I don’t want to say I’m feeling old (at least, no older than I actually am) (in dog years) (just kidding!), but recently I have felt somewhat… dated.
It started at the read-through for Leading Ladies. I told one of the actors who will portray a man dressed as a woman that when he was a woman, I wanted Rosalind Russell.
“He doesn’t know who Rosalind Russell is,” Steven told me.
What’s this? A drama person who hasn’t seen Auntie Mame? Say it ain’t so! Of course it is so. Luckily the actor understood what I wanted from the gesture I made when I said it. However, I felt a point had been made about generations and different frames of reference.
I don’t want to telegraph any jokes, in case this is read by people who might come see the play (Come see the play!), but there is a reference to a Marlon Brando imitation. I thought to myself, “I’ll have to tell the actor involved that it is not Marlon Brando in The Godfather but Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire or On The Waterfront.” Then I remembered that The Godfather was in the ’70s, not a recent movie this young person was likely to have seen. (Full disclosure: I haven’t seen The Godfather either; I just know Marlon Brando was in it and he was a lot older than he was in the other two movies.)
Anyways, I don’t know why it’s a Marlon Brando imitation anyways. I think James Cagney or Humphrey Bogart would be better. And I don’t mean James Cagney in Yankee Doodle Dandy or Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca (yes, I’ve seen both those movies).
Yes, I can direct a play without resorting to references to old movies. And, no, I did not see these movies first run at the theatre. Any other questions?
Mohawk Valley Girl 