”I lost five people that were very dear to me in five months,” he says. “One of them was my wife. It turned me inside out. The whole thing turned me inside out. I barely had time to grieve for anybody. I had lost my love and I had no chance to grieve for anybody, including my father and my brother-in-law and sister-in-law. And they were young. It was very tough. But what it did for me was get me to explore parts of myself that I didn’t know existed. It opened doors for me that I had no idea who I was. So it was a gift in a way. At the time, if someone had said it’s a gift that Bonnie is dying, I would have said ‘bullcrap.’ But in reality, when you look at the big picture, it is a gift because it’s all about the growth of the soul when you lose somebody. It’s the one thing humanity has in common: we all love, we all lose, and we all grieve. That in itself brings people to a compassionate heart, a way of looking at something we can
Like Ceraulo’s previous work with the Pure Schmint players, the work is personal, but reflects the experiences that many in this community have or are having. Besides being funny and inventive, Pure Schmint was always about reflecting the counterculture in Southern Humboldt. When they presented “Vibram Soul” in 1978, the theme was taken from the experiences of those in the audience, a youthful portrait of homesteading, growing marijuana and worrying about the sheriff.
Ceraulo continues that tradition with “Being Frank.”
”It reflects our particular cultural lifestyle in some ways,” he says. “This play has grown out of my personal life but also out of what I observe in the community. There are so many people that we love that have passed in our lives.
”This play is about that and it’s a comedy. It’s funny. You have to see humor in everything that you do. The great thing about humanity is that we trip and fall down and can laugh about it. This play is about a man’s journey looking for his love through the realms. He’s a skeptic. He doesn’t believe in life after death, so when he sees himself existing in this realm he thinks it’s some kind of phenomenon relating to the brain. He thinks it’s a stimulation of the brain. But he knows that he doesn’t have his wife anymore so he has to go find her. He knows she went towards this light -- that’s what he remembers -- and he heads there on his own looking for her. That’s what the play’s about.”
Originally, Ceraulo was going to direct the play rather than act in it, but the lead actor had to drop out and he has stepped into the role of Frank. He says that the genesis of the play was as a skit in the Monologues Project. He played Frank in the skit, but when the theme expanded into a play, he wanted someone else for the role so he could focus on directing.
”I wanted to direct it to make sure that the vision that I was seeing in my head came across. Now I’m trying to learn the lines. It was easier to write it than to remember the lines!
”Fortunately for me, Jenny Edwards is involved and she is assisting me in directing. So the great thing is that I’m able to go on stage and do the part and Jenny is the co-director and she’s doing a fabulous job.”
Former Pure Schmint member and Recycled Youth director Joanie Rose is also involved in “Being Frank.” She’s contributed a couple of original songs for the production.
”They’re just brilliant songs,” he says, “and it’s great to have her involved with it. And we’ve got great people in the cast. We have Michael Halton, who has been in a few Feet First productions. Susan Maple is in it, too. She played my wife in the Monologue Project. Anna Rogers is fabulous as the guardian angel. We also have Marilyn Foote who is just a knockout.”
The entire company includes many familiar faces to local audiences, such as Susan Alexander and Sue Burdick. And of course, the music will be live for all six performances.
Ticket sales will benefit all forms of theater in Southern Humboldt.
”That includes the Mateel itself,” Ceraulo says, “and getting started with putting dressing rooms in and making the hall more theatrical. It would be great to get the Mateel some authenticity as far as theater goes.”
He says that when he was elected to the board of the Mateel, one of his goals was to bring more theater to the Mateel.
Back in the day, the community supported two theater companies -- Pure Schmint and the Redwood Players, who had their own Redwood Playhouse in the old district administration building in Garberville.
”It was wonderful,” Ceraulo says. “Redwood Players actually had a season. They had four plays a year. Pure Schmint did one or two plays a year. It was just fabulous. I played at the Redwood Playhouse a couple of times and it was just a great place. I hope they open it up again.”
Ceraulo dropped out of local theater when he went to HSU to study theater arts and dramatic writing. He then went off to the American Film Institute to study screen writing for a couple of years.
“Then I came back and made some movies -- short movies,” he says, “and then life goes on. First thing you know, I wasn’t too involved with theater. I was writing. I was doing a lot of writing but I wasn’t actually on stage and doing theater.
”I was writing screen plays, things that the industry was wanting and some things that I actually cared about. I took a play I did, “The Last Stand,” in 1994-95 and worked it into a screenplay. It was about a logging family that discovered a tree sitter in a tree and the youngest son in the logging family falls in love with the tree sitter, which caused a little dynamite stick to explode in that family.”
He says he never sold a screenplay, but he has gotten work rewriting other screenplays. It was good, he says.
”I got paid decent money.” He still has a screenplay or two floating around, he says. “We’ll see.”
”Being Frank in a Paranormal Universe” will play at 8 p.m. at the Mateel on October 17, 18, 24 and 25, with two matinee performances on October 19 and 26 at 2 p.m. Tickets are sliding scale $15 to $20, and refreshments will be available.
Ceraulo says the way the cast and crew are feeling about the project is “warm and cozy and loving” and that they are thinking of it as a gift to the community.
”Come see it. I think you’ll laugh,” he says.
So, then is it true that dying is easy and comedy is hard?
”That’s probably the truest thing ever said by anybody,” he says.
Tickets can be purchased in advance at Signature Coffee and at Blue Moon.
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