Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Kate Quotes

There is a small part of SEUSSICAL: THE MUSICAL where I, in all my Cat in the Hat glory, echo the lines of a song being performed Mayzie LaBird as played by the hilarious, beautiful and multi-talented Kelli Morgan.

I just repeat the words, "How luck, how lucky you are," and for some reason, the script says that the Cat does so using a Louis Armstrong impersonation.

Sounds easier than it actually is. You see, my Louis Armstrong sounds more like Neil Armstrong... on the moon... talking through a bad 60's microphone... with lots of static.

That, coupled with the fact that there really is no friggin' reason why I'm singing like Louis Armstrong at that moment makes it SO not funny.

So, one night I was just fucking around with it and decided that if it was going to be an impersonation that is not linked to character or plot or motivation, I would do an impersonation that would at least make me laugh...

So, I did Katharine Hepburn.

And I really didn't hear any laughter from our director Ernie Nolan, or anyone else in the house. I put it Kate aside and went back to my pathetic Louis Armstrong in the next run.

Here's the note I received from Ernie about that:


"I think the Hepburn idea is so you and makes the Cat... Stephen's Cat."

So, I will be doing an impersonation of Katharine Hepburn dressed as Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat.

"Oh, the thinks you can think," indeed

So, here's the deal. I need ideas for little throw-away lines to say after the "How luck, how lucky you are." Something quick, funny and easily recognizable as a Katharine Hepburn movie line.

"I'd hang you from the nipples but it would shock the children" from THE LION IN WINTER is NOT an option. This is children's theatre, folks.

As for others:

"The loons, the loons." - Got it.

"You old poop." - Done.

"The calla lilies are in bloom again." - SO in my pocket.

"Debris, debris, debris" (pronounced by Kate as "DEH-bree, DEH-bree, DEH-bree") - Already in the rolodex.

Other ideas, folks?

I could say that fabulously bitchy line that Kate said to Barbara Walters in an interview. Kate despised Barbara for trying to get her to talk about Spencer Tracy, so when Barbara made mention of the fact that Kate was one of the first women to ever were slacks, Kate replied...

"Yes, I wear slack. I love slacks. I'll wear slacks to YOUR funeral."

God took Kate and left us with Ms. Walters. It ain't fair. I just ain't fair.

2 comments:

Madame Fermez le Trou said...

Hello, piglets! As many of you are aware, I've been waiting for an appropriate day, a drama-free or at least a drama-lite day, when I could open this little "blog space" and take in all of the news. I decided that today was an acceptable day, just the sort of day that one could go ahead and read one's first blog if one surmised that, after all, it was 2007 and it was going to have to happen sooner or later, so best to get it done with in privacy and, upon completion, wipe with a fresh nappy and carry the experience to therapy the following week. So I put an old Bubbles Silverman album on the victrola, poured myself just the tiniest gin fizz, (because we all know that it's five o'clock somewhere!), and dove into what I have come to see as my duty.

Well, chickpeas, I've read it. And, just like Wagner, I don't get it. I'm sorry, I don't mean to be thick, but I just don't get it. It doesn't seem to be about me at all!?!?! No, really, I looked, it isn't about me.

...where is that nappy?....

PS - Sorry, I forgot that this little parlor game carries responsibilities as well as libidinous musings, and Stephen wanted a Kate ad lib for his Suess-stimme. I'd like to suggest, "The dingo ate your baby." This was the actual line from Summer and Smoke, that was re-written because Elaine's mother, who was the censor on that movie, found the line supplied by one of those short, squat, Southern playwrights to cause confusion around the notion of Sebastian's little feeding frenzy simply too recherché for a woman of Kate's age and breeding to deliver on the screen.

Or was that Elizabeth Taylor?

Doesn't matter. If you want the big laugh, (and I know that these are preferred in the larger size by many of your people, Stephen), say it, just say it, for once just do as you're told. And be sure to smile when you deliver it, Stephen, and do the eyelash flutter. You know the one I mean.

...now, where ARE my pills?...

Stephen R. said...

Madame - So good to hear from you!!

"The dingo ate your baby" said in a Kate Hepburn voice would be funny AND scare the children.

I therefore adore it. It's in!!! BRAVO!!!!