Of my various bits of amateur acting, I guess I had the most fun playing "The Eccentric Woman in the Cadillac." This totally ad lib act never made it to a stage and had a severely limited audience. Come to think of it, the audience never really enjoyed the act at all. But I did.
Leaving the West to live in the South, I parted from my blue Dodge Caravan, the fourth in a series of Caravans I'd owned. I had had other cars, of course, from a hand-me-down Chev that had brought our family across the continent in 1947 to a brand-new 1967 Dodge Dart that lasted more than 12 years and then was reincarnated by a teen-ager. (He put a husky Fury engine in the body of the much-dented Dart.) I have never known much about cars, and I had no great passion for any particular brand or style. A friend once was about to lend me her stick-shift Toyota truck, but when I asked her, as I climbed behind the wheel, "Now which is the clutch again, and which the brake?" she grabbed the keys back and said, "Get out!"
As to my first Dodge Caravan, I enjoyed its view, a little higher than other cars, and especially its roominess. I haven't bought another make or model since then. Moving to the South, I had sold the blue van and was without any car. In Dixie, my friend Nancy let me drive her new Cadillac STS, in a color fancifully called "moonstone," while I shopped for new transportation. It was years before I understood what a sacrifice it had been for Nancy to let me behind the wheel of her beloved Vanessa.
I'd never driven a Cadillac; I was so unchic in my tastes that if I had been able to afford it, my choice of car--price no object--would have been the Checker Marathon,a huge tank of a vehicle most often used for--you're right: Checker Cabs. But Checker made a few passenger cars each year, and having ridden in one--you could put a couple of large steamer trunks between the back seat and the front--I thought it ideal. You might call it the Percheron of cars.
So I first took the wheel of Nancy's Cadillac with no expectations one way or the other. I needed all of twelve minutes to get an education. Cadillac is to Dodge Caravan as cream is to skimmed milk. Or fine chocolate is to carob. Talk about an "AHA!" moment!
So I set off in shiny, sexy Vanessa to visit the area's many car dealers. I explained very clearly what I wanted: a Dodge Caravan, about 10 years old, with around 50,000 miles on her. I might as well have been speaking Swahili.
The car dealers were deafened and blinded by Vanessa. Seeing her, they were unable to hear me ask for an used Dodge Caravan. It made no sense. Why would this crackpot want a ten-year-old Soccer Mom special when she already had a gorgeous, sporty Cadillac STS? And they would proceed to show me new upscale vans like the Town and Country with every bell and whistle ever dreamed up. (Escalades and Navigators weren't available then.)
After visiting the third carlot, I realized I had a choice: explain in detail that I was driving a friend's car (a very successful lawyer-friend) but that I was a fixed-income retired academic who just needed basic transportation. OR, go along with their interpretation: The Crackpot in the Cadillac.
From then on, I played Bea Arthur out of Marian Lorne. I'd sail into a car lot, sporting a bizarre hat and driving with reckless panache. (As opposed to my usual style: driving with panic.) Show-room windows, look out! "A-ha-ha-HA! Sorry about that!"
Once I had their attention, I'd spin a story about needing an old van to get around to all the dog shows.
"Can't take the three Irish Wolfhounds in this!" I'd say, waving a dismissive hand at Vanessa. Outraged, she peed a gallon of condensation from the air conditioner.
Sometimes my storied dogs were a brace of Greyhounds ("rescued just in time, you know!"), sometimes three Tibetan Mastiffs ("Don't understand a word of English!")or eight Chihuahuas competing fiercely in agility trials. The salesmen readily believed it all, since my clothes were covered in three shades of animal hair and I smelled faintly of OFF! I thought about getting a long cigarette holder to wave around, but sometimes less is more. Or so they say.
Playing the eccentric was a lot of fun but totally unsuccessful. Not a single dealer could locate a middle-aged Caravan, "even for ready cash." In the end, we sought help from a friend of Nancy's, the owner of several dealerships throughout the state. From deep in the back-country, Shirley produced a white 10-year old with less than 20,000 miles to her name. Must have belonged to someone with progressive agoraphobia. I christened her VanGo.
Showing posts with label Acting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Acting. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Sunday, February 15, 2009
ONSTAGE ONCE AGAIN
[This is the first of several posts on my "onstage" experience as Patty Bartlett Sessions. Several others may be expected sooner or later.]
The highlight of my bush league stage experience came out of the Wyoming blue. "Bush League"--now there's an old slang term that has been renewed and intensified during the most recent presidential administration! Here's the standard definition: "Bush League is a general term used to describe an action or thing as being amateur, inferior or crude." Now back to the Wyoming blue.
One day in 1984, an historian in Salt Lake City got a phone call from one Lou Burton in Wyoming. Lou, freshly retired from the military, admired the famous mountain man Jim Bridger, and had been giving lectures across the state of Wyoming, dressed in fringed buckskin, toting a long rifle, and telling tall tales for which the old hero had been well known. Burton had just received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to fund a tour throughout five Western states with a presentation called "Trails West, Rails West." "Jim Bridger" would be the star attraction,of course, but he'd be joined by several other historic notables,among them, Thomas Durant, who engineered the Union Pacific railroad, and Jessie Benton Fremont, wife of explorer and miltary hero John C. Fremont. Lou Burton needed one more person, preferably a woman for gender balance and political correctness, preferably a Mormon pioneer since Mormons had been so famously involved in the westward expansion.
Thus Burton's call to historian Maureen Beecher in Utah. Could she tell him of a Mormon pioneer woman who'd come along the great "Mormon Trail"? Beecher certainly could: Patty Bartlett Sessions, a legendary midwife who had kept the most detailed journal extant of the Latter-day Saints' Westward migration. "Splendid!" said Burton. Now one more thing: did Beecher know a contemporary woman who could (a) write a 45-minute monologue based on Sessions' journals, and (b) travel around for six weeks the coming summer, portraying Sessions in an NEH-sponsored Chautauqua? Beecher batted not one eyelash as she named me.
Thus Maureen Beecher served as midwife in the rebirth of midwife Patty Bartlett Sessions. In addition to the six weeks of 1984, I had the keen pleasure of performing "Aunt Patty Remembers" as a solo for half a dozen years thereafter, including as a speaker for the Utah Arts Council's statewide slate of offerings. Bush league? Absolutely. The "major leagues" of such "Cast of One" acting include the likes of Hal Holbrook as Mark Twain, the late James Whitmore as Harry Truman, Eileen Atkins as Virginia Woolf. But I have a hunch that our touring troupe of 1984 had every bit as much fun as any of the big names.
We toured small towns, the NEH theory being that the federal funds should be spent on taking history to out-of-the-way places with less access to great museums and live theater available in Salt Lake City or Denver. Our venue in sunny weather was a small red-white-and-blue tent over a wooden stage. The audience sat outside the tent in folding chairs or on the grass. We gave the folks of Left Boot, Montana, or South Wahoo, Wyoming, three costumed characters each evening for two days. Each monologue lasted about 45 minutes, with another 15 minutes alloted for questions and answers.
The Chautauqua Players adopted a particular pattern in Q & A. We would come back on stage after our set monologue was done, but still in costume and in character. Audience members would ask questions which we would answer as our particular character. As the days passed, we Players became a tad playful (not to say mischievous)during Q & A. For example, Patty Sessions, a meticulous record-keeper, had delivered a total of 3,977 babies in her long career. That became a ready number to answer an assortment of audience queries about which we amateur (or non-)historians hadn't a clue.
"How much did it cost Mrs. Fremont to sail from New York to San Francisco back then?"
"Exactly $3,977.00!"
"How long was the completed Union Pacific Railroad?"
"That would be 3, 977 miles."
Finally our honcho, Lou Burton, told us to quit the shenanigans.
The program moderator, Terri (Mrs. Lou) Burton) always reminded audience members to ask only questions that the characters could logically answer in their time frames.
No asking Jim Bridger, "How 'bout them Rockies?" No asking explorer Richard Burton when he died. Sometimes audience members asked questions that our characters could have answered, but we the actors could not. To me, that was a good sign: it meant that the line had blurred between historical character and summer thespian. One evening when I came back after my monologue, still as Patty, an elderly gentleman in the front row, an assortment of small tykes beside him, stiffly raised his hand.
"My great-grandfather came across in one of the handcart companies, and then he lived up there by City Creek near where you were. Do you remember him?" And he gave his ancestor's name.
Well, Aunt Patty surely must have known him, but I had nary an idea about the man. Yet I couldn't stand up there on the stage, Patty's authoritative cane in my hand, and say I didn't know this man's revered forebearer. I squinted as if trying to remember, stroked my chin, and then said, "Ah! Yes indeed! Yes indeed I do remember him! A fine man. Wonderful family man. Oh, mercy, was he a hard worker! A great example to us all!"
The old gentleman nodded. He seemed content.
The highlight of my bush league stage experience came out of the Wyoming blue. "Bush League"--now there's an old slang term that has been renewed and intensified during the most recent presidential administration! Here's the standard definition: "Bush League is a general term used to describe an action or thing as being amateur, inferior or crude." Now back to the Wyoming blue.
One day in 1984, an historian in Salt Lake City got a phone call from one Lou Burton in Wyoming. Lou, freshly retired from the military, admired the famous mountain man Jim Bridger, and had been giving lectures across the state of Wyoming, dressed in fringed buckskin, toting a long rifle, and telling tall tales for which the old hero had been well known. Burton had just received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to fund a tour throughout five Western states with a presentation called "Trails West, Rails West." "Jim Bridger" would be the star attraction,of course, but he'd be joined by several other historic notables,among them, Thomas Durant, who engineered the Union Pacific railroad, and Jessie Benton Fremont, wife of explorer and miltary hero John C. Fremont. Lou Burton needed one more person, preferably a woman for gender balance and political correctness, preferably a Mormon pioneer since Mormons had been so famously involved in the westward expansion.
Thus Burton's call to historian Maureen Beecher in Utah. Could she tell him of a Mormon pioneer woman who'd come along the great "Mormon Trail"? Beecher certainly could: Patty Bartlett Sessions, a legendary midwife who had kept the most detailed journal extant of the Latter-day Saints' Westward migration. "Splendid!" said Burton. Now one more thing: did Beecher know a contemporary woman who could (a) write a 45-minute monologue based on Sessions' journals, and (b) travel around for six weeks the coming summer, portraying Sessions in an NEH-sponsored Chautauqua? Beecher batted not one eyelash as she named me.
Thus Maureen Beecher served as midwife in the rebirth of midwife Patty Bartlett Sessions. In addition to the six weeks of 1984, I had the keen pleasure of performing "Aunt Patty Remembers" as a solo for half a dozen years thereafter, including as a speaker for the Utah Arts Council's statewide slate of offerings. Bush league? Absolutely. The "major leagues" of such "Cast of One" acting include the likes of Hal Holbrook as Mark Twain, the late James Whitmore as Harry Truman, Eileen Atkins as Virginia Woolf. But I have a hunch that our touring troupe of 1984 had every bit as much fun as any of the big names.
We toured small towns, the NEH theory being that the federal funds should be spent on taking history to out-of-the-way places with less access to great museums and live theater available in Salt Lake City or Denver. Our venue in sunny weather was a small red-white-and-blue tent over a wooden stage. The audience sat outside the tent in folding chairs or on the grass. We gave the folks of Left Boot, Montana, or South Wahoo, Wyoming, three costumed characters each evening for two days. Each monologue lasted about 45 minutes, with another 15 minutes alloted for questions and answers.
The Chautauqua Players adopted a particular pattern in Q & A. We would come back on stage after our set monologue was done, but still in costume and in character. Audience members would ask questions which we would answer as our particular character. As the days passed, we Players became a tad playful (not to say mischievous)during Q & A. For example, Patty Sessions, a meticulous record-keeper, had delivered a total of 3,977 babies in her long career. That became a ready number to answer an assortment of audience queries about which we amateur (or non-)historians hadn't a clue.
"How much did it cost Mrs. Fremont to sail from New York to San Francisco back then?"
"Exactly $3,977.00!"
"How long was the completed Union Pacific Railroad?"
"That would be 3, 977 miles."
Finally our honcho, Lou Burton, told us to quit the shenanigans.
The program moderator, Terri (Mrs. Lou) Burton) always reminded audience members to ask only questions that the characters could logically answer in their time frames.
No asking Jim Bridger, "How 'bout them Rockies?" No asking explorer Richard Burton when he died. Sometimes audience members asked questions that our characters could have answered, but we the actors could not. To me, that was a good sign: it meant that the line had blurred between historical character and summer thespian. One evening when I came back after my monologue, still as Patty, an elderly gentleman in the front row, an assortment of small tykes beside him, stiffly raised his hand.
"My great-grandfather came across in one of the handcart companies, and then he lived up there by City Creek near where you were. Do you remember him?" And he gave his ancestor's name.
Well, Aunt Patty surely must have known him, but I had nary an idea about the man. Yet I couldn't stand up there on the stage, Patty's authoritative cane in my hand, and say I didn't know this man's revered forebearer. I squinted as if trying to remember, stroked my chin, and then said, "Ah! Yes indeed! Yes indeed I do remember him! A fine man. Wonderful family man. Oh, mercy, was he a hard worker! A great example to us all!"
The old gentleman nodded. He seemed content.
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