‘All of who Julie is, comes out in this amazing play’

Julie Portman’s play tells story of a dream that took her to India 50 years ago

“Inside each one of us, there is a place that sleeps with one eye open.”

This evocative statement is how “The Man Who Eats Books,” a play by the late Julie Portman, begins, a one-woman show performed earlier this month in the Little Washington Theatre.

“It is the place that lives in dreams and is always asking questions,” the lone woman on stage continues. “Every blink of an eye is the beginning and end of a story like this one.”

Portman, a force in the Rappahannock arts community from 1985 until colon cancer took her life in 2008, followed a dream in her mind’s eye to India more than 50 years ago. “The Man Who Eats Books” tells that story.

Completed a week before her death, Portman had been writing the play off and on for the better part of 30 years, according to Paul Reisler, who married Portman in the 1980s, when they moved together to Rappahannock County.

“It is the story of the dream that first brought [Julie] to India, her love for her teacher and how it grew and flourished,” Reisler’s program note states. 

“Her time in India influenced her in profound ways spiritually, mentally, emotionally — she was a completely different person coming back, it transformed her,” Reisler said. “It changed her perspective on the performing arts, and how she interpreted the world the rest of her life.”

Boomie Pedersen, a Charlottesville-based professional actor with an impressive international career acting, directing, writing and raising her six children, performed the one-person play. Evocative music written by Howard Levy enhanced the experience, bolstering the story with ethereal vibrations.

Brightly painted masks by Mary Bartlett — thanks to a grant from the Claudia Mitchell Fund of the Rappahannock Association for Arts and Community( RAAC) — helped set the scene for the play. It suggested an echo of Japanese Kabuki theater, an art form dating to the early 1600s involving elaborate costumes, make-up and wigs.

The production blossomed after The Firehouse Theater in Richmond first showed an interest in the play and conducted a read-through, pre-COVID. After the industry upheaval that followed, Reisler eventually pulled this new production together with support from The Firehouse, RAAC and the Lykes Fund of the Northern Piedmont Community Foundation.

A video recording of the play will be available for anyone to view on Reisler’s KidPan Alley YouTube channel, YouTube.com/kidpan, within the next few weeks. 

After Portman’s death Reisler started KidPan Alley, a children’s theater company that travels the world. Cheryl Reisler, Paul’s new wife, helps run KidPan Alley and was his “greatest support” in making “The Man Who Eats Books” become a reality, he said.

In southern India, a theater method called Kathakali, evolved from spiritual worship art forms in the 17th century. It is a dance based on Hinduism that tells a story, combining devotion, drama, music, costumes and make up. The stories show the universal struggle between good and evil.

In India, Reisler said, “Everybody knows the stories. Kathakali starts at dusk and goes to dawn, a performance that lasts for eight or nine hours. It’s OK if you fall asleep in the middle — you don’t miss the story because you know it already.”

When Portman was in her 20s and an award-winning playwright and performer, she dreamed of the naked back of a man — an actor, in India. Unable to stop thinking of the dream, she left New York and traveled to India to find the man. She finally found him — V.P. Ramakrishna Nair, one of India’s greatest Kathakali actors.

For the next several years Portman studied under this teacher, or Ashan, in the traditional Indian way, one teacher, one student, all day, day after day. She worked hard, she studied and learned, and fell in love with her teacher. They became lovers.

Because diplomatic relations between the United States and India broke down, Portman was forced to leave abruptly. Years passed before she was able to return, and by that time her former teacher was ill and thought to be dying.

“The Man Who Eats Books” follows Portman’s journey and her efforts to help heal her teacher. In the process, the ancient Eastern art form is merged with Portman’s Western heritage, two performers who blend vastly divergent cultures, creating a new way of artistic expression.

“It was an impressive performance, beautiful and well-done,” said Lori Garver, a former deputy administrator of NASA who now lives in Rappahannock County, after seeing the play.

Sharing her thoughts after the Sept. 2 performance, Garver said she never knew Julie Portman. She had become acquainted with Paul Reisler only recently, and he encouraged her to see the show.

“I’m very glad I came,” she said, adding it reminded her of India. “I’ve traveled there. Paul knew that and thought I would enjoy the show.”

“Enjoy the moment now,” Heidi Eastham responded when asked what messages she gleaned from the performance. “That thread of true desire, it heals everything. All the beautiful voices that share inspiration are encouraging us now.”

Eastham, who owns Ben Venue Farm with her husband Lindsay Eastham, said she lives in a place where a lot of history has happened — she feels it, thick and surrounding her.

“But it’s also filled with life in the present, new life every day,” she said. “Julie was telling us, ‘Just keep going, live your own experience now — it’s the core of what we’re living.”

Eastham knew Portman and considers her an inspiration. Watching the play, she said, expanded her heart, helped her remember her friend.

“Julie was the kind of person that attracted you, she was that kind of magnetic personality — she was doing creative things in the county, we certainly met on a vibration,” Eastham said. “All of who Julie is, comes out in this amazing play.”

Eastham said the idea of teacher and student working together and becoming one is a universal story.

“We share a quiet merging of our emotions and desires that create our life’s dance,” she said. “No doubt we all have that self-same teacher within us that inspires us to go forth and step into our experience of life.”

Reisler said he was pleased with how the performances went, with most seats filled in the theater both Friday and Saturday nights. 

“I could tell it was very emotional for some, especially for those who knew Julie, some were deeply moved,” Reisler said. “Those who didn’t know Julie were impressed with the story, following your own dreams.”

As the production evolves, Reisler said he expects to add one or two male actors in the script, to better demonstrate the tension between teacher and student, as well as some traditional Kathakali performers who could help a Western audience experience and understand the Eastern art form.

Friends with connections to theater groups in Washington, D.C., and New York City attended, Reisler said, and expressed strong interest in producing the play.

“They loved Julie’s work when she was alive and this was no exception,” Reisler said. “I’m pretty sure it will happen.”

Emily Oaks is executive director of Foothills Forum

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