R.I.P. Rochelle

We’ve known she’s been in hospice for weeks but I’ve been dreading this day for years, not because I obsess about Rochelle Denton, who I’m mourning the loss of today, but because I’m the morbid sort who pictures and fears everyone‘s death. It is the one overriding fact of life and all we ever do is run away from it. But Rochelle was one of my few friends who was much closer to the inevitable, so I did think of this day with real dread from time to time.

I am chagrined to realize that it’s been 15 years since we were in regular contact, and about a decade since I’ve seen her. The oughts was when I knew her, first as the invariable plus-one of that beloved citizen-critic Martin Denton at the theatre, and at special events sponsored by their website nytheatre.com (she was his mom). During the second half of the decade I saw them practically every week, when I had the honor (and terrific learning experience) of hosting podcasts they produced. I met so many of my friends in their living room! The Dentons’ organization of two was inspirational and endearing. Rochelle was deeply involved with all facets of what they did together, but I always thought of her primarily as the engineer of the podcasts. This elderly woman learned the software, put on the headset, set the audio levels, hushed us when there was a loud noise in the street, etc. Tell me that’s not inspirational.

One of my first memories of her was a book event for one of the first editions of their annual playscript anthology Plays and Playwrights. We took a road trip to a college in New Jersey to promote it. I have a memory of a walk back to the train station. Rochelle and a small group of actresses were walking, chatting, and laughing together in a smokers gaggle. (I just made that up. Smokers always bond, while the non-smokers tend to walk, ya know, outside the cloud). The girls were about a third her age, but she was always one of the gang. That was what was delightful about her. In adulthood we don’t often socialize with other generations who aren’t our relatives. But she was a real friend, of an age we are accustomed to dealing with through the social architecture of deference. She seemed to make a real effort to erase that barrier. And it worked pretty much instantaneously upon meeting her. She was an old lady, but she was also kind of like a high school girl.

I’m saving the best part for last, and it’s a struggle because I can hardly see the computer screen through the tears now. She was very funny. I would describe her sense of humor as “mildly acerbic”. She was from Queens, and she possessed what I would call a New Yorker’s cynicism, which means that she wasn’t particularly dark or negative, she just grew up in this gritty metropolis. It was a Selma Diamond kind of thing, the old New York lady from central casting. She dismissed airs and phonies and hotshots with a wave of the hand. Feh! But she had a huge heart. She was thoughtful. And she liked to have real conversations, which is another thing I especially liked about her. She wasn’t distant, as so many are.

And so we loved her. And by we, I mean, about a thousand of us. The indie theatre community of the 2000 generation lost its mom today. I’m sending all the love in the world to her kids and grandkids, especially the mug who brought her into our lives. She raised ya right, Martin.