Shameless

Shame (ME,fr OE scamu; akin to OHG scama shame; bef. 12c) 1 a: a painful emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, short-coming, or impropriety b: the susceptibility to such emotion 2 a condition of humiliating disgrace or disrepute : IGNOMINY 3 a: something that brings censure or reproach; also: something to be regretted: PITY "it'd be a ~ if you missed the party" b: a cause of feeling shame

Lately I've been drumming up momentum, interest, and funds for BITCH!, which I guess could be considered Self-Promotion. After all, I wrote it, am re-writing it, and will be in it. But somehow the idea of self-promotion seems incomplete without the adjective "shameless".

I wonder why promoting my play makes me blush--Am I immodest? shameless? bound for hell? Why is it so guilt-inducing?!

Just the word "shame" takes me back to a specific gesture my mother, grandmother, aunts, and uncles used: The Forefinger Rub. When we were very small, and did something BAD, usually fibbing (or "storying", as my family put it), they would accompany the forefinger gesture not with "Shame, shame", but "Shamie, Shamie"--as if giving our shame a nickname made it cute. Even as a kid it made me wanna puke.

So I googled the Shame Gesture, and found:

"It implies a superior position from sender to receiver and is sign of friction, which was derived from pointing. Professor Mark Knapp of the University of Texas says,"the whittling motion of the non-pointing finger indicates friction. Making this gesture toward someone indicates 'you are causing trouble between us!'"

The gesture seems to be fairly recent and is limited almost entirely to North America. They've got a similar gesture in Wales, but they make a sawing motion with the non-pointing finger. And in parts of Mexico, rubbing one index finger across the other is considered obscene! "Shamie-Shamie!", I thought, till I read:

"We all deserve to have this gesture applied to us, because we all fall short of God's standards. Shame and guilt are what we should receive. Now, if you take that shame gesture and stop the stroking down the finger half-way you get a cross shape as your two index fingers overlay each other."

Nun-uh. I think it's a gesture intended to brush something off of ourselves--pointing to another and sloughing something off--maybe unwanted attention, maybe DIS-grace, maybe our own shame. You know, a sort of "I am rubber, you are glue" from adults to children.

But if you're truly shameless, can you still blush? Am I "story-ing" by writing a play? Does that make me shameless? And, ever notice how well the word shameless goes with Bitch?

The "Get Lucky"(Ruth Gordon)/"Be a Dragon" (Geraldine Page) news:

-WE REACHED OUR KICKSTARTER.com GOAL!!--but are gratefully accepting donations online till July 15 and offline thereafter. We still need about $2,000. And we would be proud if you'd spread the word.
-I am re-writing like crazy, and un-re-writing like an even crazier person.
-Casting for Buddy is July 13. Know any young actors who are adorable, incredibly talented 20-somethings, and who play a mean piano?
-Performance dates will be confirmed on July 11, but looks like they'll be between August 17 and 28th, 5 performances only, at the Connelly.
-AND we're putting together the rest of TEAM BITCH! and would welcome volunteers. Check out www.andsoshedid.com---Come join us!

It would be a ~ if you missed the party!

Film by Gillian Farrell, Girl Detective

Last week I went to Woodstock to visit my friend Gillian Farrell for a couple of days, to shake things up, try to get a new perspective on "Bitch!", and to shoot a short film of me as Lady Lawford, directed by Gillian.

She was a young actress in Geraldine Page's class with me all those years ago--lovely, slim, blonde, smart, talented--I wonder we ever became friends at all, but Gillian had the knack of making people--even someone as self-conscious as I was--feel comfortable.

It didn't help that my best male friends from class, John Outlaw and Edward Blanchard, REALLY liked her. The three of them were way cooler than I was. Both guys did scenes with her, and with me, too, but Gillian and I never worked together, probably because I was too intimidated. She was the kind of girl I always wanted to be.

She wore groovy vintage clothes, knew celebrities, had wicker furniture, and lived on the upper West side in a great apartment building owned by a wacky former vaudevillian--just like all those old movies that made me want to move to New York--and her day job was fabulous. She was a detective.

When Gillian's detective agency needed to hire another actress/detective, she recommended me. Five nights a week we'd don blue maid's uniforms and head to a mid-town office building to spy on crooked yuppies who apparently had been ripping off their employers, an investment banking firm, returning after-hours to do whatever it was that warranted hiring two actresses to spy on them. I never did know for sure. We carried photos of the crooks in our uniform pockets, with cans of Pledge and dirty rags as a cover, and pretended to be Yugoslavian cleaning women. Our real cover was a duo of actual Yugoslavian cleaning women who had ratted on the yuppie crooks in the first place. Intrepid, they kept the other maids from reporting us to the Maids Union, or worse, speaking to us in Croatian (neither of us knew a word). It was clear we didn't belong there. But it was a fun job, very Lucy and Ethel.

By day, between auditions, I served subpoenas. Gillian's other assignments as an "op" were more challenging and dangerous, and--well, she was better at it than I was. Braving dicey neighborhoods to hand legal documents to scary people proved too much for me. I was relieved to land a job in a Charles Busch play by night, and an upper East side real estate office by day. My brief stint as a lady detective became just another anecdote: What I Did For Money.

But Gillian's gumshoes really took her places. She met a sexy writer who was working on a detective novel, married him, had children, wrote some detective novels herself, and moved to Woodstock after living abroad, directing, and of course, acting. Now her husband is a respected, well-known writer, her kids are gorgeous, and she looks just the same only better--still acts, writes, does charity and political work, and has become a film-maker.

So twenty-two years later, the actress/detectives once again played dress-up and catch-up, and worked together, alone.

Sadly, our dear friends John and Edward are both gone--John died in 1993 and Edward last September. Gillian and I are unexpected survivors. We have finally created something together, however small, after all these years. I'm looking forward to collaborating with her again before another twenty-odd years pass by. And I hope that John and Edward are smiling.

(Watch the film! It's short and sweet--)

The Update on BITCH! (the play)

As I said before, blogging is embarrassing. More embarrassing than THAT is asking for money for my FringeNYC project, BITCH!, the play based on Lady Lawford's book.

We have a little more than two weeks to raise the rest of $3500--Team Bitch has raised about $2700 of that goal, with more than a little help from our friends. For more info about the fundraising and the really cool rewards for donating, check out www.kickstarter.com/projects/1663327260/lets-kickstart-this-bitch-my-play-i-mean.

My brand new website is up, www.andsoshedid.com, with more info about the play. And in a few days, we'll unveil a short film by Gillian Farrell, with yours truly as Lady Lawford.

Melinda Buckley, our intrepid director, is getting ready to hold auditions for the role of Buddy (know a great young actor in his twenties who's a piano wiz?); Melissa Doyle, our producer, is rounding up rehearsal space and a staff (contact us if you know a great stage mgr or lighting designer--fun guaranteed, but not a lot of $$).

FringeNYC has told us we'll be at the Connelley Theatre on East 4th Street--exact dates TBA next week, but definitely several dates between August 14-30.

SO--everything's in motion--but if we don't meet or exceed the $3500 goal on Kickstarter.com, we don't get any of that money at all. And we actually need more than that to put the play up. Whew. Think good thoughts and spread the word, will you, to anyone you think this may interest or amuse!?

Thanks for your support; we'll see you on the Fringe!

The Audience Loves a Dragon

A million years ago, or, more precisely, twenty-five, I was a student in Geraldine Page's acting class in New York.

I was glued to the seat behind her most weeks, because I was awe-struck and terrified and because Geraldine Page could read my mind. Or, like our best teachers, our mothers, she had convinced me that she could, and I was taking no chances.

I first encountered Geraldine Page onscreen at a military moviehouse on Okinawa. My father, a Sergeant in the Air Force, managed the base theatre, so I saw almost every American film released the two and a half years we lived overseas. I had seen Summer and Smoke, Sweet Bird of Youth, and Toys in the Attic by the time I was ten. Two Tennessee Williams and one Lillian Hellman, our Southern masters. I didn't know they were playwrights. The only plays I had seen were in movies.

Watching those films for the first time was thrilling: characters and language I recognized from my own family background, and this woman who was familiar--she even looked like she could be in my family--except she was on the big screen, sometimes plain, sometimes pretty, only real, acting with movie stars, but not one, transcending reality, doing and saying things I knew I could do. Maybe not as well, not yet, but someday.

I told my mother that I knew what I wanted to do when I grew up. "I want to be like that lady in Summer in Smoke", I said. We were sitting in our beat-up old black Ford, in front of our Quonset hut home. "I think I can do that."

My mother tossed her cigarette out the window and spoke in her can-do voice. "You are every BIT as cute as Pamela Tiffin!", she said.

Hunh. I thought it best to keep my bigger ambitions to myself from then on.

Back to 1984. I had just finished some scene, and was waiting for Geraldine's critique, hoping she wouldn't tell me I reminded her of Pamela Tiffin. She leaned in. I took a breath.

"You're so-- Niiiiice. You want Everyone to-- Liiiiike you." (The smarmiest reading of that you can imagine.) And then in her lower register: "I was a nice girl from the Midwest, too. I loved being a heroine onstage. I didn't want to alienate the audience in Sweet Bird. I didn't want them to hate me. But the moment I realized that the meaner I was the more they loved me, I was Free. Don't apologize. The audience loves a dragon. Be a Dragon."

I'm still finding my Bitch-y shoes. They are not comfortable anyplace but at home. I wasn't wearing them at the reading of my play the other day, and I don't know when I'll break them out in public. Soon, I hope. Maybe if I wear them while I do the re-writes, they'll be broken in just in time for performance. Right now I'm still barefoot.

Drama of the Gifted Peter (Lawford)

While schmoozing at the Book Expo, handing out flyers for BITCH! the play (and for Branden Books, the publisher of Lady Lawford's autobiography), I met a woman who told me that a friend of hers had had an affair with Peter Lawford. "Well, not an affair", she said,"more of a one-night stand". She said she couldn't reveal any details--but that it had been a wild night ("you know how one-night stands are")-- I raised an eyebrow, hoping I looked like I knew.

"You don't have to tell me", I assured her, "but let me tell you about his mother." I've been intimately acquainted with Lady Lawford these past four years; I think I've read everything that has been published about her, most of it uncomplimentary, some of it screamingly funny. I like her. (I have to; I'm playing her.)

I trotted out the titillating stuff: that Lady Lawford pretended to have been married only twice; that two of her husbands committed suicide; that she was disgusted by sex; that she hated the Kennedys; that she dressed Peter as a girl until he was nine or ten or twelve, depending on who you believe--

She gasped. "Well, that explains a lot", she said, "because my friend told me---" and she revealed the sordid details of her friend's one-night-stand with Peter Lawford. And it was reeeeally good gossip, with just enough of the ring of truth. You know what I mean.

Suddenly I felt so guilty, standing in the Javits Center, talking trash about a man I'd never met--a grey-haired dreamboat I had a crush on as a little girl, the "Fella with the Umbrella", that handsome English guy on 60's gameshows, President Kennedy's pal.

Poor Peter Lawford: a beautiful boy born to a wildly narcissistic mother, unsure about his paternity, tossed into stupefyingly adult situations and expected to perform--which he did, all over the world, most notably and successfully in Hollywood. He fit perfectly into the MGM star-making system. Groomed by his mother to be the perfect escort, worthy of royalty--he married into America's first family, forever holding the coat for a starlet or an in-law or a Rat Packer. And he somehow maintained the illusion of savoir-faire and good humor until drugs and alcohol got the best of him.

It's a tricky business, this "as told to" stuff.

There are several fascinating books about Peter Lawford, but by far the best-written, most insightful, is by his son, Christopher Kennedy Lawford. And it's not just about his father--it spans the legacy of the Kennedys and the Lawfords, detailing a chemical predisposition to addiction, and the power of family expectations. It's a story of survival everyone can relate to, SYMPTOMS OF WITHDRAWAL, and it's a hell of a read.

But I beg you---please read it after you see my little play! If you read it before seeing BITCH!, I'm afraid you'll find it almost impossible to laugh.

Encouragement and Enthusiasm

I'm getting used to the word Bitch. I still don't like it, but it IS catchy. Yesterday at the Fringe Town Meeting the title of my play alone got a laugh, and that's very encouragin', as Ruth Gordon said, when she so enthusiastically accepted the Academy Award for "Rosemary's Baby".

I watched that broadcast at the time--1968?--and thought it was cute that an old lady would say something flippant at the Oscars. I was a teenager then--pretty smart, but not smart enough. I didn't know that Ruth Gordon's illustrious career had spanned more than 50 years as a Broadway star, movie actress (NOT star, not yet), playwright, and screenwriting partner with her husband, Garson Kanin. The films they wrote ("Adam's Rib", "Pat and Mike", etc) were some of my favorites, even then, and I knew his name, but I didn't know hers till that night at the Oscars.

As a teen, I could tell her tongue was in her cheek, but I didn't, as they say, know the half of it.

Now I find myself, a veteran actress (what a way to put it!) in "Bitch!", playing a woman whose MUCH younger companion imagines himself Harold to her Maude.

I have since read and re-read Ruth Gordon's memoirs--plural. She lived a long, productive life with a husband 16 years her junior, (eons before Ashton and Demi), and finally became a full-blown movie star when most people are collecting Social Security. We should all be so lucky. And so talented.

Here's a Ruth Gordon quote I carry in my wallet: "To have a career, be lucky. If you're not, GET to be. Never give up, ignore the facts, use everybody, and when it gets impossible, ask God for a windfall".

I'm told that the quality Ruth Gordon most admired in people is enthusiasm. It's a quality her dear friend, Thornton Wilder, also admired. I'm absolutely convinced that enthusiasm must be one of the keys to getting lucky.

This week's Lucky news: the Kickstarter page is up, and it is GREAT, thanks to David di Paolo (videographer) and all the contributions from generous artists--monetary as well as "incentive"-wise. Check it out--www.kickstarter.com.

The delightful and multi-talented Melinda Buckley has signed on as Director, and Melissa Doyle is the Producer of All Things Bitch. Taylor is knocking himself out, getting more incentives and being sounding board and all-round doll; Ann Blackstock donated her massive photographic skills to the mix. And Mike Johnson is going above and beyond the duties of brother-in-law--his graphics are fab. (I'm hoping to unveil me as Lady Lawford on next week's blog).

Fundraisers are being planned: a winetasting party and an evening of cabaret stylings, including some very Bitch-y comedy, TBA. To volunteer for fun, just let me know!

And please forward this to anyone you think it may interest or amuse! Let's get lucky!

Comfort Zone Alert!

Blogging is foreign to me. I'm embarrassed to be writing about mememe, mystuff, MINE, and I have to say I'm even embarrassed to read most blogs. A couple of friends, WONderful writers, really do raise the blog bar, but otherwise--it all seems pretty adolescent.

I mean, REALLY.

That being said: Everything I'm doing lately feels awkward, too young, and undignified. Great big clumsy leaps of faith.

I grew up wildly envious of anyone who moved with fluidity or grace across the dance floor or through life. I love observing confidence. It's mesmerizing--I admire it in others and wonder, voyeuristically, how it must feel. My days in ballet and tap class were excruciating--I preferred imagining myself as Eleanor Powell or Moira Shearer, gorgeous, fearless, and fierce, to watching myself in the mirror, stumbling. My own leaps have always seemed small and lopsided, apologetic.

This week I spent two days at the Book Expo, hanging out at the Branden Books booth with the gracious Adolfo and Maggie Caso, publishers of BITCH, The Autobiography of Lady Lawford, the book I fell in love with and adapted. I passed out flyers and schmoozed strangers--something I'd be terrified and embarrassed to do for money. Since I was promoting my baby, it seemed almost natural. After awhile. Almost.

Yesterday the darling, always graceful, Jenny Mudge donated a poster from Broadway's THE PHILANTHROPIST to use as an "incentive" for $$ pledges on kickstarter.com. I bought a cheap wig that soon will become poor Lady Lawford's head of hair. And today I'll get that cigarette holder, and a wonderful photographer, Ann Blackstock, will take the first photos for "Bitch!" (the play). I hate having my picture taken more than almost anything.

This week I'll re-write some more of my play, internally kicking and screaming. I'll chance a few more of my silly little leaps. And try to practice what I always preached to my students--Out of Your Comfort Zone--That's Where We Grow! . . .Ouch.