Humphrey Evans – 50th Reunion Essay

Humphrey Evans

Date of Death: 1-Sep-1982

College: Saybrook

From Robert Lyons: My roommate for two years and my only close friend on campus for the full four was tall, thin, mild-mannered, kind, loving, confident in his art, and filled with the adventure of artistic experimentation that blossomed/exploded in the late sixties. We shared leftist political views, a longing to cross artistic borders and an aversion for organized sports. We relaxed to the music of Francoise Hardy in counter-rhythm with blinking Christmas lights and clouds of weed. While I was an actor of sorts when arriving at Yale, Humphrey was from the outset an accomplished pianist and composer. His music those four years was mainly atonal, based on chance and clock-time, improvisational and flamboyantly performative. Quickly in our relationship he became my mentor. He introduced me to his world of happenings and artistic fluidity. He took me to a festival in Washington DC where we inhabited a hall full of cables, shifting shapes, colors, forms, sounds, and glittering artists including Andy Warhol and The Velvet Underground.

On campus and around New Haven we staged our own pieces. In a study hall on the old campus, sitting opposite each other among diligent freshmen at a large table, we began quietly producing insect-like twitterings from behind our open course-books simultaneously at exactly 5:23 PM one fall afternoon, soon enhanced by movement as we gently lay down our books and proceeded to crawl on our bellies, first over the table and then continuing across the floor as the other students fled the scene. We also performed a twenty-four-hour-piece in a variety of cafés around New Haven; a fictional therapy session centering thematically on parent/child relationships.

On a more formal note, and clad accordingly, Humphrey had me join him in the performance of a couple of his musical compositions. Although I do read music, I’m not a trained vocalist. Nevertheless, Humphrey had me sing in a small vocal ensemble piece with free-ranging interpretative possibilities. He brought me onstage in another piece, a rather complex duet for piano and alarm clock. He played piano. The piece was well-received I’m proud to report.

Humphrey and I were close from the start and throughout those years. But we lost contact at graduation. Yale was an interlude. Humphrey’s gift to me, aside from his stimulating companionship and loyal friendship, was my exposure to and involvement in the performative avant-garde. That gift has served me well in my life and in my career, now as Assistant Professor Emeritus of Theatre Studies at Gothenburg University in Sweden. Humphrey has been in my thoughts and my teaching every year and throughout the years. His playful spirit lives on. Thank you, Humphrey—so much and so deeply.