By Co/in Sargent

Above: The State Theater before restoration.

HEN THE LIGHTS go out, and the inside of the State Theatre is lit up like an enormous Moorish cavern, illumined in green and gold, the murals coming to life in the darkness, it's hard to believe it's 1994...and you're in Portland, Maine.

You feel as though you're in a genie's bottle, as though you've entered a cave four times as large as you imagined it to be, so cavelike you expect to hear water dripping.

How could this place be so huge?

How could something this echoing-

Story by Colin Sargent

ly, embarrassingly wonderful have been hidden on Congress Street for so long?

Green light crawls up the chocolate walls toward the vaulted ceiling, and Spanish Exit signs dating to 1929 sparkle above numinous black rectangles in the far distance that dress up the vision's symmetry.

Then a waiter approaches and offers you bisteeya, phyllo filled with Moroccan Chicken, Almonds, Egg, Garlic, and Cilantro, triple Chocolate Terrine with raspberry coulis, cocktails and coffee, and in a moment produces a tray that to your surprise screws into the front of your comfortable seat.

This is, bY.Xorest City standards, simply astoril.Shing.

Because yoo;re not one of the lucky ones sitting in-the Cotton-Club seats in the cabaret area beyond the rail, which features larger tables and miniature explosions of happy people, where you might expect a chance at a bite to eat; you've simply reserved a seat on the incline, below the shadow of the enormous BOO-seat balcony.

You're sitting in coach.

The view is fabulous.

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And likeeveryone else around you, you're shaking your head, wondering how crazily great this city can be sometimes, just at the moment you're about to giveup on it.

This is as subtle a miracle as the Red Soxwinningthe World Series. "Tonight, everybody's property value just went up $100,"exults someone sitting behind you, another delighted customer who is watching some steamed chorizo sausage wontons being levitated above his lap.

Three<heese filling seroed over an herb tomato sauce.

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Then comes the sound. It's perfect everywhere, filling the room, acute and intimate at the same time. You hear every word warmed up by the place.

The applause is intelligent, full of . light,crashes everywhere inbeautiful cold streams.

Yes,the dark miracle ofthe State is finally here, incredible in its timing, because with the advent of Portland's new ski train connection to Bethel, the Sunday River Express (another irrecoverably lost 1930s amenity restored), the Portland Pirates Hockey Team, and the Portland SeaDogswith their new stadium so evocative ofthe early days ofthe game, this city boasts some original attractions again, on the order ofthe Flynn Theatre in Burlington and the Portsmouth Music Hall,which State Theatre manager and rainmaker Russell Turner admits to having studied "very closely." tid what attractions: Ftbm Los Lobos to Bo Diddley to Judy Tenuta to Peter Wolf to Henry Kissinger, here for a world affairs talk, they're allflocking to headline in the same venue that once hosted personal appearances by Bette Davis, Mae West, George Burns & Gracie Allen, W. C. Fields and John Wayne.

The Clancy Brothers, The Swinging Steaks, Ghost Stories Theatre (which

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Greg Power~ ~ntertf.linment

.9lccommodating the various and changing needs of the State %eater and its performers represents a unique chafCenge. rrFiisinvitation was enthusiasticaCfy accepted 6y (jreg Powers 'Entertainment. rrhe diverse taCent and e~erience of Loren Pipelj MitcheCCPiper and (jreg Powers com6ined to create a compCetesound system of industry recognized components achieving the goaf of 6a~ljingits patrons in the farger than Cifesound that the historic State %eater so richfy deserves. Just ~~.contractors and voCunteers had to wort( together using their specific taCents to create the 60dy of~·theState I (jreg Powers 'Entertainment empCoyedtheir safient t(nowCedgecarefuCCyclioosing individuaC components in impCementinga sound system that is greater than the sum of its individuaCparts. 'Dedication to our customer as weCCas a continuing commitment to quality is the cornerstone of the (jreg Powers 'Entertainment PhiCosophy.

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dramatizes the stories of Stephen King, including "Strawberry Spring," "Uncle Otto's Truck," "Gray Matter" and "The Bogeyman"), Koko Taylor and Ronnie Earl, Max Creek, Emo Philips with Brian Powers, and the Capitol Steps are booked as well.

Plalo' §Cave

"Portland Concert Association moved the Harlem Spiritual Ensemble's date here from State Street Church, which seats 700, and sold' 900," says Russell Turner. "Judi Adam had a good" show. She could easily have sold 400;.I,I10re."

Another immediate dividend: "Maine State Ballet has booked 20 dates in 1994 and 20 dates in 1995. They've said 'We really want the State Theater to be our home,'" Turner says, adding that if he completes restoration of the balcony on schedule this spring or summer, which would increase the State's capacity to 1,700-and there is every indication that he will-it looks as though next season's Portland Symphony season will occur at the State as well.

The State's only competition for the symphony is the Cumberland County Civic Center, an aural barbecue pit by comparison, great for basketball, mega-rock shows, and tractor pulfs, but with notoriously raucous acoustics. (I audited "Cats" there once. Believe me.) "The Civic Center is a strange animal. They're great for a lot of things, but they're not built acoustically. We put the sound where the people are, not banging off the walls, ceilings, or off the balcony," he says, using nearscatalogical words like "squirting" and "bathing" sound to describe the computer-controlled "aiming" effect created by a collaborative brain trust consisting of Greg Powers of Greg Powers Entertainment, Mitch Piper, and Loren Piper. Together they won Turner's national sound-design competition which resulted in a contract and a $50,000 sound equipment purchase. "The squirting part I'm not sure of," laughs Powers when called about it. "The bathing-the stereo imaging of the State-is phenomenal. As you stand and-for example, ifyou listen to a pre-recorded CDon that system,

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Opposite The Copper Beech Tree, Portland Museum of Art Gallery hours: Noon-6 Tues.-Sat. 8 p.m. Thursday you hear the separation distinctly and it's incredible."

But why is it better than the City HallAuditorium? Imean, with $7million being spent this year to improve City Hall's acoustics, this is something ofa touchy subject. "AllIknow is, Imoved around the (State Theatre) auditorium when Bo Diddley was here. You could hear every word," says Turner. "People came up and said, 'I can't believe it. I've never heard anything likethis.'"

There may be more to it than that. "Beforewe even thought ofour system, we called agencies of the acts we hoped to book and found out their requirements in advance."

Usingspecifications generated from 11 companies across the country, Turner came up with a list of sweetheart sound parameters that laid the foundations for the competitive bidding. "It's basically a world-class system with a third-world budget," says Powers. "Wedesigned itto accommodate most of the acts. Some of the bigger bands need a bigger mixing console. The monitors are more important to these bands than anything else, because that's their little world; that's where they create all their energy on stage."

Adds Mitch Piper, "The State Theatre was beautifully designed in 1929 to reproduce the human voice unaided-designed for whispers. When I first came here, you could stand on stage and whisper and be heard anywhere inthe room. Imean speak softly,not whisper in someone's ear. "This is amazing. Unaided even by the slide rule, they were able to reproduce the human voice in a very . ornate setting. "But that's just not the way the world is anymore. Imean everything is amplified."

He says coming up with the magic formula for the State was not easy. "Asfar as a comparison between the City.Hall and State Theatre, they're both difficult places, and both ornate, both designed for the human voice," he says.

For solutions for the State, "there were as many suggestions as there were people involved inthe project. "Initially the effort was to hit as SAIGON THINH THANH

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many people as we could with direct sound from the speakers, before they caught a backwash of second-hand sound in this fairly reverberant place. Using some fairly simple stacking and splaying methods with speakers, we were able to do that: hit them with direct sound, not to overwhelm them without it. "We wanted penetration from the speaker system; that is, how far can direct sound travel before being overwhelmed by the ambient characteristics of the theater. "After penetratiOn, our next goal was to try to give 'People the sense that they are enveloped and bathed in sound, so that it feels good. You know, like a warm bath-we wanted to create the sonic equivalent of that as often as we could. That is really dependent on what's going on on stage," Piper says. "It doesn't take much sound pressure to kind of overwhelm the room, so you're really better off to have a band play in a really reasonable way on stage and let the

PA system take care of it. Some stages are so big you get disconnected to your instrument in some ways.

This isn't a problem with the State." itch Piper spends a lot of hours in there, day and night, swallowed up by the dark. And the State has' so much volume that there must be a certain 'caveness' to it, isn't there? Isn't the State a degree or two cooler inside because of its caveness? "Absolutely it's a cave in there," he says. "Outside it could be snowing or raining or it could be 70 degrees, day or night, and we wouldn't know. That . becomes your world for the day. And in a room that big, you can't discount atmospheric conditions peculiar to the interior of the State which can affect sound."

Ironically, both Russell Turner and

Bruce Miller, the building manager, say that once its $7 million restoration is complete to improve acoustics, City Hall Auditorium will have fewer than 300 seats more than the 1,700-seat balconied State.

Responding to this, some sidewalk critics have charged that Portland is too small a city to support both venues. But consider this. For every

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person excited about seeing Ondekoza at City Hall, isn't there another who'd just as soon see Count Basie's orchestra performing at the State?

Beyond that, the Triple Chocolate Terrine is something of a tiebreaker.

Which brings us to catering. Another contest here (Turner is a voracious contest holder), won by Kelly Graves of the newly formed Ovation Catering. "I did have a contest for catering. 1 said that we wanted a menu to reflect the type of patron who would come to these four shows: Paula Poundstone, Los Lobos, a rock show, and 1 forget the last one. 1could look it up. Kelly Graves came up with this killer menu with a unique and creative rotation of vegetable-based eats that can fit on a small table," says Turner. "There was the nifty tray thing. But the question became, 'How do you access all these people?' There was no model for this. We had a very compressed amount of time to get the product out before the show and during intermissions. We created a special bar to move out the beverage."

Turner says Ovation enjoys "a one-

Amgel§ Ibm ~JbeArdbul~ech1llre

The State could bring in all the acts many Portlanders have been aching to see, for decades, actually. And realistically, Turner has his eye fixed to do is schedule the major markets first. Then they come back and do the second-<:lass market. This is what the city has been missing. Portland does not have a secondary market. .. yet."

The State is perfectly suited to these vaudeville and jazz-sized audiences, the kind of high-quality second-echelon acts that manager Turner, former owner of Raoul's Roadside Attraction on Forest Avenue, is famous for snagging. It's what over 250 volunteers, paintbrushes and wrenches in hand, worked for during a highpressure,cheer-and~ety-filled 12().dayodyssey of perspiration and dreams. Because like Rip Van Winkle, this place went to sleep in 1971 and woke up last November, after an inspired effort that included some tough decisions. "We got the chairs from Cinema City Westbrook for one dollar a chair," says Bruce Miller, 32,

Before

squarely on this secondary market. He explains: "Since we're not a major market in Portland, what agents like

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of Westbrook, who manages the physical plant of the Congress Building for Lola and Nick Kampf of Cumberland Foreside just as his father worked for many years for Lola's parents. And the old horsehair chairs? "They're buried in the dump. They're beautiful, but the cost of making them 'self-raise' (a Maine requirement) made it impossible even to consider using them. A pair we rescued from the balcony is upstairs, in the theater offices," he says. Buried deep in the dump, like leopards.

The original seats are ornate, selflighting on the aisles, with "angels in the architecture." The dark-red horsehair plush that survives is glossy, fabulous, makes a first-rate exhibit. But these are not, by modern standards, chairs. The Cinema City chairs meet code, are actually extremely comfortable, with a considerable expanse of leg-room, and have the unique ability to hold sturdy, removable screw-in plastic trays large enough to serve drinks and dinner, coffee and dessert, which dramatically sets the State Theater apart from any other venue in the city. "That particular style of tray came from the guy who installed the seats for us," says Miller, who has spent thousands of volunteer hours and

many nights trying to help this project.

Irnr~e§~Day§

In the beginning there was the Libby Mansion. Built in 1854, it weathered here for 74 years at the top of Congress and High Streets, crowning the roof of the city. "It was designed by Charles Alexander as an Italianate double house made of brick with a mastic exterior to simulate brownstone," says Earle Shettleworth ofthe Maine Historic Preservation Commission, who wrote an article about the Libby mansion in 1966,when he was just 18years old. "The Libbys were very prominent here in the 19th century," he adds, calling to mind the imposing Libby Building across the street, where the Charles Shipman Payson wing of the Portland Museum of Art·now sports its LM.Peilunettes. But the Libby Mansion ... that's the electric spot where the State Theater is today. The old Libby place was beloved by Portland citizens as "a three-story homestead of the oldfashioned style" and "a link between the new and the old."

Harrison J. and James Libby had built it 12 years before the Great Portland fire of 1866,and it stood the test of time before the 1920s, roaring in a frenzy of modernness, created

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the revolutionary steel-beamed Congress Building, which opened itsdoors on November 8,1929. For 74 years it "succeeded in withstanding the march of a new commercial era," the 1929 newspapers crowed. "But its metamorphosis is now complete."

Except it is still there, at least the ghost footprint of the place. Accoring to Miller, in the crawl space below the Congress Building you can still find rubble of the old foundation that continues to loos~ly define the old building's perimet'~, its soul inside the greater immensi~y of the newer structure, a secret as arcane as the. entire bowling alley that sleeps, lanes and all, below the parking lot of the nearby Portland Performing Arts Center, covered over by cement and tar in its own sarcophagus of progress. The Libby Mansion and two other lots' were part of a real estate purchase by the Congress Street Corporation in 1928.

According to newspaper reports, the "property consisted of a row of six one-story stores, the Libby estate, and a house formerly occupied by Dr. Richard D. Small, the last meneach; 7 percent stock with semiannual dividends. Reading between the lines in the newspaper, you can almost smell the fear.

November, 1929.

In Nanking, it was the beginning of Anti-Opium week, "designed by the government to teach Chinese the harmful effects of the drug." "Skin Deep," the Warner Brothers "all talking Vitaphone thriller," was playing in town, as well as "Dangerous Curves," by Clara Bow. iller says the owners, Nick and Lola Kampf, have spent "somewhere around $500,000" to date on the project; Turner says it's closer to $400,000. Enthusiastic and knowledgeable, it was Miller whose spadework at the Portlan9 Public Library une'arthed the all-but-forgotten diary of Harold Rhodes, a treasury of details and feelings. Now intimate with his entries of 1928 and 1929, Miller and other volunteers were able to view the structure and their restoration with the eyes of the architect. "There were holes in the ceiling,"

lue 19UVlllllllVWS lIlOlllt:Ker VI Ule sexual activity, or male presence in the ladies' room. Above the lobby hangs a huge wrought-iron lantern," she wrote. "Stepping back into the smaller well-lit theater (for then the State was divided into two temporary viewing areas, State Ifor heterosexual and State IIfor gay viewing), I proceeded into the lobby area, where there are four wooden booths. Hesitantly Iopened the door marked "Wild Eyes." Inside was a bench and a metal box (a projector), and on the inside of the door was a small screen. Inscribed on the projector by a graffitist: 'I watch my neighbor's 14-yearold-daughter dress for school every day.' Then-manager Eastman, who worked for Associated Theater Management, Inc., a Massachusettsbased organization which held a 20-year lease from then-owner Joseph Poulin, Lola Kampf's father, commented that business for pornograp h y the ate r s was dec lin in g everywhere because of the skin trade at Videocassette rental businesses. "The theater is just the same as when they walked out in 1968,"he told Margarete, adding that

laIlU. Ille vn':.lorUU •• '--'Lv •• <7••"k· •.•"l.~.· .

of Westbrook, who manages the physical plant of the Congress Building for Lola and Nick Kampf of Cumberland Foreside just as his father worked for many years for Lola's parents. And the old horsehair chairs? "They're buried in the dump. They're beautiful, but the cost of making them 'self-raise' (a Maine requirement) made it impossible even to consider using them. A pair we rescued from the balcony is upstairs, in the theater offices," he says. Buried deep in the dump, like leopards.

The original seats are ornate, selflighting on the aisles, with "angels in the architecture." The dark-red horsehair plush that survives is glossy, fabulous, makes a first-rate exhibit. But these are not, by modern standards, chairs. The Cinema City chairs meet code, are actually extremely comfortable, with a considerable expanse of leg-room, and have the unique ability to·hold sturdy, removable screw-in plastic trays large enough to serve drinks and dinner, coffee and dessert, which dramatically sets the State Theater apart from any other venue in the city. "That particular style of tray came from the guy who installed the seats for us," says Miller, who has spent thousands of volunteer hours and

many nights trying to help this project. lEwrIlne§~Day§

In the beginning there was the Libby Mansion. Built in 1854, it weath-

;:;::;:;\?=:;:; ::::;::::::~; ::::::~r:::::: ::J :::::r:k:::::;;::::::::::;;;;:::::::;;;:;;;~:;t;;;;;~::}:::

• All quotes co':" &om ..,.. patleota,writhtS

in our waiting room diarin.

after the Great Fire of 1866(Exchange

Street, Middle Street, Commercial

Street); The Roaring 1920s (The

Lafayette, Eastland, Congress Building, Chapman Building and Arcade,

Million Dollar Bridge, and Exposition

Building); The 1980s (One City Center, 2 City Center, 100 Middle Street,

One Portland Square, Two Portland

Square), where we also overbuilt and repeated the same mistakes of the 1920s by not creating new tenants but rather new vacancies for the oldbuildings as existing tenants flocked in a mad rush to the newest project.

Sign of the times-one fickle imported linen store self-importantly moved from the new Lafayette to the newer

Eastland to the newest Congress

Building just to bring the newest convenience to its customers. ut there was a sickness to this celebration. On October 29, 1929, the great Stock Market Crash rocked the country. The State opened just 10days later, too beautiful and too late to be stopped. . People stumbled in in a dazed state to watch the debut of the glorious end to the world. In six months, the original owners of the theater would be out of business.

But at the same time; Portland was still the same indefatigable place, with seagulls, Porteous and Ballard

Oil advertising in the newspaper,

Deering Oaks down the hill, etc. You know it was the real Portland because Ed Langlois was here. "Iwas just a young teenager," says

Langlois, director of Maine Innkeepers Association, "but the State was amazing. The original projectionist was on my paper route. Iwas young, but even the.n I could appreciate it."

A few hours~fater Langlois calls back with the Windbam telephone number for Birge Peterson. "Who's that?" I ask, flipping through my notes. Then

Isee it. On opening night at the State, which starred Gloria Swanson in "The Trespasser (Screendom's Ravishing Star in Her First All Talking

Singing Triumph A United Artists

Production), there is a prominent block of type which says "Sing with

Birge Peterson and his Wonder

Organ Other Features). That Birge!

"Iwas just 4 years old then," Birge Peterson, Jr., of Windham, says. "Istill have all of my father's original sheet music."

The original sheet music? "Old Fashioned Rocket," "There'll Never Be Another You." "Rocket?" Iask him.

He shakes his phone head. "Locket." Myfather used to let me sit in the pit with him."

Above the State was a 400-seat restaurant with a seven-days-a -week orchestra and a sunken ballroom floor. Portland was swinging.

Also, the State;came equipped with the only "uniqJ,.leindependent lighting and power p-lantin New England," which "obviates any possible delay in the show which might occur during violent storms, when the local electric plant might be forced temporarily out of commission," accounts of the day boasted. "Ifthe outside supply of light and power is cut off,the State need not be plunged into silence and darkness for a single instant. The throwing of a switch starts the independent electric plant lighting all the emergency and electric lamps."

In other words, in a total power loss, patients in the intensive care unit at Maine Medical might ~e thrashing, but you'd still be entertained at the State.

Incredibly, says Bruce Miller, this ancient backup power system is still down there, and it still works! With batteries linked in both series and parallel, it's like having an old diesel submarine there to help you out-a Dolphin class, probably.

The original Wurlitzer is still there too, at the State. In fact, Miller says that is one reason that the pornogra.phy cinema was allowed to stay weeks longer than planned. "They said their lease allowed them to take original equipiment as chattel," he shrugs. "Wemade a deal."

Artistically, Portland was so ambiguous in 1929that the commercial spaces were designed to have old Colonial themes, old Spanish, or Italian Renaissance. Things were going softly crazy. A week before opening, the Congress Square Partners began hawking 3,000 preferred stock shares on the par value of 100 each; 7 percent stock with semiannual dividends. Reading between the lines in the newspaper, you can almost smell the fear.

November, 1929.

In Nanking, it was the beginning of Anti-opium week, "designed by the government to teach Chinese the harmful effects of the drug." "Skin Deep," the Warner Brothers "all talking Vitaphone thriller," was playing in town, as well as "Dangerous Curves," by Clara Bow. iller says the owners, Nick and Lola Kampf, have spent "somewhere around $500,000" to date on the project; Turner says it's closer to $400,000. Enthusiastic and knowledgeable, it was Miller whose spadework at the Portland Public Library une'arthed the all-but-forgotten diary of Harold Rhodes, a treasury of details' and feelings. Now intimate with his entries of 1928 and 1929, Miller and other volunteers were able to view the structure and their restoration with the eyes of the architect. "There were holes in the ceiling," Miller says. "The roof was leaking. The place was unhealthy to be in... because... it had been a porno house." I guess it was pretty bad. Millers nasal cavity contracts as he speaks of it, and when I press for details a person nearby who wishes to be unidentified chimes in and paints a rather stark picture of the desultory facility before the restoration. "Look," the guy on the clean-up crew exclaims. "You stuck to the floor when you tried to walk."

It was bad. Back in February, 1987, when this magazine shook some local cobwebs with a feature story announcing expiration of the porno-house's lease on December 31, 1989 and calling for a future restoration, we sent staffer Margarete Schnauck over to document the existing conditions. The day Margarete went over, two shows were playing, "Wild Eyes" and "Black Boss." The spunk of urine was everywhere, the lobby "itself retaining hints of its original grandeur, camouflaged however by billboards announcing coming attractions and signs forbidding public urination, sexual activity, or male presence in the ladies' room. Above the lobby hangs a huge wrought-iron lantern," she wrote. "Stepping back into the smaller well-lit theater (for then the State was divided into two temporary viewing areas, State Ifor heterosexual and State IIfor gay viewing), I proceeded into the lobby area, where there are four wooden booths. Hesitantly Iopened the door marked "Wild Eyes." Inside was a bench and a metal box (a projector), and on the inside of the door was a small screen. Inscribed on the projector by a graffitist: 'I watch my neighbor's 14-yearold-daughter dress for school every day.' Then-manager Eastman, who worked for Associated Theater Management, Inc., a Massachusettsbased organization which held a 20-year lease from then-owner Joseph Poulin, Lola Kampf's father, commented that business for pornograp h y the ate r s was dec lin in g everywhere because of the skin trade at Videocassette rental businesses. "The theater is just the same as when they walked out in 1968,"he told Margarete, adding that "Swiss Family Robinson" was the last movie shown before the State's repertoire was dedicated to adult films only and "IAm Curious Yellow" made its debut. Bruce Miller laughs and says, "Alocal newspaper reviewer reviewed it as an art film and didn't seem to realize it was the first of a total switch to porno films," he says. "The review is hilarious."

Most valued volunteer, according to Miller, was New England Telephone's Marty Barnett. The beautiful murals in the state were wonderfully and accurately repainted by Laurie Babineau of the Portland School of Art. "She took all tracings and repainted them," Miller says.

Crowds love the place.

Ifyou walk inside, you're filled with hope for this city. And if you're still undecided, consider the real bellwether for success: James Ledue of Alberta's Cafe is launching a new restaurant directly across the street from the new State. "It's going to be three-quarters Tuscany and onequarter whatever we feel like cooking," he laughs. The restaurant opens in February. •