Voices
JOHN
MONTORIO
HUFFINGTON
05.12.13
HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES
A Mother’s
Gift: Stoppard,
Shakespeare
and a Cultural
Awakening
MY MOTHER NEVER went to the
opera or attended the ballet.
She never read Shakespeare or
listened to Chopin.
Her theater experience was limited to once-a-year outings at second-rate dinner theaters in New
Jersey where has-been TV stars
and C-list actors tried their best
to resurrect Neil Simon, and their
careers, for a night or two.
But my mother had dreams,
and there was poetry in her. And
she had an intriguing beauty, with
chestnut hair and one blue eye and
one green. When I was very young,
I asked her about her eyes. She