My heart skips
beats...the clock ticks erratically and nothing seems the same.
Our hearts were wounded upon hearing of the death of
Christopher Gaul. A beautiful man
inside and out. A gentleman, if such a
thing can exist in this day and age.
And a consummate actor....no, I should say chameleon who enchanted,
invigorated, annoyed, perplexed, and always engaged his audience. We will miss Christopher in so many
ways….ways that we cannot even imagine as we grieve his death today.
I first met Christopher just before he was to enter junior
high school…so he would have been about 12 years old. I was an ambitious college student who wanted
to think that I could actually make money in the summer teaching what I just
was taught in theatre to younger kids as my ‘summer job’. I had what was called “Diana’s School of
Theatre and Music” which was conducted for two summers at Grace United
Methodist Church in Morningside.
Christopher was one of the students that came into my life those
summers. I had written two musicals
(one for each of the summers) and cast Christopher as a Wad of Bubble Gum. That sounds insulting, but it wasn’t. I was amazed at his ability to BECOME a wad
of bubble gum. There was no doubt in my
mind what I was observing. As it turned
out, Christopher’s wad of gum genius would never be seen publicly as the role
of the King (the show was titled THE LITTLE PRINCESS WHO COULDN’T SMILE) became
available and I recast Christopher in that role. Even then his talents were so evident.
Christopher has been a very important part of the LAMB
family forever. I will always remember
his German Orchestral Conductor being interrogated by an American Captain
(Michael Vinson)in TAKING SIDES. Those
scenes were terrifying and so real….As real as scenes later in DIARY OF ANNE
FRANK (a show which I was fortunate to direct) where his Otto Frank dealt with
the harsh realities of living in hiding with his beloved family (Debra Marqusee,
Aubrey Sea, Emily Dorsett) and total strangers (Karen Sowienski, John Mangan,
Luke Saunders). Christopher was able to
morph himself physically, vocally and more important..he was able to
emotionally connect and completely embrace the essence of the character he was
portraying. In contrast to the
dramatic, he was just as comfortable and fluid with the comic and displayed his
spot on timing with the LAMB farce “team” of Karen Sowienski, Mary Madsen and
Michael Skaff. Farce couldn’t get any
better. Whether high drama or crazy farce to
heartwarming comedy (LEAVING IOWA with Debra Marqusee, Matt Rixner, Angela
Iversen, Melissa Hunt and Rick Myers) or musicals such as ANYTHING GOES (where
I was fortunate to play opposite him) or SWEENEY TODD (where we all learned how
low his singing voice could go as he enveloped the sinister Judge Turpin.),
Christopher was a joy to be onstage with, to direct, to just be around.
Our hearts go out to his beloved Kyle and to the rest of
Christopher’s family. His theatre
family will feel this huge hole for a long time. However, we can count ourselves lucky that
we were able to witness first hand the creative genius of Christopher Gaul. He was Sioux City’s Own and we all were the
fortunate beneficiaries of his life.
