Dark Shadows Festival 2002 Reports

Sunday: I was especially eager to get to the Sunday Festival early. Not only was I supposed to meet a couple of friends from one of the other message boards that I frequent, but that morning was going to open with one of my favorite attractions at the Festival: the fan videos. Since Festival 2000, I've looked forward to the wit and creativity of the fans displayed in either music videos or skits. Both are wonderful, IMO. I had another reason for looking forward to these videos: I had made one the previous summer and submitted it prior to the August Festival. When it hadn't played, I'd felt very disappointed, so I was keeping my fingers crossed that this might be the year.

Luckily, I found a seat just a couple of rows back from the front. Richard Halpern opened the show by saluting fans in the audience who wore DS T-shirts. The first woman who went up on the stage displayed a "Got Willie?" T-shirt with John Karlen's picture on it, the next fellow wore a shirt with the DS logo, and then Cheryl/CraigSlocum went up in a shirt featuring Craig Slocum's picture. Behind them, a large screen had been pulled down and the first scene of the first video had already flashed on; I was elated when I recognized it as the opening clip from my video! I could hardly believe that they were really going to play it. At last, Halpern gave the signal to "Roll that beautiful bean footage," and my video, Julia and Barnabas in "I'll Stand By You" began to play. During the past year, I'd tried to picture what it would look like on "the big screen". I was so grateful when the audience seemed to like it. They laughed more often than I would have expected, but I guess that means they were having fun. I'm glad that my video was shown first because as the half-hour progressed, members of the audience became antsy and were no longer paying attention, which I thought was a shame because the other videos were very good. Following mine were two Baby DS videos that I hadn't seen before spoofing the Dream Curse and the Ghost of Sarah storylines. Then came two Josette retrospectives featuring clips of Josette in her many forms from both the original series and the 1991 series set to her music box theme. Among the other videos were Barnabas and Josette, (set to the Beatles' "And I Love Her,") a video featuring Vicki whose song I didn't recognize, an extended video covering clips from the entire show, (again, I didn't know the song but it sounded like Genesis/Phil Collins) a Carolyn and Jeb, (I couldn't identify the song) Adam's arrival at Collinwood and first meeting with Carolyn and Elizabeth(The Police: "Da Do Do Do, Da Da Da") and Gregory and Jamison (REM's "Losing My Religion".)

After this, I stepped out to eat lunch, so I missed the tape of Paley Festival tribute to DS and Donna McKechnie's video. I also missed the video vault, which was unfortunate because I understand that Cheryl had submitted a video of Craig Slocum's early work. I was back in time for the second half of the charity auction, however. VAM won an Angelique trading card. Jim Pierson also auctioned off an original pressing of "I Wanna Dance With You," a promotional Quentin trading card signed by David Selby, a couple of Josette's music boxes, a "Barnabuck," (a dollar bill with Barnabas's picture on it) and a portrait of Alexandra Moltke as Vicki in front of Collinwood drawn by two fans. They had given it to her at the Paley Festival in March of 2001, and she was now donating it to the Festival. It was a beautiful colored pencil drawing, and it brought a good price at auction.

We watched the final skit in the Collinsport Players' series, then Chris Pennock read his latest comic, Fear of Losing Dark Shadows. This issue dealt with his marriage to Marilyn Joseph, DS's Lorna Bell of 1840. (I realize that Chris's comics are highly exaggerated representations, but I always wonder just how much of them are based on truth.)

After Pennock, Robert Rodan took the stage and inevitably, fans began to snap photos. Each time a guest had taken the stage, the audience had taken pictures, but this time, Rodan turned the tables on us. He whipped out a camera of his own to take pictures of us. He aimed the camera into the audience and snapped away several times, then turned it on himself, "just to prove to myself that I was here." After this, he showed clips from a porn movie that he had made called The Minx. (I was surprised that some of the clips were shown because of their content and the fact that younger fans were in the audience.) The backstory that he told revealed that the film hadn't had an actual director in charge, but a professional photographer who hadn't been able to sell the film to a major studio. A producer of adult movies did agree to buy it, and called the cast back to film some additional scenes, making the film more explicit than it already was. Unfortunately, one of the scenes among the clips shown was the death scene of Rodan's character. "Why does something always happen to me?" he lamented. He discussed the death scene, mentioning that his dog had also had a role in the film. Just after being "shot", Robert had smeared chicken grease over his face so the dog would come over to lick his face for a last poignant clip. He said that he'd had a lot of fun making The Minx and told us some stories from those days. During the Q&A session, a couple of Rodan's female admirers stepped forward. One woman told him, "You're a very good looking man." And another confessed, "It's hard for me to watch the show now because I don't like to see what happens to you."

Dennis Patrick succeeded Rodan. I was delighted to see him because I'd heard rumors that he wasn't going to show up after all. Though Patrick needed assistance climbing the stage and joked about his advanced age, he was in good spirits and offered some witty replies during his Q&A session. He shared a couple of limericks with us: one that he'd written about Lela Swift and another about John Karlen as Willie Loomis. I don't know if it would be appropriate to post the content here though. Patrick also spoke in an Irish brogue for us, imitating the style of the town of Cork. He revealed that he'd spoken with an accent as a child, right until he went into acting. Patrick showed some clips from a film called Joe in which he'd starred with Peter Boyle. In response to a question about the movie, he shared an anecdote involving Boyle, who was apparently tough to work with. During one scene, Boyle altered a line of dialogue to make a cruel comment about Jackie Kennedy. The director promised that the scene would be cut, but Dennis didn't trust him, so he pulled the film out of the camera and left it strewn on the floor. Patrick was also asked about his role as the golden man on "Lost in Space." "I was worried about playing the part," he confessed, "because I knew that you could suffocate if your skin was completely covered. I'd forgotten they were only going to put the gold make-up on my face. I had to get there early in the morning before anybody else arrived and I left after everybody else was gone because I had to struggle to clean the 'gold' off my face." Somebody asked Dennis if he thought it was strange that the writers had the Jason Maguire blackmail storyline, which was pretty mundane and typical of soap operas, playing at the same time as the more exciting Barnabas the vampire storyline. Dennis replied, "I never knew what the hell the writers were thinking. I never knew what was in their minds." Another person asked if Dennis thought it was strange that he played Jason, a friend of Paul Stoddard, and later came back to play Stoddard himself. Again Dennis Patrick claimed he never knew what was going on behind the scenes. He even volunteered the information as to why he had left the show the first time. "I offered to punch out the producer when he wouldn't let me out to go to my daughter's graduation. She still won't speak to me about that and she's 52 now." He did seem to have enjoyed his stint on DS though. "Whenever I was working with John Karlen, he always looked like he was going to burst out laughing. I guess he thought I was joking. I don't know what he thought was so funny." (Earlier, Karlen had mentioned how difficult it was to do scenes with Dennis Patrick because Patrick's eyes were constantly rolling back and forth. This made Karlen want to laugh, and "I had to bite the insides of my cheeks until they bled to keep from cracking up.")

Marie Wallace and Richard Halpern stepped up after Patrick had left and acted a scene from Neil Simon's Plaza Suite. They played the part of parents on their daughter's wedding day who were trying to coax the bride out of the bathroom where she'd locked herself. It was a humorous skit and well-played. Marie put on a New York accent and one of the people who stepped up to the microphone later said that it was the best New York accent she'd ever heard. Q&A followed the skit. One man asked Marie if she'd ever taken home any of the show's props, for instance her babies. "No, but I do wish that I'd brought home my fangs. I think those would have been fun to have at parties," she replied. Marie also informed us that she'd never worn wigs on the show. "I had my own hair, even when I was Jenny. I would set it in little curls around my face the night before and tease it up before I went to work. It was my own idea, and it was my real hair." Another man thanked Marie for giving him one of his favorite lines, "that I always use on my bosses when they want me to do something I don't like to do: "You may tell me where I am to stand, but you may not tell me where I am to look." Marie recognized the line from a scene between Adam and Eve, and re-enacted it for us. Somebody else stepped up to inquire about a scene between Eve and Jeff Clark when Roger Davis had unceremoniously shoved Marie. ("We could hear your heels scraping over the ground. Were you mad when he did that?") Marie remembered that too, and explained that during rehearsals, Roger had only shouted at her, keeping his distance. Once the cameras were rolling however, and unable to be stopped, Davis had marched over and given her a healthy push. When she'd confronted him about it later, he'd apologized, claiming that he'd simply been caught up on the emotion of the scene. "I think he did it on purpose though," she confided.

The next event was a scene from the play Love (I didn't catch the author's name) featuring John Karlen (wearing mouse ears and riding a scooter) and Kathryn Leigh Scott. I really enjoyed that show, and the story sounded very interesting (I'm not familiar with this play.) The skit involved two divorced people who wished to get back together, but to do so had to dispose of their respective spouses. I would have liked to see them act the entire play; they did such a great job. (I got some nice pictures from that too.)

When the skit concluded, Roger Davis took the stage to close the Festival. "How many of you are here for the first time?" he asked. Many hands went up. "And how many of you are going to the banquet tonight?" Practically every hand went up, which surprised me. (This was to be my first banquet, and I was very excited about it.) After his survey of the audience, Davis began to share anecdotes from his days on "Alias, Smith and Jones," the first of which dealt with--are you all sitting down?--HAIR! Cesar Romero's to be exact. Romero had been a guest star in an episode where the characters were supposed to have been riding in the desert for a time. Everybody looked pretty windblown with the exception of Romero who "always looked so shiny and perfect like he'd just popped out of a hatbox. So the director went up to him and said, 'Well, what if we ruffle him just a little bit?' He put his hand out, and Cesar grabbed him by the wrist."

While Davis's stories were interesting, I was becoming impatient for him to finish up and "dismiss" us so that I could get into the line for banquet tickets. At last, he bid us good night, and I dashed out. The banquet line was nearly as long as the autograph line, but it moved much faster. There were no stars at our table, but I was lucky enough to sit with Cheryl. Robert Rodan and Marie Wallace gave out door prizes (unfortunately, nobody from our table won.) After the chicken dinner, commercials in which Robert Rodan, Marie Wallace, and Humbert Allan Astredo had acted were screened, and those were a lot of fun to watch.

At last it was time for the now-infamous 'DS Documentary' (aka the DS episode of "Sciography") that was supposed to have been screened the night before. I know that a number of people were upset by what they'd seen on the episode and by the reactions that the cast had had toward it. Though it wasn't a popular program, I was still glad that I'd had the chance to see it; anything related to DS interests me. It's unfortunate though that this "documentary" was unable to capture the true magic of the series.

From the banquet, it was back to the bar/cafe to socialize with members of this forum. I didn't stay as long as usual because Midnite had graciously invited me to the Disneyland California Adventure park the following day (and that did turn out to be quite the adventure) and I didn't want to oversleep. All in all, I think that Festival 2002 was the best DS event of any that I've attended, and I know that I will always cherish the beautiful memories of that time.

ProfStokes