Thank you, Doc and Clayton, for this morning’s messages.
I wanted to add, regarding MUCH ADO on Friday night, that the students were joyful, playful, captivating! They illuminated the text, affirming our need for Beatrice’s strength, the truth, and the ability to be vulnerable; striking a blow against the class structure. So modern.
Congratulations and thanks to them and to everyone involved!
Mary
On Tue, Aug 16, 2022 at 12:45 PM Clayton Stromberger < cstromberger@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:
What a wonderful story – I can just see Vic doing that. Beautiful. Thanks for sharing it, Doc.
As David and Mary and others have said so aptly over the past few days, what a rich and inspiring thread of emails and comments this has all been, including John’s thanks to Mike (which we all share, Mike!) for valiantly maintaining this email list. I’m grateful to all of for this feeling of listening to one another and sharing reflections.
Mary, I especially concur with your thoughts about the 2022 summer class – what a terrific group of students. They are heading home today, as are James and Laurel and their valiant assistant, David Williams, and I feel certain they have indeed had a life-changing experience at Winedale. The group of 12 (David performed in each play) ended their summer with a series of vivid, joyful, and courageous performances that I will never forget. Every time I had the opportunity to speak with one of them, or a group, their deep love and admiration for Shakespeare at Winedale and for James was very moving to me. I will always feel indebted to them for the way their efforts gave us all a space in which to gather at Winedale each weekend, a space where we could all be together for a few hours in a celebration of life and play.
To turn the clock back to 1983 again for a moment: Doc, your Vic image got me to thinking about that wonderful seriousness he could summon – his Polonius was an intense, driven man, loving to his family, fiercely protective of his daughter, a true sparring partner for John’s riveting Hamlet. And his Duke of Venice had such stern authority. David was recalling the other day how Vic took on the role of a king (Claudius, perhaps) atop our famous Fourth of July float – he looked terrific in a doublet and crown, with that set to his jaw and a regal faroff gaze.
Vic was something of a character off-stage, sometimes a puzzling one. Many of the ’83 folks will likely recall how we all thought it was such a hoot when Vic would go on and on about his vision for a film adaptation of *The Hobbit*. He was obsessed with the idea and had it all worked out. Seemed a little out there, maybe? Years later, when Peter Jackson made a fortune doing the *Lord of the Rings* films, we all suddenly had a flashback to those conversations and realized: *Damn, Vic was onto something!*
Working my way back to the 2022 summer class, I leave you with a photo from their final performance Saturday evening of the great final scene of *The Winter’s Tale*, which had all of us wiping away tears, and two snaps of the 2022 team’s traditional end-of-summer painted wooden cow. I suspect that David Williams, who played the Bear so wonderfully, ambling in on all fours, was responsible for one particularly powerful image, a thing of wonder…. I will certainly miss seeing and hearing this class in action. Congratulations to James, Laurel, David and the whole team, including new program coordinator Allison Dillon, a former student of James’s who previously worked for two years as Outreach Assistant, and the amazing Maxine Lain, Round Top’s queen of costume-making, and finally, James’s former student Renae Jackson, who was there to assist Maxine but now has to return to Austin High to teach English literature. We wish you all calm seas, auspicious gales, and sail so expeditious that shall catch your royal fleet far off…
Love,
cs
*From: *James Ayres jayres@cvctx.com *Date: *Monday, August 15, 2022 at 4:41 PM *To: *Clayton Stromberger cstromberger@austin.utexas.edu *Cc: *David Sharpe dpsharpeaustin@gmail.com, Heather Dolstra < heather@democracytravel.com>, Shakespeare at Winedale 1970-2000 alums < winedale-l@lists.wikimedia.org> *Subject: *Re: [Winedale-l] Victor Hauser, A Remembrance
Clayton:
Thank you for your story about Vic and David, the song, the photos. And thank you David, for your story and your caring. These are tributes not only to Vic, but to the band of brothers.
Vic’s “reawakening” is something we all yearn for I think, “rich and strange,” a cherished moment of re-experiencing and reflecting, reunion, and embrace. Thank you for joining him for that adventure and now sharing it with us. These stories belong in the Winedale archives since they are so valuable a part of our past. One special “Vic” moment I remember from ’83: late one evening I crawled through the door and orange-lit hallway of that old farmhouse we used for costumes to pick us photos we’d been developing there and heard a very low voice whispering “why day is day, night, night, and time is time.” There in a dark corner sat our Polonius, who, for the moment, was not in court, not “on stage,” but quietly feeling and finding his way through gentleness.
Doc
On Aug 15, 2022, at 9:59 AM, Clayton Stromberger < cstromberger@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:
Dear David –
Thank you for this beautiful note about Vic.
We had all lost touch with Vic after our 1983 summer, and I had often wondered what had happened to him. Then one day in 2017 I received a friend request on Facebook from a Victor Hauser. *Vic!* I immediately sent him a message and a conversation began. What I learned from him over the coming weeks as we reconnected was profoundly surprising and moving to me. He described a harrowing journey with cancer and other health issues and how in the depths of his despair, he began to think deeply about the times in his life when he had felt most alive and most connected to others – and in the midst of that darkness, his summer at Winedale began to re-emerge into his consciousness. He had sort of “forgotten” about Winedale in the whirl of a busy and challenging life, he said. “For nearly 35 years, Winedale has faded away in my mind until now I basically have no memories of my time there at all,” he wrote. “A few misty fragments, but no real memories.” His request to me: Help me recover those memories and reconnect with folks from that summer.
A month or so later, a group of us – I believe it was me, David, Steve Price, and James – arrived at Vic’s small apartment, where he excited greeted us and then proudly served us a lunch that he had cooked. He himself was unable to eat solid foods, due to his throat cancer after-effects, and thus had to drink a protein shake, but he insisted that we have second helpings of fettuccine alfredo and garlic bread. And so we sat together and told stories and caught up and laughingly recalled how our quirky personalities all bumped into one another joyfully and productively that summer of ’83.
Then that July, Steve, David and I were able to get Vic out to Winedale, as Dave recounted. James and his class sweetly greeted him in the Barn, shared some performances of scenes, and listened intently as Vic told his story of Winedale as a life-changing experience. He challenged the students to look into the future and see *now* how special this time would seem decades later. At the end of his talk, Vic spoke about how excited he was to learn that James had become the second director of the program. It was almost a Rip Van Winkle moment as Vic connected with the current Shakespeare at Winedale program and stepped onto the Barn stage for the first time in decades.
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Then, over the next five years, the most remarkable element of this reconnection emerged, which was the steady and patient devotion that David showed as he took on Vic as a new friend. David saw a need and stepped up. I began to hear about weekly visits by Dave to Vic’s apartment, where Vic would gleefully share his latest musical and filmic passions. I think Mr. Sharpe, not naturally drawn to bodice-ripping medieval-futuristic television dramas, hung in there with “Game of Thrones” for quite a while until he finally had to beg off – Dave can correct me if I have the series wrong… But as with Rick and Louie at the end of*Casablanca*, it was the start of a beautiful and unexpected friendship. None of us had particularly bonded with Vic in ’83; he could be aloof at times, peremptory, comically self-assured. (Hey, we all had our quirks, as I said earlier…). So it was a delight to hear about how our Shylock and our Duke of Venice were now hanging out and just being pals. David’s steadfast generosity and thoughtfulness was an inspiration when the rest of us were too spread-thin with work or family life or the covid pandemic to make regular visits to see Vic.
As Vic’s health declined, it was David who was there to take him to a medical appointment, and to update a group of us by email on how things were going. And it was David who led those of us who were in Austin last week to a final gathering in Vic’s presence at Christopher House on Thursday night. For a few hours, Dave, Mark Bouler and I sat next to Vic, retold the old tales, and played music by his absolute favorite singer in the world, Diana Ankudinova. He would occasionally send us rapturous emails about Diana, insisting that we listen NOW to a new youtube clip featuring her ethereal singing. In one Vic wrote: “Diana sings with such passion! I think that what Diana has suffered in her life gives her a fire that she lets loose through her music.”
Vic knew about suffering. My one regret from Thursday night was that I didn’t say out loud to Vic what I felt later: Thank you. His courage and lack of self-pity in the past few years was stunning; it’s something I’ll never forget.
David, I’ll always be grateful to you for the privilege of being with Vic in some of his final moments. If he’d woken up while we were there, I’m sure he would have blurted out, “Mark Bouler!” with a big grin.
I leave you with the Diana A. song that Vic told us was the most “goosebumpy.” The nurse at Christopher House told us that during the “transitioning” time, hearing is the final sense to go, so I feel certain Vic heard this beautiful song as he slept on Thursday night. And I know he would have been thrilled to share this clip with all of you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDPxDSsW7bs https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DzDPxDSsW7bs&data=05%7C01%7C%7C191b15c1904c4e0c407c08da7f06f617%7C31d7e2a5bdd8414e9e97bea998ebdfe1%7C0%7C0%7C637961965127057809%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=TapO4eBJXf7gDZ6hHR5gWrl5iJV674PBlxypsqE0J6c%3D&reserved=0
Love to all,
cs
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“Very like a whale….”
*From: *David Sharpe dpsharpeaustin@gmail.com *Date: *Sunday, August 14, 2022 at 8:54 PM *To: *Heather Dolstra heather@democracytravel.com *Cc: *Shakespeare at Winedale 1970-2000 alums < winedale-l@lists.wikimedia.org> *Subject: *[Winedale-l] Re: Fwd: Victor Hauser, A Remembrance
Just 14 words in your comment. And yet they speak volumes. Thank you so much, Heather.
On Sun, Aug 14, 2022 at 8:45 PM Heather Dolstra < heather@democracytravel.com> wrote:
I mourn Vic's passing as if I knew him. We are family, after all.
Heather Dolstra
Sent from my T-Mobile 4G LTE Device
-------- Original message --------
From: Mike Godwin mnemonic@gmail.com
Date: 8/14/22 7:57 PM (GMT-05:00)
To: Shakespeare at Winedale 1970-2000 alums < winedale-l@lists.wikimedia.org>, David Sharpe dpsharpeaustin@gmail.com
Subject: [Winedale-l] Fwd: Victor Hauser, A Remembrance
Forwarding a message from David Sharpe about Victor Hauser.
Mike
---------- Forwarded message --------- From: *David Sharpe* dpsharpeaustin@gmail.com Date: Sun, Aug 14, 2022 at 3:30 PM Subject: Victor Hauser, A Remembrance To: shakespeare-at-winedale-email-list@googlegroups.com
Three weeks ago, when Vic Hauser (a student from the Winedale Summer of 1983) was diagnosed with pneumonia, I and those of us from Winedale-'83 who came to know Vic in his latter years thought that this was going to be just another health problem where he and his hospital doctors and nurses would once again do battle to get a medical handle on it. Vic would then return to his beloved Co-op apartment complex in Austin, and soldier on as he had done so often in the past.
In fact, at various times in the last 5 to 8 years, Vic had managed to survive a host of ailments, such as diabetes, throat cancer, lupus, and two cases of pneumonia. He also avoided getting Covid 19 or any of its variants. Vic definitely had a strong will to live.
Unfortunately, this time Vic's luck ran out. This time he was not going to win his struggle with his third case of pneumonia, for it was ultimately diagnosed as being terminal by his Austin doctors..
So after giving the matter serious thought and realizing that being trapped in a hospital bed connected to multiple tubes and bags was no way to live, Vic willingly agreed to transfer to the hospice at Christopher House in Austin. It was a brave decision. Six days later Vic's suffering and multiple battles with his chronically compromised health came to an end. He died peacefully on a Friday night, August 12, 2022.
Given his host of health issues, Vic was never strong enough to make the long trek from Austin out to Winedale to see a play. However in 2018, Vic, along with Winedale friends Clay Stromberger, Steve Price, and myself, made a car trip to Shakespeare at Winedale to visit Director James Loehlin's summer class, which on that day was in the throes of rehearsal. Before the rehearsal began, James asked the class to sit down on the stage in the Barn, and then introduced Vic (Previously, Vic had asked James - another Winedale-'83 alum - for an opportunity to speak briefly to the class). Standing before them, Vic very simply told the students that they may not realize it at that moment, but what they were going through at Winedale that summer was a unique and very special experience, that it would unlikely come again, and that they should take full advantage of every minute while they were there. Now more ever, this was the time to seize the day. Vic spoke a little more and then sat down.
Vic didn't have money to give donations to Winedale - he just had enough money to live on. But he wanted very much to give something back to Shakespeare at Winedale that had given so much to him and for one summer uplifted his life. And going to Winedale and addressing the summer class was his way of giving back. Of course, Vic's message to the students was absolutely true and something that could never be said enough. And in his own quiet but serious way, Vic made his point very powerfully.
David Sharpe
-- Be vigitant, I beseech you!
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Jim (Doc) Ayres
Professor Emeritus, The University of Texas
Founding Director, Shakespeare at Winedale and Camp Shakespeare
Director of Mission, Camp Shakespeare
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