Back when I was a gawky, shy, orthodonture-wearing early teen, my mother did her best to make me into something I wasn't. Ballroom dance lessons--private, unlike the group classes I endured later on, visits to the beauty parlor that left me with hairstyles from the Forties, anything that would make me more attractive and socially acceptable.
I hated most of that but when I was signed up for Dramatics lessons, that was okay. A bunch of my friends were in the same class and it was within walking distance of our junior high. The walk was always punctuated with a stop at a grocery for snacks--my favorite being a sleeve of three chocolate cupcakes covered with a continuous strip of thick white icing.
Our classes were at the home of our teacher--Esther Simon Brown. A small, dumpy woman with an amazing voice, ESB had been, before she contracted polio, an actress. Now she taught Dramatics.
As beginners, we had little 'pieces' to learn and perform, with the appropriate movements. Like this:
What’s worse when you’re eating an apple (hands on hips)
Than to find a big fat worm? (hands open outspread)
Noe doesn’t it make you shiver? (Hug self)
And doesn’t it make you squirm? (Squirm)
Well, I’ll tell you something that’s worse than that (Hands on
hips)
And I know you (point at audience) will think so too
It’s to find, when you’re eating an apple (Look at pretend
apple in hand and make a face)
A worm, bitten in two (big face, toss pretend apple
over shoulder.)
(I also remember the ten ballet positions from my brief experience with ballet class in the first or second grade. But I digress.)
So, not great art, but a beginning. We progressed, over the two or three years we 'took,' to monologues and recitals. (I did Vera Cheera's Purple Pills for Pink People--which had its moments as the speaker got increasingly tongue-tied. And I was the 'ghost in the green gown' in a very dull play of that name about a group of girls spending the night in a haunted house.
But my favorite memories of that self-improving time, were when ESB would send me and my best friend Lynn upstairs to 'practice.' (An embarrassing memory: we would slip into the kitchen and filch a couple of dill pickles from the big jar on the counter before heading upstairs.)
Our practice was perfunctory. What we did was to improvise silly skits. All that creativity is lost to memory, alas, except for the finale of one about the courtship of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett:
RB: (passionately) Marry me, Elizabeth, and go to Italy!
EB: (wailing) But, Robert, I want to be with you!
We were very proud of the humor.
So did dramatics help me be more self-assured? Maybe. A little. I learned I could stand up in front of an audience and nothing terrible would happen. I learned to, as ESB taught us, to 'speak from the diaphragm,' with the result that my voice is sometimes so low I'm mistaken for a man on the phone.
And when I became an author and had to speak to audiences, I found I was pretty good at it. Thank you, Esther Simon Brown. And I apologize about the pickles.
7 comments:
You've caused me to sniff at an elusive memory of reading a play in HS about about the Browning-Barrett romance. The only name that comes to mind is The Heiress, but that was a different one. Oh . . . what are The Barretts of Wimpole Street. Let me search.
Oh my goodness, it was even a film in 1934.
Now how did that surface from 60 years ago and haVING NOT THOUGHT OF IT SINCE THEN? (CAPSLOCK sorry)
Link: https://www.google.com/search?q=The+Barretts+of+Wimpole+Street&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
I was always painfully shy and I worried that I wouldn't be able to promote my book when I finally got published at age 60. To my surprise, I found that speaking about my book came easily. And I was very good at moderating panels. The difference was that I had achieved something, published a book, and I felt I had something worthwhile to say.
Sandy, That's it! Having something close to your heart to talk about and an audience that wants to hear what you have to say makes it so much easier.
Great memories. I ended up acting in a play in college, where I learned why I had such a nasal voice...and needed indeed to use diaphragm as well as avoid talking through my nose! I also took a speech class to learn more about using breath.
Thanks for the link, AC. It's possible that my friend and I had seen that 1957 film and that's what inspired us. Or it may have been an English teacher, telling us the story of the Brownings. Or maybe something on TV. My mind says probably the latter.
Loved this vlog, thank you! Purple Pills for Pink People, indeed. Ah, the joys of patent medicines! They might not have cured anything, but if alcohol (or, for that matter, laudanum) was anong the ingredients, as was often enough the case, they'd at least have made you feel better for a little while.
But your story prompted me to do a little digging, which turned up the monologue in question. It's a corker. "Are you in a rundown condition? Are you hard of hearing? Do you suffer from chills, fever, rheumatism, nerves, ... fallen arches, appendicitis, eye strain, dental defects, heart trouble, ... bunions, insomnia, pink tooth brush, or any of the other insidious things that you tend to complain about to family and friends? Well, don't despair, my friends! Relief is waiting for you!" (I'd love to have heard your performance, btw.)
And that, of course, immediately brings to mind Vitameatavegemin. "Are you tired, run down, listless? Do you poop out at parties? Are you unpopular? Well, the answer to all your problems is in this little bottle!" Did you know this increasingly disastrous Vitameatavegemin spiel had been one of Red Skelton's vaudeville routines in the '30s before Lucille Ball recreated it (with Skelton's permission) for the "Lucy Does a Commercial" episode in 1952? I love diving down informational rabbit holes and coming up with stray bits of information like this.
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