was raised in a secular home, fighting for acceptance and respect from her Atheist father by following in his footsteps. By the tender age of 8, she declared herself an Atheist as well, by the age of 15 began her first year at Hunter College, and completed her Masters in French and English from Columbia, before age 20. At a time when higher education for women was anything but the norm, she had actually broken the scales of the National I.Q. test scoring before exiting grade school, and was a gifted musician who could hear a sonata once and play it back note-for-note per photographic memory.
A brilliant artist of debate, Davidman filled the spiritual hole where most place religion, with undying faith in Communism early in her College career after witnessing a Depression-era starved orphan throw herself from hunger off a building during a lecture in class one day. This haunting image, never seeming to leave her, pushed her strongly to act adversely to all things Capitalistic, a viewpoint she believed was directly responsible for the cancerous economic structure at the time, going so far as to sever friendships not supportive of her political thinking, and launching herself head over heels into the party's P.R. system through articles and poetry publications.
Davidman's first novel (a collection of poetry), Letter to a Comrade, proved the genius at which her artistry and political activism could be weaved in a love letter to the masses of the cultural mores she believed could break down fascism, and racism, challenge class hierarchy and the ever on-going gender wars. It was for this work she received her highest literary honor (and co-billing with Robert Frost in the history books), the Loines Memorial Fund Award, sponsored by the National Institute of Arts and Letters. Healing was at hand, Davidman wanted to be a part of it, and the literary world was more than willing to listen.
Meeting and marrying co-party member (and fellow writer) William Gresham in 1942, Davidman continued to publish literary works as part of her outreach to a Nation, becoming eventual bread-winner of the newly growing family when sons David and Douglas were born (1944 and 1945 respectively), due to Bill's ongoing battle with alcoholism and habit of skirt-chasing.
With focus now wielded on new responsibilities, her tireless efforts for the Communist Party began to recede, at first due to time allotment, and later in disillusionment between the difference of what the party “preached” versus what they practiced. “I learned that "love of the people" turned into quite specific hatred of the people's enemies, and that the enemies of the people were all those of every class and opinion who happened to disagree with the party,” she wrote later is retrospect.
Isolated in a new home locate 20 miles north of Queens, (a location change hoping to ease Bill off of overly accessible booze and women), with family finances nearing the breaking point, and two infant sons to care for, Bill managed a final splurge that sent him over the edge, threatening to take Davidman along for the ride. Emotionally and physically spent, Davidman the “iron-materialist,” as she described herself, had a spiritual awakening one evening as she received a call from her husband saying he wasn't going to be coming home again.
