The Darress Theatre was born on the eve of the Roaring Twenties, a decade of excess that served as therapy for the war to end all wars while sowing seeds for the Great Depression. The place opened as a vaudeville house, attracting talent from nearby New York City, but vaudeville withered before the Darress was ten, displaced by motion pictures. So naturally, the theatre became a movie house, known for years as the State Theatre. Now, the Darress again, it hosts a hodge-podge of entertainment.
The first time I walked up the backwards aisle of the Darress and turned to see the stage, I sensed that it was a magical place. I was 32 years old, one of seven stragglers about to shiver through a re-release of Gone With The Wind. An antique haze filtered the movie screen, making everything appear in black and white. At the foot of my seat in the third row, a Wrigley’s spearmint gum wrapper flipped me into a brief time warp where I was part of a packed house applauding dancing poodles and Jimmy Durante. In that instant, I was hooked. Time after time, I would be drawn back, not to what the Darress was, but to what I imagined it had been.
People who prefer order to character may think the place is a dump, and on the surface, perhaps it is. The exterior has all the charm of a moldy cardboard box. The marquee, after threatening for years to crumble in a stiff breeze, has been amputated. Two cluttered side alleys hide ghosts of Christmases past among forgotten props. Inside, dust fuses to flaking paint, but mystery lurks in dim hallways, and history hovers above the stage.
My mother, too ladylike to use the word dump, calls it “shabby.” I prefer “quirky.” I love entering from under the stage, facing the burgundy seats as I ascend the aisle. The stage encroaches into the auditorium in the form of two black extensions—thrust-stages—that annex twenty feet of depth on both sides of the aisle, making the performance area U-shaped and giving me the sensation of emerging into the auditorium from a trench.
Up ahead, only the first row of the balcony is visible, but I know that it is as large as the main level, retreating seemingly half-way to Canada. Ornate ceiling carvings appear in the least likely places. The stucco walls are technically white, but they “feel” gray. Three heating systems use oil, electric, and gas, which even when united, are inadequate on frigid nights. An illogically-placed concession café hides in the back, underneath half the balcony. Incongruously, way up behind the balcony is a one-bedroom apartment where the previous owner lived. Now the apartment is officially a “hospitality suite,” but everyone still calls it the apartment. All things considered, the theatre exudes enough character for a Dickens novel.
Boonton is a hillside community, 35 miles west of Manhattan, rising steeply from the Rockaway River to Sheep Hill, with Main Street traversing the slope like a curving strip of terraced farmland. The Darress, on the north side of Main Street, looms tall, its bleak stucco façade standing out amidst a streetscape of eclectic architecture, from Victorian to Art Deco. Behind its massive front wall, the theatre nestles into the hillside, its orientation dictated by topography. The result, according to Ripley’s Believe it or Not, is the only theater in the country with such a reverse layout.
Each time I entered, I sensed that anything could happen, from a stand-up routine launching a comic toward the Tonight Show, to ceiling plaster dropping onto my head. One person devotes her life to promoting the former while preventing the latter. The Darress Theatre is owned and operated by Gwendolyn Annabelle Klobermeister, but everyone calls her Dolly. She claims to have earned the nickname because she looks like a redheaded Dolly Parton, but I swear it’s because she calls every man, woman, and child “doll” in a syrupy Texas accent. “Please, doll, I could sure use a hand with the paintin’ tonight,” or “Hey, doll, how about donatin’ that carton of paper cups y’all said ya didn’t need.” Sporting fiery red hair (courtesy of Clairol), Dolly could be anywhere from 45 to 65. She is short in stature but big where people notice—hair, bust, and heart.
For the fifteen years she has owned the Darress, the place has been a maintenance nightmare. Few shows make real money, but Dolly keeps the theatre going by selling upscale beauty products—Boonton Cosmetics—in the converted theatre lobby. She is the guardian angel of that building. Every time it looks like the hulking façade will peel off and slide down into the river, she slaps on another roll of duct tape. Actually, she recruits someone like me to apply the tape. When I walk by and see Dolly’s short legs wobbling on a ladder, I offer to lend a hand.
“Would ya? Be a doll and climb on up.” The next thing I know, I’m the one on the ladder, obeying her commands.
Sometimes, I stop by on weekends to help with the never-ending myriad of chores. Late one Saturday afternoon, as Dolly and I got high on paint fumes, I asked, “Why do you keep doing it—fighting a losing battle?”
“Consider it a holding action, doll. I’m just a caretaker. The Darress is an adventure waitin’ for a catalyst, and I’m here to make sure the old girl makes it that far.”
Several catalysts were on their way. When they converged on the Darress Theatre, Boonton would make the national news, and my arm would be air-brushed out of the National Inquirer.
