There’s a moment in Midsummer Night’s Dream, as there often is in many of Shakespeare’s plays, when a single character addresses the audience. In Midsummer, that moment comes at the end of the play in an epilogue delivered by the mischievous sprite Puck. I played Puck as a sophomore in high school, garbed in nothing but sparkling gold spandex and a shitload of hair spray. “Gentles, do not reprehend,” I announced, the stage completely mine, “if you pardon, we will mend. And, as I am an honest Puck, if we have unearned luck… Give me your hands, if we be friends, and Robin shall restore amends.” The curtains come down. People applaud and I take my bow.
It’s a moment I look back on with great fondness: the peak of my modest acting career. The role of Puck came at a transitional time for me; puberty was almost done shaping me into the cynical asshole I am now—yet the character of Puck exhibits carefree childishness. Without gender or age, Puck isn’t subject to the demands of either category; his sole task is to entertain.
At the time I was struggling to stifle the teenager in me who thought only in terms of social status and, instead, embrace Puck. In our production’s first performance, during that final scene, I did feel the character and my own juvenescence coalesce. I was in control of how the audience perceived me yet I felt in control of my performance. My character and I found unity—I was in control of my own adolescence as well as Puck’s.
Perhaps this was how Mickey Rooney, who passed away last week at the ripe age of 93, felt portraying Puck in Max Reinhardt’s 1934 Hollywood Bowl production of Midsummer. The production was a hit and adapted into a film in the following year. You can see in Rooney’s eyes an awareness of his own image; through his acting, he directs us to see youth embodied in his performance.
Rooney soon landed bigger roles, for instance the lead in Boys Town (1938). In Boys Town, his portrayal of youth is different; he plays a neighborhood bully who finds redemption from a priest played by Spencer Tracy. Rooney has learned the power of intimidation and his character uses it menacingly. If his presentation of youth was untroubled in Midsummer, it has become a struggle between childhood and adulthood in Boys Town. For a portion of the film, Rooney’s character, Whitey Marsh, struts around in a suit, ignoring the fact that it’s a couple of sizes too big. Standing on the precipice of adulthood, Marsh is tasked with real-life responsibilities, yet he is not a man. The characterization illustrates an internal battle that is familiar to all teenage boys.
The iconic teenager Andy Hardy was Rooney’s next big role in a series of films that spanned 1937 to 1946. In these films, adolescence looks simpler, but rough around the edges. The model of Andy Hardy—at turns, brash, chivalrous, daring, and dutiful—provided the generation of men who would defend their country in the Second World War instruction on how to move, act, and speak.
While Rooney gained fortune and fame, it became clear his characters’ battle for maturity was unsettling his personal life. He was married three times before he was 30, marrying the indomitable Ava Gardner at a tender 21. That marriage dissolved quickly. (In return for her not naming other women in the divorce papers, the studio gave Gardner’s career a boost.) When he wasn’t busy sleeping with Hollywood’s finest, Rooney must have felt anguished. His babyface, while iconic, was holding him back from more manly roles. At 26, he was still playing the teenage jockey, his short stature and sweet features making it difficult for him to land roles as a leading “man.”
Even though this was in a different time, a different America, I can still feel Rooney’s pain. At 5’6”, I know what it means to be limited by height. I imagine the conversations between MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer and a Rooney weary of feeling emasculated by his boyish roles in which he pleads to be released from the Hardy series and to be given something substantial, something adult. Rooney reflected upon his own image in his 1991 memoir, Life is Too Short (see what he did there?), describing himself as: “a gnomish prodigy – half-human, half-goblin, man-child, child-man.” In her own memoir, Gardner explained how she would reduce Rooney to tears by calling him a “midget.” I’ve heard that before but, then again, I don’t have Lana Turner, Esther Williams, and Donna Reed warming my bed. Few of you are going to know who these women are, but the point is the guy got laid a lot. Like, a lot a lot.
In those Hardy pictures you can see Rooney fighting against the role’s constraints, attempting to make Andy more of a man. It’s in the comic but heartfelt way he compares himself to Ulysess S. Grant: “He didn’t have trouble like I got, all he had on his hands was a civil war.” In Love Finds Andy Hardy, Hardy’s love interest, Betsie Booth (played by teen queen to his teen king, Judy Garland) asks him, “Don’t you feel glad just to be alive?” Rooney’s reply is witty, yet dry; his desired maturity evident: “I’ve never before really appreciated the advantage of being dead.” His performance is an outward projection; his surface charm and wit defined adolescence for the pre-rock-n-roll decades. Only a powerful actor could wield both the dispiriting realism of adulthood with an adolescent’s optimism. There’s a reason Rooney was at the top.
Depictions of adolescence are different now. Excluding teen heartthrobs like Taylor Lautner, Zac Efron and Liam Hemsworth (#dreamy), no one is ever as loud as Rooney was. Better actors like Michael Cera and Jesse Eisenberg are known for portraying teens, yet their performances demonstrate how much the depiction has changed. Every line Rooney delivers feels like a clear and proud statement, while actors like Cera and Eisenberg mumble their way through scenes, twitching or scratching their head only when necessary. Part of this change is just the long shadow cast by Marlon Brando and James Dean on generations of actors. But another element is the ambivalent situation of the contemporary adolescent male. No guy today can be as sure as Rooney that his advances will be met with smiles and a song.
Looking back at Rooney’s career and personal life, I can see why he didn’t get the chance to do that: his babyface and adorable smile were responsible for a significant portion of MGM’s gross. As is the case with many child stars, Rooney’s staged adolescence overtook his real life.
For me, playing Puck was a moment of personal triumph, a moment of balance and synthesis between me and my character. But as I think more about my performance, I realize I only consider it a success because I could leave the character—and his carefreeness—behind the curtains.
When I watch Rooney’s early films, I struggle to see that conflict. His cheery, confident mask is seamless; it never cracks. But do I really want to see what’s behind? His projection of adolescence appears disconnected from reality. There is no ambivalence or hesitation in the way he moves and speaks. That’s probably the reason why Andy Hardy doesn’t connect to us millennials. It’s painfully obvious that his life and career were full of doubt, but perhaps it’s best that he hid it so brilliantly. Sitting down with Garland at the ice cream parlor, she asks him about the girl he’s taking to the dance. “Well,” he starts, chuckling along, “even if she dances like a horse, it’s an awful long ride home in the dark!” The scene ends. People laugh. The world feels at order, and Rooney –gloriously beaming—sits sipping his malted at the center of it. •
