I’m too young to have taken a poetry course with Pulitzer-prize winner Theodore Roethke at the University of Washington. He died a few years before I was born.  I did not hear his inspirational talks about making music with words or what it takes to make a good poem great (and why great poetry is important.) I most certainly didn’t see the effects of his bi-polar disorder which propelled him into mad ravings and crazed phone calls to people such as the president of the University, the mayor of Seattle and governor of Washington State.

Last night however I traveled to a 1950s classroom and got glimpse into what it might have been like.  We went to see “First Class” on opening night at Act Theater, a one man play that invites the audience into Roethke’s classroom and at times into his mind. John Aylward is absolutely riveting as the clever and intense poet. The show was written by David Wagoner a former student who wanted to share experiences that clearly made an indelible mark on his life – and now this play on mine. I will not forget the professor’s angst and torment – and I will remember some of his lessons, too. He taught that Shakespeare knew that “eee” sounds belong to witches. I can still see professor screeching “When shall weee threeee meeet again…?”

Well-acted, well-cast, unusual and interesting play.