WATERMARK
Issue 5.05
March 5 - 18, 1998
Page 10
Making Love Sing
Director Ken Cazan and Tenor Barry Busse Have Made Their Relationship Last Through Good Reviews and Bad
ORLANDO - Theater director Ken Cazan is known for taking risks. Trains and raised as an actor in musical theater, he jumped into direction and then into directing opera, but the biggest leap of faith he ever tood was his hump into the arms of tenor Barry Busse.
THey are in town this month, working on the Orlando Opera's production of Die Faudermaus, the beloved comic operetta by Johann Strauss II. During a break in rehearsal, they spoke with Watermark about how they have made their relationship of 16 years work in a stressful business.
Sitting with them over lunch-on-the-fly, it is easy to see how this couple — which seems so mismatched at first sight — is a perfect pair. They interrupt each other in the casual, friendly manner of people who have spent years talking together, laugh at stories you know they have both heard 500 times before, and listen to one another with an intensity borne of love. You feel honored to spend time with them, because they embody what most of us long for: a strong, healthy long-term relationship.
However, while what they have today is beyond doubt, it was not and is not always easy. There were two huge hurdles that came up as obstacles on their path of happiness. The first was a near-fatal heart failure that Busse developed in the mid-eighties. A virus from a sinus infection traveled into his heart, and by the time the physcians figured out what had happened, there were 13 pounds of fluid sitting on Busse's heart, whic was fibrillating dangerously.
"We really found out who our friends were, then," said BUsse. Cazan nodded in agreement.
"We had so many people calling and saying, 'He has AIDS, doesn't he?' I mean, it is not even an issue we should have been embarrassed aobut, but by the time it was over we were screeching, 'Nooooo! It's not AIDS!' It was unbelievable. ANd why did people care one way or the other? He was sick. That was the important part."
With proper treatment, family support, and total reworking of both men's production schedules for the year, Busse completely recovered. However, the stress of that situation did not even compare to what was to happen several years later.
"I had an affair," states Cazan matter-of-factly, when asked what the second obstacle in their relationship was. "It was murder," he continued, "It was very hard. But, we did get through it. It's tough, beause you go to polar opposites in the relationship at that point. But what we knew also was that we didn't want to split up. It's a funny thing, the gay lifestyle is so transient. I've watched so much happen, watched so many people thorugh rough times, and the one thing I know I want in my life is a relationship."
Wehn asked about what, specifically, got them through such a traumatic situation, Cazan unhesitatingly replied, "What has gotten us through everything are thre major things: first is the incredible love we have always had for each other; second would be our sense of humor; and third would be our huge respect for each other's talent."
BUsse thought for a moment, then spoke his own opinion. "I would add to those three things, a fourth," he said. "And that would be a very good therapist."
It was their determination to make the relationship work, even after Cazan's indescretion, that pulled them out of that dark year. BUsse, who admits that he tends to have a depressive personality, redits their therapist with helping him survive.
"The guy who got us through all of this, and who gave me a certain perspective, is probably the most brilliant man I have ever talked to," Busse said. Both men believe that without their therapist, the relationship would not have continued. And in seeing them men together, you realize what a tragedy for both of them that would have been.
They met in San Francisco in 1982. At the time, BUsse was in a production of Carmen, while Cazan was in-between direction jobs and recovering from a bad relationship. The story has a fairy-tale quality about it: "We met in '82 in San Francisco," says Cazan. "My career was just starting to take off, and he ws doing Carmen. It was on show that I wasn't working. We had spoken and everything, in the rettaurant of the hotel where everybody was staying. It was my 20th birthday, and I walked in and watched a rehearsal. I said to a mutal friend of ours, 'You know what I want for my birthday? I want that in a pink ribbon…' and I pointed at Barry. [Our friend] went over to Barry, taunting him, 'Ken has a cruch on you!' So, Barry came over and sang happy birthday in this hunky, sexy tenor's voice, and I couldn't stand up for ten minutes, I'm not embarassed to say!
"Anyway, he asked me what I doing for dinner that night, and I said, 'Well, I'm going out with friends…but I'll be back at 11 o'clock!' And he showed up at my door that night with a pink shirt, and a pink tie, and pink socks! We've been together ever since."
After years of travel and a life in New York City that they don't appear to miss much, their home base is a log house on two acres of land in Carrollton, Ohio, the northernmost town of Appalachia, that was left to them by Cazan's father.
"We're to tokens!" laughs Cazan when describing their personal paradise. "We have a log home, and it's in the woods, and it's fabulous…."
"Clean air, clean water, and people have to pay to call and gossip, so they leave us alone!" adds Busse.
"But 'happily ever after,' when bother partners are involved in careers that can keep them away from home and from each other for up to ten months out of the year, has taken a lot of work.
"We live a transient life. Even though we have this great home base, for instance, I was there only a month and half last year," Cazan continued. So how do these men handle the extra stress their careers place on their relationship?
"Big phone bills," says Busse, "Big phone bills and a lot of sex!" The thing is, you are going to pay for it some time, and if you don't pay for though communication, phone bills, and going to be with each other when you can, you'll pay for it either in therabpy or you'll pay for it with the relationship. You have to decide what is more important.
Cazan agrees. "You make mistakes, but you also learn how to communicate about it. It is not easy, or pretty, but it is a good thing to ultimately be honest with each other."
After their brief collaboration with the Orlando Opera's Die Flaudermaus, Cazan is taking off to Michigan to direct a production of Tosca, and BUsse heads back to APpalachia to garden and continue building his business, a private chef service. Both men have great — you could even say, operatic — plans for the future, but the one thing they will continue to work hardest at, and have the most fun with, is their relationship with each other.
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