[Above is a scene from Brian Petti's heartbreaking Next Year in Jerusalem.]
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
e e cummings
“i carry your heart with me”
Laura. My beautiful girl, my astonishing child, a little entertainer who began an acting life by performing impressions of her elementary school teachers. She moved on to school plays in the middle grades. Later, in high school, friends would still ask her to cackle like the Wicked Witch.
As Mrs. Shinn, the eccentric wife of River City’s mayor in a production of The Music Man, Laura won a Helen Hayes acting award for teenagers. Throughout high school, she performed in community theatre, in both comedy and drama. A local playwright, Brian Petti, enjoyed her work so much he wrote a part especially for her. She found a niche in Shakespeare, playing a variety of roles, including one of the most evil Lady Macbeths ever to prod her reluctant husband, and, as of 1999, the youngest female Hamlet to perform in an entire production, according to records kept by the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C.
Then she was chosen as one of two spinster serial murderesses in a college production of Arsenic and Old Lace. The director was clearly casting according to physical type. Laura wanted to play Abby, the funny sister with most of the lines, but Abby is usually short and dumpy. Laura is tall and thin, perfect physically for the morose sister, Martha, who has hardly any lines and no written comedy business. Nevertheless, my daughter was determined to be funny, so she created her own stage actions.
During one scene in that production, Martha sat wordlessly on a couch. Because the old lady lives in a skewed, illusory world, Laura’s idea was to pet an imaginary cat next to her on the couch, but the director vetoed it.
My daughter’s next idea was to imagine invisible birds flying around her as she sat on the couch. For Martha, this experience was delightful, and the character’s rapture showed on her face as she tilted her head, smiled, and showed a hint of the tip of her tongue. It was a delicious insanity. The audience howled.
In another scene, a murdered man’s shoe lay on the parlor floor. Abby and Martha’s nephew, Mortimer, beseeched the director of a nearby lunatic asylum to move the presumed murderer, his brother, Teddy, to Happy Dale before the police would get involved. During that conversation, in a scene where she had no lines or stage directions, Martha spotted the shoe. Intrigued-- though she knew she had killed the man-- Laura’s character picked it up and attempted to match it against her own foot. She looked at the sole to see what size it was and tried to match it up again. The concept of a murderess trying her male victim’s shoe on for size, in case it might be her own, was so nonsensical that the audience roared with laughter.
In the movie version of the play, Aunt Martha explains sweetly to Mortimer why the old ladies must provide the latest victim, Mr. Hoskins, with a funeral before burying him in the cellar. “You don’t think we’d bury Mr. Hoskins without a full Methodist ceremony, do you? Why, he was a Methodist.”
Laura interpreted the line with more panache. Her Martha, who had been so cheerful and unassuming until this point, got angry. Her voice quavered and she shook her fists with waxing fury as she cried out, “You don’t think we’d bury Mr. Hoskins without a full Methodist ceremony, do you? Why, he was a METHODIST!”
Word choice matters in prose and poetry. Delivery matters on the stage. That delivery got the biggest laugh of the evening.
During intermission, I went to the ladies’ room and felt pleasure in hearing one teenage girl say to another, “That chick who plays Martha is hilarious!”
I wish I had the space to discuss more of my daughter’s roles, but I have focused on this one because it was so surprisingly funny.
Children come with surprises, and one of Laura’s is a talent for entertainment. These days her audience is her three-year-old daughter, Lily. Laura sings and dances to “Let It Go” from Frozen with her, and the result is magic. They look for Snow White’s house in the woods behind their home. At Purim, Laura puts on a puppet show to tell the story of Queen Esther.
My Laura, the joy of my life and queen of my heart, will always be an entertainer, whether she’s on stage or not.
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
e e cummings
“i carry your heart with me”
Laura. My beautiful girl, my astonishing child, a little entertainer who began an acting life by performing impressions of her elementary school teachers. She moved on to school plays in the middle grades. Later, in high school, friends would still ask her to cackle like the Wicked Witch.
As Mrs. Shinn, the eccentric wife of River City’s mayor in a production of The Music Man, Laura won a Helen Hayes acting award for teenagers. Throughout high school, she performed in community theatre, in both comedy and drama. A local playwright, Brian Petti, enjoyed her work so much he wrote a part especially for her. She found a niche in Shakespeare, playing a variety of roles, including one of the most evil Lady Macbeths ever to prod her reluctant husband, and, as of 1999, the youngest female Hamlet to perform in an entire production, according to records kept by the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C.
Then she was chosen as one of two spinster serial murderesses in a college production of Arsenic and Old Lace. The director was clearly casting according to physical type. Laura wanted to play Abby, the funny sister with most of the lines, but Abby is usually short and dumpy. Laura is tall and thin, perfect physically for the morose sister, Martha, who has hardly any lines and no written comedy business. Nevertheless, my daughter was determined to be funny, so she created her own stage actions.
During one scene in that production, Martha sat wordlessly on a couch. Because the old lady lives in a skewed, illusory world, Laura’s idea was to pet an imaginary cat next to her on the couch, but the director vetoed it.
My daughter’s next idea was to imagine invisible birds flying around her as she sat on the couch. For Martha, this experience was delightful, and the character’s rapture showed on her face as she tilted her head, smiled, and showed a hint of the tip of her tongue. It was a delicious insanity. The audience howled.
In another scene, a murdered man’s shoe lay on the parlor floor. Abby and Martha’s nephew, Mortimer, beseeched the director of a nearby lunatic asylum to move the presumed murderer, his brother, Teddy, to Happy Dale before the police would get involved. During that conversation, in a scene where she had no lines or stage directions, Martha spotted the shoe. Intrigued-- though she knew she had killed the man-- Laura’s character picked it up and attempted to match it against her own foot. She looked at the sole to see what size it was and tried to match it up again. The concept of a murderess trying her male victim’s shoe on for size, in case it might be her own, was so nonsensical that the audience roared with laughter.
In the movie version of the play, Aunt Martha explains sweetly to Mortimer why the old ladies must provide the latest victim, Mr. Hoskins, with a funeral before burying him in the cellar. “You don’t think we’d bury Mr. Hoskins without a full Methodist ceremony, do you? Why, he was a Methodist.”
Laura interpreted the line with more panache. Her Martha, who had been so cheerful and unassuming until this point, got angry. Her voice quavered and she shook her fists with waxing fury as she cried out, “You don’t think we’d bury Mr. Hoskins without a full Methodist ceremony, do you? Why, he was a METHODIST!”
Word choice matters in prose and poetry. Delivery matters on the stage. That delivery got the biggest laugh of the evening.
During intermission, I went to the ladies’ room and felt pleasure in hearing one teenage girl say to another, “That chick who plays Martha is hilarious!”
I wish I had the space to discuss more of my daughter’s roles, but I have focused on this one because it was so surprisingly funny.
Children come with surprises, and one of Laura’s is a talent for entertainment. These days her audience is her three-year-old daughter, Lily. Laura sings and dances to “Let It Go” from Frozen with her, and the result is magic. They look for Snow White’s house in the woods behind their home. At Purim, Laura puts on a puppet show to tell the story of Queen Esther.
My Laura, the joy of my life and queen of my heart, will always be an entertainer, whether she’s on stage or not.