[I'll continue the painful Chautauqua experience, and then return to lighter things].
After completing and submitting my application packet, I was sure my chances of getting an audition were extremely limited. Only 30 auditions were to be awarded from 2,500 applications. Well, much to my simultaneous delight and chagrin, I was selected as one of the 30 applications. I was told that on July 27, 2004 I must audition by preparing a 45 minute play and performing that play before an audience of professors, corporate CEO's, government employees, the Historical society, theatre teachers, actors themselves, and a host of others. I was told that a review board would sit in the audience, in the dark, and would be extremely light hearted and understanding. I was told they only wanted to know my character. To see if I knew her. To see if I could fit the part.
I bought a vintage circa 1920s silk dress, hat and shoes. I wrote a screen play. Since my acting experience was extremely limited, I could just not get a clear vision of how to pull this off.
How does perform alone, and speak? Whom do you speak to? If you speak directly to the audience, where is the role playing, the acting? I couldn't envision it. I struggled. I knew this woman, inside and out. I understood her but I did not know how to make a solo character come to life.
I could feel her presence, both figuratively and literally. The reason I chose Mary Elliot Flanery in the first place is that she lived in my office building. My office building, constructed in 1829, was built by Judge John Milton Elliott. Judge Elliott was circuit judge at the time and was eventually elected to the Kentucky General Assembly (our state government). He was serving on the legislature when the American Civil War erupted. It was his vehement and abject desire for Kentucky to join the Confederacy and he made his wishes clear. Many arguments were held in Frankfort over this issue. Kentucky made a clear decision against the Confederacy, remaining with the Union. Kentucky was a torn state, being on the border between the north and south.
Judge Elliott, an individualist, thumbed his nose at the General Assembly and joined the Confederacy anyway. He resigned from his position in government. He support the South in all her efforts. After the war, with a clear Union victory, he was tried for treason but the charges seemed to have merely evaporated after some time. Within two years Elliott was back on the Circuit bench. His home was located only 1/2 block from the Courthouse where he held court. It didn't take long before he was elected to the Kentucky Court of Appeals in Frankfort, Kentucky's highest court. Apparently Kentuckian's forgave him for the Confederate treason. While sitting on a controversial case involving a murder and inheritance, a litigant and brother of the murdered victim took revenge upon Justice Elliott. As Justice Elliott was coming down the state library stairs with another Justice, the vengeful litigant approached him and shot him at close range.
Judge Elliott's wife inherited the lovely family home and soon a statue of the Justice was erected on the courthouse front lawn. Mrs. Elliott lived in the home another 20 years or so before she died. They had no children so Mary Elliott Flanery, a niece, inherited. Mary and her husband William moved from Pike County to Boyd County to take advantage of the home. Mary had five children in this home (my office building), one of which died at the age of three. Mary was a socialite and held teas, political gatherings, suffagrette meetings, concerts, and the like, in the front parlor.
Mary's husband, William Flanery, was elected police chief of Catlettsburg during prohibition and he had the hard task of enforcing it. He closed speak easy's and smashed stills. The bookleggers hated him. They finally sought revenge against him by dynamiting the family home. No one was injured but the curved room at the front and wrap around porch were blown off. A few months later, several lynchings occurred right on the corner, almost touching the home's front lawn.
There was a massacre by the National Guard when a crazed gang broke into the prison, grabbed a black man charged with raping a white woman, and took him back to Ashland on the train. They National Guard following the train by boat, shooting at those present. In the end, dozens were dead only a few blocks from this building. Moreover, they were unable to stop the lynching of the accused black man and he was hung in the middle of town.
Women got the right to vote in Kentucky in 1927 and Mary was immediately elected to the state legislature. Mary was quoted as saying "I can hold my own with the boys when I get to Frankfort". It threw the gentlemen congressmen into a tail spin, they didn't know how to address her, whether to shake her hand, whether to argue with her. Mary was a journalist, a musician, and the first person to call role over the radio at the 1924 Democratic National Convention in New York. Incidentally, that convention was one of the longest in history, lasting over 17 days.
Mary died in 1937, laid to rest in the parlor which is now where I work. Sometimes it seems I can hear the rustle of her dress when I lay down my pen. I feel her presence, her struggles to balance motherhood, family, work, hobbies. She was incredible.
Although I felt I personally knew this woman, I did not know how to dynamically impersonate her. I did not know how to hold a conversation. I portrayed her as if she were at the Democratic National Convention, talking to another woman about her life. During the convention she would become emotional, clap for the candidates, support causes, discuss her children. I didn't love that approach but it's all I had.
The audience: historians, politicians, theatre professors, were like the Gestapo. There was total silence during my performance. I knew I was flopping although I cried so hard when Mary talked about her deceased child that during the light hearted moments, I continued to blow my nose. I stood up some, walked around some. I felt like I was being interrogated. I could not see the audience very well, the stage lights were bright. But I could see they were bored. Body language was closed. Heads down, hanging with embarrassment. I felt ashamed. Why hadn't I done a better job? I knew my performance was just plain - boring, boring, boring.
After I was finished and stood up, their questions began. First there were content questions, factual inquires about Mary's personality, life, clothing, why did I want to be her, why had I chosen her. I answered all those questions with zeal and provided great detail and supportive data. I felt more positive then. I walked around, the audience opened up. And - then the door closed. The negative commentary and questions deluged me. They actually asked: "why were you so damn boring?" (no kidding) Could you not think of a way to animate Mary? Could you not have moved? Do you think you should have taken a handkerchief with you on stage? Why did you portray her sitting? Why were you so monotone? Why didn't you have a sign? Why did you choose to hold a conversation with an invisible person? You have no acting experience, do you? What do you do for a living, taxes? Why, why, why?
I felt like it was judgement day and the Lord was enumerating my sins. I wanted to run out of there in my ridiculous outfit and scream. The outfit was historically accurate but they even slammed my hair cut, my makeup. I was able to defend those because women wore short hair, rouge and lipstick. I had even researched the proper colors. They slammed the way the dress hung on me, asking if I could have tailored the dress for my body rather than have it hang on me like a potato sack. (I am going to cut up a vintage historical garmet?)
I was told the importance of the audition was to see if you had a feel for the character, if your research was historical, if you would be trained. The 5 acts chosen from the 30 auditions would each have a stipend of $1,000 to write the screen play, costume money and for one entire year, the University of Kentucky, linguists, historians and actors, would work with you to transform your act into a professional one. Why did I need to be so professional from the get go? One guy just sat up there in John James Audobon's costume and admitted that the had prepared nothing, he didn't know that much about Audubon but liked him. He said he hadn't prepared a screen play but he know about Audubon's painting style. He said if he were picked, he would paint and talk to those who stood around about his life, making them part of the play.
The Gestapo liked this well-costumed dawdler, loafer, loiter, shirker, lollygagger - better than me.
I survived and I will try theatre again but never a solo act again without some serious HELP!
