It's been a few days since Armistice Day 2020 has come and gone. An eerie time like some of those moments of silence in the trenches long ago. Foggy October has become foggy and dim November, each lantern and star illuminating the darkening world. It's fitting that in such darkening times the day of remembrance should lift its light up to the road ahead. Many of us Americans look forward to Thanksgiving, and Christmastime thereafter to give joviality and light center stage in clutching days of late Autumn. Armistice day 2018 was a Remembrance Day like no other before, and none after, would be. The 100th anniversary of the end of The Great War held an immeasurable moment in time for me, ornamental, even, like a delicate crystal bauble decorated with ephemeral frost. It is strange that only now it should come to me to reflect upon the time in a great hall in Boulder, Colorado, the snow-capped peaks all around us, and the softest white snow coming down from above.
A well known Colorado orchestra was performing in honor of this special occasion. I was on tour with Lightweight Theatre performing the Michael Burton original, "This War is Not Inevitable" in which attempts are made to introduce "The Threefold Social Organism", a theory scholar Rudolf Steiner unrelentingly presented to Parliament, and a theory he believed would stop the Germans from ever entering the War. The nature of the play's theme, and some difficulty around its performance in Colorado, hindered us from performing on Armistice Day itself. We did manage, however, to put on a show during that same week. Being connected to the play's time period so closely, and playing a character, Emil Molt, who as a businessman and entrepreneur, endeavored with Rudolf Steiner to shorten the war, gave this day an even more heightened reverence and meaning to me.
Being an actor in a play can continue the gift of learning history, politics, inspiration, life, death, wonder, sharing those stories that you learn about, and bringing to life the people who played their parts all that time ago. I felt that there were some workings of divine intervention that led me onto the stage about a forward-thinking, esoteric philosopher, a German businessman with a heart of gold, and one of the most influential moments in modern history, all culminating on a winter's day in Colorado. Emil Molt was someone I began spending time with at the beginning of November a year previous. November 2017 was when I officially confirmed to take part in the Lightweight Theatre production, my first dissection of the script in the quiet holiday season leading up to Armistice Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Molt was someone of great and unknown influence leading up to the Great War and would continue to be an unknown hero to many after the Armistice. "The Multifaceted Life of Emil Molt" written by a relative of his some years later, was one of the first books I began with, along with "The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich" by William M. Shirer, "The Founding of the First Waldorf School in Stuttgart" by Johannes Treutz and "World Economy" by Rudolf Steiner himself. Shirer's' "Third Reich" delves into much of the lead up to World War 2 and the eventual dissipation of the Third Reich. It does not spend much time on events leading towards the outbreak of the First World War other than following the string of events as it pertains to the rise of Adolf Hitler himself through WW1, and furthermore, is a first-hand account of a journalist who experienced the climate as it was happening in 1930's Berlin, who was present at the Nuremberg Trials and who was one of a rare few Allies who had access to classified German files. Seeing the contrasting forces of this period in time made itself undoubtedly apparent as a central theme rooted in the fabric of time and space. It was something that I felt was vital to live in each theatre when Emil Molt and Dr. Steiner took their places under the spotlight. The mirroring forces of progress and humanity that had represented so much of Germany's history up until that point in art, music, philosophy, painting and writing was being directly challenged by a looming shadow of the Third Reich, and a hostile, cold, and militant machine-like quality. It was two forces that would clash in the spirit of the German people and in this lay a connection between Rudolf Steiner, and Adolf Hitler: "STEINER: And in that humiliation there lay the inevitability of future conflict. The "war to end all wars" had been concluded with a "peace to end all peace." The forces that would bring another great conflagration into the world were already gathering. Later on, Ludendorff he who had caused so much blood to flow in the war made much of how Germany had been betrayed, "stabbed in the back", he said, by her own government. Adolf Hitler stood behind him. [There is a pause as Steiner ponders the consequences.] STEINER: The world will not now be free of war for a very long time (1)" ] A quote paraphrased from a lecture series given by the man himself during the Wartime (citation pending).
I was eager to grasp the environment in which all these personalities inhabited, how the influence of early 20th century Germany formed the partnerships of Molt and Steiner amidst the glowing embers in a radical country. It seemed to me a time teeming with movement and ideas, changing tides and possibilities for both good and ill.
The drama was not only meant for the stage, however. Coming into Denver, and Colorado as a whole, meant certain sundering implications for my stage cohort and author of the play, Michael. There were many rifts being formed around this play at the local community levels and on personal levels, rifts that I could only watch from the wings. Lightweight Theatre was preparing to take on these mirroring forces at a time that we would consider our most important and poignant for "This War is Not Inevitable": performing on Armistice Day. We had nonetheless been warned to be extra vigilant of the climate in Colorado. The Mile High city's thin air could prove dangerous mixed with exhaustion, dehydration, and any other health conditions. Being at high altitudes is notoriously dangerous under the wrong circumstances, athletes need oxygen tanks, mountain climbing can be at higher risk of being rendered unconscious.
It was at the climax of the orchestra's performance when I turned to see my colleague was no longer in his seat. The days leading up to Armistice Day certainly felt like an internal struggle, conflicting energies surrounding our play created barriers preventing "This War is Not Inevitable" to breathe in its full capacity, for us to immerse ourselves in it, and thus threw us in the trenches of our own. "It's almost 3 AM, the shells are not falling now", the opening lines of the performance rang in my ear every so often in our own moments of peace. The standing ovation allowed me to escape out of my aisle seat to look for Michael and Kathy. Our hosts had been seated away from us and had not yet noticed the missing person. Michael had been experiencing chest pains throughout the time since our arrival, and I had a sinking feeling this may be the culprit. When I found Michael near the exit, slumped against seated and clutching his chest I could only fear the worst, was his arm going numb, was his chest seizing? Luckily two nurses were already tending to the defacto Dr. Steiner, one of whom was already his wife. Our hosts quickly gathered their things when we relayed the news of Michael's attack, and we rushed as fast as the ice-slicked slope formerly known as stairs, would allow. Our trip to the hospital went as smoothly as an emergency during snowfall can go, and we made it in time to admit Michael to the Emergency Room.
It was the first medical emergency there had been in a year of working on "This War", and while the trumpets were sounding to end The Great War, they were also sounding to end the tour of "This War". NAMBA ARTS in California on November 17th-19th would end the road for us, too. Now with a heart condition in tow, it would throw an obstacle in the way on the home straight. Whether Steiner would collapse onstage during the finale would be a Black Swan moment for sure, traumatizing a young actor and the wife in his last moments of glory.I was really hoping we wouldn't have to go through that, especially since NAMBA kindly filmed the entire play in High Definition. Now on November 19th, 2020 it is the two-year anniversary of the cessation of our play, and the anniversary week of the 100th Year Armistice Day Play, where two men and a nurse/lighting/sound lady/wife would show the world that "This War" was not inevitable.
(1) p.19, This War is Not Inevitable, M.H. Burton, 2017
