Mama's Gift

Mama is back in the act.  Acting.  Playing a Mama.

I am doing "Our Town" in Louisville, Kentucky.  A theater where I first worked a little over ten years ago.  Before I was a Mama.

Bean has known for months that I was going to do this play.  We talked about it and did our best to set up a framework in which she could feel comfortable and included in my leaving.  I will be back for Christmas.  She will come down and see the play.  And then I will come home.

Still, Doc Hubby had to peel her, screaming, off of me yesterday when I left for the airport.

"But do you really absolutely have to go do the play?"
"I do.  They are counting on me."
"Do you absolutely have to go today?"
"I do. I'll be back in just a week for Christmas, okay?"
"It is NOT OKAY!!!"

Fifteen years ago I played the daughter in this play.  I loved doing this play.  I loved the soda fountain scene most of all.  I also loved playing the third act but I struggled to find the emotional depths.  The playwright says that Emily sobs when she goes back home and sees her Mama "so young."  I never sobbed.

Today I couldn't get through reading the last act without tearing up embarrassingly.  And of course, Mrs. Webb can't cry.  She's just making biscuits or oatmeal or bacon or whatever Emily's favorite breakfast is.  Because that's Mama's job.

I just spent about 45 minutes trying to figure out what Mrs. Webb's birthday present to Emily in the third act would have been.  Emily turned 12 in 1899.  I have no memory of what I imagined it was when I was playing Emily.  Something Mrs. Webb had to send all the way to Boston for.  Something they didn't even have in Concord...the capitol of New Hampshire.  What in the world can this be? I have some ideas.  They all sound vaguely silly.

I left to come here yesterday...the 15th of December.  All of Bean's Christmas presents are ordered and 90% of them are wrapped.  That's what Mamas do, isn't it?  Find the special presents.  Wrap them.  Send to Boston if you need to.

Do I really absolutely have to come and do this play?  As I was leaving yesterday I just wanted to say "Nope.  Mistake.  Wrong.  Just kidding. Take the suitcases back inside I don't have to go."   I mean, how can I leave her?  She's six!  Our little family is so precious and it's a big world out there.  And after all, it's Christmas.

But I remember that when the offer came to do this play, my heart leapt and I thought "yes!" I think I will be a better Mama if I come to Kentucky for two months to do this play.  I told her that.  I told her that Mama is a storyteller and I need to come and tell this story.  But I can in no way explain my decision to Bean in a way that will satisfy her.

So as much as it is a gift to me, to come here and do this play, I really believe it is a gift to her too.  I had to send all the way to Kentucky for it.  I had to go away and pretend to be someone else's Mama for a while.  And pretend to be part of a different family.  And it's because of my actual daughter, I think, that I could now go back and do the Third Act as Emily.  And begin to glimpse what Emily can see from beyond the grave.  After all I'm fifteen years closer to it.

But it's too late.  I can't go back and be Emily now.  I'm the Mama.

I think that's kind of what this play's about.

Keeping Up With the Kids These Days

So lately my friend Rebecca is all on about how when people in their teens and twenties see us now, they think "that lady."  Like, "look at that lady trying to get her umbrella turned right side out" or "look at that lady trying to push a stroller and hold an umbrella at the same time" or "look at that lady bleeding from the eye after she poked herself with an umbrella."  That lady.  "Is that lady really trying to make money rapping on the F train?"

I don't feel like "that lady." 

But since the young guy in our play who graduated from my college in 2006, asked if there are any teachers there now who were also teaching when I was there, as if my college career was about a million years ago...and then I did the math and drew some parallels and realized that to him, I'm like some lady who graduated in 1976 and god knows those people are ancient. Since then I've made a more concerted effort to keep up with the kids these days.

So while we spend hours in the Green Room waiting to practice our play, we have been catching up on the youtube videos that the kids are watching.  All of them are, like, so 2010, but to us ladies and gents they are new.  And if you want to be hip, and not reveal your "lady" stripes, watch these.  Plus they are funny.

Can't Hug Every Cat



Okay so I totally knew this girl was an actress the first time I saw it...in the guys dressing room where all the guys were watching it.  The guys all insist that this is real. The song is based on an eharmony video and it's so totally fake.  But still funny. 

Antoine Dodson Bed Intruder Song



So all the students working our show are all, yeah that was so funny two years ago. Well, it's new to most of us in the cast. My friend T.R. has purchased it on iTunes. Apparently all the money that people spend on the iTunes version of the song goes to the Dodson family. Hopefully they don't live somewhere that you need to hide your kids, wife, and husbands now.

and finally, The Gay Weatherman

Speaks for itself, don't you think.

So all you ladies out there, you're welcome.