Fremont Theater honors author Ray Bradbury

For anyone who appreciates science fiction, it is impossible not to love, admire and pay tribute to the literary magician Ray Bradbury.

The Fremont Centre Theater in South Pasadena paid homage to the author last Sunday with performances of selected readings from Bradbury’s works; actors from the Fremont Theater who worked with him also shared anecdotes about Bradbury, who passed away last June at the age of 91.

The Fremont’s tribute seems oddly appropriate: Bradbury had a history of working with the theater. The author was an avid playwright who dreamed of having his works onstage but initially floundered when pen came to paper. After several false starts, Bradbury finally hit his stride and wrote numerous plays in the second half of his career, finishing with four spectacular years at the Fremont.

The building itself seems like something from one of Bradbury’s time travel stories, with carpeted hallways, old-fashioned posters, signs with lights that click when turned on and off and an auditorium that could fit no more than 75 patrons. With unfinished walls painted cream and crimson, a vaulted wood ceiling with exposed wooden beams, a small stage with a few stools and some jack-o’-lanterns, audience members get the feeling they are in another realm, which fits perfectly once readings of martians and mummies start taking place on stage.

“[This ceremony is] not a show, but a very personal tribute to a man who meant so much to us,” said Lissa Reynolds, the executive board president of the Fremont Theater.

And that is exactly what the performers and friends of Bradbury delivered.

With speeches and anecdotes told by Robert Kerr, an actor who moved to Los Angeles from Texas in order to find and work with Bradbury, South Pasadena City Librarian Steve Fjeldsted and the two artistic directors, Lissa and James Reynolds, the audience  quickly realized the humility, kindness, genius and power that Bradbury held. From the Fremont’s presentation, it was easy to see that the author had a heavy impact on literature and the people who loved him.

As is made obvious by works such as Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury was a lover of books and libraries. Quotes from the author such as, “Books are the building blocks, the DNA, if you will, of you,” and, “Without libraries what have we? We have no past and no future,” highlight Bradbury’s passions, and the evening at the Fremont made sure to emphasize the prominent and special place of literature in Bradbury’s heart.

Calling attention to the fact that Bradbury dropped out of college because he saw it as a waste of time and instead educated himself in libraries, the evening’s sponsors further emphasized the sci-fi author’s love of libraries. The event commemorated libraries as much as it celebrated Ray Bradbury himself: Donations and proceeds from the evening were donated to the Friends of the South Pasadena Library, as Bradbury would have wanted.

But the evening was also full of funnier anecdotes about the author. According to Kerr, Bradbury had a habit of pulling out his one and only driver’s license, which was registered in Mars. Bradbury frequently visited the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge and was able to drive the various Mars rovers, which is how he obtained this unique license. This story seemed to sum up Bradbury perfectly: a man with a sense of humor — unique among a sea of commonplace writers — who refused to be tied to this single Earth and brought to life planets and people that were never before considered.

After the audience got a taste of Bradbury from those who knew him more intimately than most, actors of the Ray Bradbury Pandemonium Theatre Company performed six readings from various works written by Bradbury, ranging from The Martian Chronicles to Pillar of Fire to the short story, “Colonel Stonesteel’s Genuine Home-Made Truly Egyptian Mummy.”

Each work expressed Bradbury’s unparalleled fantastical abilities as well as his gift for making prose sound like poetry. Though hearing his works read aloud by actors added even more dimension to the already vivid characters, as Lissa Reynolds said, this evening was not about a performance or a series of readings. It was about a man, and that is exactly what was accomplished. By 10 p.m., audience members couldn’t help but feel closer to the beloved author.

At the end of the evening, one actor who had worked closely with Bradbury at the Fremont read a poem he had written for and performed at the author’s 89th birthday. The poem spoke of the imaginative, spectacular and all-powerful being that was Ray Bradbury and clearly highlighted the effect that Bradbury had on the world, leaving a strong impression on audience members before they headed out for the night.

“I am all things impossible made possible,” says one of Bradbury’s main characters in Pillar of Fire. For many, this embodies Bradbury himself — a man who brought readers worlds and realms that they were familiar only in their wildest dreams. Bradbury was a scribe, a master keeper of far-off fantasies, and although greatly saddened by his physical absence today, this magician’s wonders can still be found by getting lost in one of his works.