Marilyn Yucaipa
was a senior when I was a freshman. She
was also a Theater major just like me, but we never actually spoke, or really
formally met until well into that second semester. As a senior, she hadn’t been obligated to be
part of the fall production. Each
Theater major in their final year was expected to put on a self-produced show
as sort of the artistic proxy of a senior thesis. I was walking into the library late one
afternoon when she approached me for the first time.
Marilyn was
clearly a few years older than me, waif thin but with the strikingly large,
flat face of eastern European ancestry and hair so bleached blonde it was
nearly white. She was in some ways like
a caricature, and also looked a little like Cindy Lauper but she was indeed beautiful. The first time I heard her voice, I was
immediately struck by its lilting, nasal tone.
She sounded like a cartoon character.
She approached me as if we’d met a thousand times already.
“I’m starting
rehearsals on my show,” she said, matter of flatly. “I have one male part and I think you’d be
perfect for it. Would you want to do
it?”
Professional
actors get offered parts that are perfect
for them, even written specifically for them, all the time. And they are usually the first person
approached for that part. I’m pretty
sure that was not actually the case this day.
I should have asked her how many guys she’d approached with this
“perfect” role first. Just as in all
actuality I should have asked to read the script first. Even taken 15 or 20 minutes to at least
peruse it. I didn’t even ask what it was
about. I was bored. She had a nice ass. I said yes.
What I’m also pretty sure about is that sort of decision is made by professional
actors as well, at least now and then.
The first red flag
should’ve been when she told me it was a musical, sort of. Well, the very first should have been that we
shared a major in a small school and I’d never met her or seen any sample of her
talents, and she had written this thing herself. Marilyn had written this opus called Looking
for Love (I wish I was making that up) and envisioned it as a musical
experience. Not a musical in the
traditional sense. The cast would not be
singing. There would, she informed me be
a few choreographed numbers, which was almost the moment where I reneged on my
offer, but she assured me I wouldn’t be involved. She’d cast a handful of her girlfriends to be
backup dancers. Much like the way she
came to me in desperation to be her male lead, you should have seen the C Squad
she pulled in to dance for her. All
music would be prerecorded commercial songs, none of which licensed or paid for
in any way beyond when they were purchased on cassette or CD at Musicland. Note:
I’ll explain what a cassette
was and what Musicland was
later.
Oh, and the kicker
was on the first night we all met to read the script, she mentioned she hadn’t
selected any of said music and would I be willing to do that for her? She had a couple ideas, all bad, but nothing
selected. I said sure. I’m a music lover and figured I could read
through the script and and come up with fitting song choices for the scenes. Then we read through the script. It became quickly apparent that finding an
appropriate musical selection to match this piece was going to be far more
difficult than I could have imagined.
Unless there was a song titled “Tremendous Piece of Shit Under Hot
Lights!”
Sadly I don’t
believe such a tune has been released, just yet.
The script was
God-awful. It is too kind to say it read
like an after-school special. Showgirls had greater depth of character
and plot development. To summarize it as
best I can, the story went as follows:
The protagonist, a twenty-something woman named Marilyn has a great job
and loves her family but just can’t find love.
She meets this great guy named Peter at the mall shortly after having a
brief argument (the cause of which was as uncertain then as it in my memory
now) with her girlfriends in a GAP store.
Peter is handsome, fit, and charming, on paper. Sadly on stage he turns out to be chubby with
a goatee and sort of has a mullet even though it is 1994. The two have a whirlwind romance, including
a scene where they dance a romantic waltz, until she won’t cut him off a piece
of ass and he stops returning her calls.
When poor Marilyn realizes she’s been kicked to the proverbial curb, she
considers developing an eating disorder; until she realizes that she doesn’t
need Peter because God loves her.
Curtain.
I should have called Marilyn that night,
more appropriately the next morning when she was in class and left a message
saying I could not be in the show. Of
course I didn’t. I looked around the
room and saw that I was the lone male among about nine young women, some
attractive and some well, insecure. If
you’re a chubby guy, but an intelligent one, you learn an insecure girl can be
more attractive than a pretty one! A few
sincere (or at least sincerely delivered) compliments will suddenly and
magically transform you into Brad Pitt in her eyes. I decided there and then that this show might
not fill that dramatic hole in my soul, but if I stuck with it anyway there was
a possibility some other hole might get filled.
Not really, of course, this was a heavily Christian-themed show in a
Christian school, but I gave myself such a sweet set-up there I had to take it!
I committed to
Mailyn’s show headlong. I went back to
my room and put together a mix-tape of songs I felt were appropriate and would
serve the show. In fact I looked at it
as though I were putting together music videos to the songs using the cast of
the show. I even picked out a couple
contemporary Christian tunes that worked well with the story and would appease
the school board. In fact, I found what
would more or less be the theme song of the show. It was a track by a Pop/Gospel singer named
Bryan Duncan. He, like Steve Taylor was
one I actually liked, and the song Love Takes Time could have easily crossed
over and been an Adult Contemporary hit in the late 80’s/early 90’s. Of course, the girls Marilyn chose as her
dancers were so stiff and soulless, watching them trying to put together
choreography was like watching Herman Munster trying to hold in his enema fill
outside the locked bathroom door while Eddie masturbates to Polaroid’s of
Marilyn. I know that last part was too
much but I had to complete the image.
These girls were mostly pretty awful.
However, I will never be one to criticize anyone for their lack of dancing
ability.
Aside from the
infantile dialogue and complete lack of any character arch, there was one scene
in particular that worried me. I have
never minded being in crap. I’ve never
been above embarrassing myself for a laugh.
But embarrassing myself in a scene that isn’t even meant to be funny is
simply going to make the audience uncomfortable, regardless of the
setting. Marilyn wanted us to dance a
very serious dance at one point in the show.
It was a dream sequence she’d created for herself, where she sees Peter
on the street somewhere and he offers her a rose and they begin to waltz
around. I told her from day one, I was
not a dancer. I’m awkward and
uncoordinated, and choreography is my kryptonite. I agreed to rehearse the dance straight, simply
to show her how awful I was. I made it
abundantly clear, after stomping on her feet and nearly flinging her across the
stage into a block wall, that this was a bad idea. I was not going to become Fred Astaire in a
month, even with daily rehearsals. Nor
did it matter. I could’ve been a Dancing
with the Stars Champion. The scene was
stupid! Admittedly, this whole
production played like a bad episode of Saved by the Bell (yes, I said a bad
one, inferring there were good ones!)
Even so, this dance dream was out of place and ridiculous. And Marilyn was out of touch for thinking it
added to the story.
I understood she
wanted something that would convey romance but appease the Puritanical
administrators. This was a constant
struggle for all artists who chose to study their craft at Euphegenia. I’m sure it’s a familiar tale for any art
majors at Christian colleges. I suppose
the question stands, why would we choose to do that in the first place? That is a very intelligent question. But we all had our reasons. For me, it was that I had a dear friend (at
the time) already there. Plus I wanted
to leave home after high school but had no plan, and quite simply they accepted
me and offered a scholarship. It seemed
like a no-brainer at the time, and I made a snap decision. Not the best reasons to put yourself in
massive debt for a charade of an education, but as I’ve said often, 18 year old
boys have a head full of bad wiring.
For others, it is
because they actually want to find a way to use their artistic talents as a
testament to their Christian faith. For
the sincere, it is actually quite admirable, although I find it hard to
balance. At least, if you feel compelled
to live a life prescribed by the Religious Right. I was never so method to say that if you are
going to play an addict, you must know what is feels like to shoot up. But I do believe you cannot make art in a
vacuum. I do believe some call
themselves artists as an excuse to justify bad or strange behavior, but true
artists do have to live in a unique head space, and live rather deep
within. It is not an act, nor does it
take much effort as it is within our nature.
In fact, many of us at least now and then wish we could shed that part
of ourselves. It makes trying to conform
ourselves into a “quiet normal life” very difficult and actually quite
painful. Especially if we eventually
find ourselves trapped in one of those “normal lives” anyway. It’s like there’s a cat constantly scratching
and meowing at the backdoor of our brain and we can’t shut it up.
I think Marilyn
wanted to do some form of “love scene” in the show. Any kind of sex, simulated, implied,
whatever, would not fly. She’d be shut
down after one performance. Hell,
probably before the first one even ended.
She was concerned about having even a real kiss in the show. I know, that sounds ridiculous, but trust me
to some people in that community even kissing was taboo. I knew people who married or were married
off, and the first time they ever kissed their spouse was the moment the person
was pronounced to be their spouse.
Perfectly normal, for 1894. A
century and change later, that’s just weird.
But in the school setting, we had to be aware of it. And to some degree cater to it. A corny ballroom dance performed horribly
would not convey romance of any kind and wouldn’t have served the production. So I came up with an alternative.
“Let’s make it bad
on purpose,” I said.
At first she
looked at me like I’d just whipped it out and pissed all over the script (and
her shoes.) It took some convincing and
sweet talking to get to her to thaw to the idea. I pleaded my case much the way I had
above. The dance wasn’t going to work
out if we played it straight. Ultimately
it would hurt the show, and in case she’d forgotten that this was her senior
project. It could hurt her final grade
as well as her graduating. I painted a
picture of the scene starting off as if we were going to have this serious,
romantic dance together, and then it quickly descending into comic madness as
her character realizes my character can not dance to save his life! It would make the audience laugh, yet if we
did it just right, would still make us seem endearing therefore conveying a
spirit of romance. Yeah, that was the
bullshit I was selling that day.
In truth, I just
didn’t want to be embarrassed by trying to dance. I was fine embarrassing myself to get laughs,
and lots of ‘em. I’m a whore for
laughs. I just want to earn them on my
own terms. With the help of some cheer leading by the girls in the cast, Marilyn relented. Or at least she agreed to rehearse it my way
a couple times and see what it looked like.
As my perfectly honed comic instincts had told me, it had the entire
cast watching us in hysterics. I had
picked a perfect track in Harry Connick Jr.’s cover of “It Had to Be You.” The song begins with a dramatic musical
introduction, like out of an old Hollywood
musical, which led to the ruse that this was going to be a serious dance
number. But as Harry began to croon, I
set about stumbling; gyrating out of time to the music, and throwing Marilyn
here and there across the stage like a rag doll (not so far off from our first
rehearsal only this time on purpose.)
It ultimately became, and I swear I say this from a sincere humble
place, the best part of the show. Trust
me that’s like bragging that a beautiful golden un-digested kernel of corn is
the most beautiful part of a big stinky turd.
It’s not something you break your arm patting yourself on the back
over.
I knew the show
sucked. I was very aware of it every
moment I was on that stage, which thank God wasn’t much. My part entered near the end of Act I, and
ended halfway through Act II. I just
made the best of it. Even a bad show is
still a good experience for the craft, I reasoned. And I do believe that. Plus I knew this little pretend we were
putting on was Marilyn’s actual story.
Not even thinly veiled. The more
I got to know her I realized there was so much more that she couldn’t put on
the stage. Even thought it would have
made the show vastly more interesting.
She couldn’t go there. The girl
had been hurt in life. I had already
heard rumors that she dealt with an eating disorder. It was obvious to look at her. Earlier I described her as waif thin – that
was almost an understatement. I think if
I put my hand around her waist, I could easily touch my fingertips (might even
be able to lace them together.) I never
got full details, but somebody had done a number on her. How severe, who knows? But all that is relative anyway. Some people bounce back from tragedy with a
locked jaw and steely resolve, while some crumble if you just look at them too
severely.
Whatever it was,
Marilyn was dealing with it. She
believed that being a good Christian girl and using the teachings of church,
our school, and God’s little instruction book she could deal with the pain on
her own. And writing this show, as poor
as the quality and the mechanics were, was good therapy for her. There was literally a moment toward the end
of the show, where her character is nearly in the fetal position looking like
she’s about to swallow sleeping pills and then suddenly casts her eyes heavenward
and says “You God. You love me, don’t
you?”
And yes, I
understand how such a thing can send major douche chills down one’s spine, but
I really believe it was a sincere epiphany for Marilyn at some point in her
recent life. That or maybe it was a
plea. Either way I respected that. Too be honest, I had been looking for such an
epiphany. I had hoped when I came to
that school I would find it. There I was
nearing the end of my first year, and no such internal revelation had
occurred. Here this batty chick had
seemingly found it, and she was trying to tell everyone. I knew a number of so-called spiritual
leaders on campus who looked down their noses disapprovingly at Marilyn (I
believe part of whatever thing had hurt her had to do with the fact that she’d
lived life while she was young which of course disgusted fundamentalist
youth.) Here she stood baring her soul
on a public stage, even if poorly written saying “here it is. I got it.
I figured it out.”
I’d have just
respected it more if she’d simply ended it with “so fuck you!”
For those reasons
alone I gave it my best effort. And for
the record my writing was terrible back then too, and even a few years later it
still can be. I didn’t think so at the
time, but it was. Writing is truly one
of those things that just get better the older you get and more life you
live. Me, I’m not a good writer. I’m a decent storyteller. My writing skills are lacking, but I’m trying
every day. But I love story, and I know
good story, and I can sense the story that isn’t even on the page. Stacy and other theater people would ask me
how I could stand it, and that’s honestly the reason. I sensed the true story underneath the shit
we were throwing onstage. By throwing
myself into it, I forgot how shitty it really was and just enjoyed the
process. I only wished I knew Marilyn
better or had the balls back then to help her throw away that script and tell
the story she really needed to tell.
Instead, I just went along, supporting her in every way I could, knowing
she was going to get blasted when this thing opened.
I spent most of my
time playing around in the shadows backstage.
No not the way I’m usually writing about. While the girls weren’t great dancers, a
number of them were good singers and we’d spend our time harmonizing together
on a number of songs. It was our pre and
post rehearsal ritual. They all liked me
to sing a song called “Jessie” by a 90’s two -hit wonder named Joshua
Kadison. “Jessie paint your pictures
about how it’s gonna be. By now I should
know better. Your dreams are never
free.”
And we’d all
circle together and do medleys from Disney movies, particularly Beauty and The
Beast. I did a pretty damn good
Gaston. Those nights we stayed sitting
around that stage long after rehearsal was over, singing song after song made
the whole production worthwhile. One of
those girls I would sing with nightly in our little backstage music club has
since been nominated for a Grammy. Glad
I could help her find her voice! I’m
kidding of course, but she meant a lot to me.
I can’t even make up a name for her so she will remain simply
“she.” I will say she was a super chick, and let the cleverest of
you take to Google. We would grow very
close the following year, as we were both on tumultuous
rides inside. I tried connecting with
her just to say hi in recent years but she would never respond.
One night a couple years ago, right
around the Grammys in fact, I happened to be up late on Facebook and a little
chat window popped up. It was her. There had been some family tragedy and she
was shaken and needed to talk to someone, and I happened to have a little green
dot by my name. We chatted for hours
into the wee small hours, and it was great.
I brought up the old days, we reminisced, and I just tried to cheer her
up. By the end of our
cyber-conversation, she said I’d made her smile again. Of course since then, complete radio silence. I’m honestly not bitter. I truly hope I did help that one last
night. When we were in school I would
become the guy she’d run to when she was hurt or upset or just needed to be
talked off the ledge. It felt good to be
useful to her again. Besides, from what
I understand she and her little group have toured the world, sold tons of
albums, developed their own little fandom, yet even with an award nomination,
she still needs to work a day job to pay the rent. Rock & Roll Karma's a bitch.
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