Friday night was closing night for Oklahoma! While I’ll be very happy to have my nights back, I’m really going to miss it. It was a lot of fun and it was an especially nice group of people to work with. Everyone in the cast treated Emma and Zoë like princesses. The high school and college kids especially went out of their way to make them feel like an important part of the ensemble. They had such a good time, they’re already asking when they can be in another play.
As for me, I’m re-entering retirement, which is probably for the best. My performance generated some…how shall I put this…”strong opinions” on the local theater message boards. Here’s my personal favorite:
“Judd Frye was a pansy. Instead of being a hatefilled hired hand who everyone was afraid of, he was a whining puppy, not very convincing.”
So, it’s either that or I portrayed Jud as a complex, mixed-up someone you truly feel sorry for. To-may-to, to-mah-to.
Having had to grow a scroungy beard for the peformance, I was finally able to shave last night for the first time in three months. But this morning I got out of the shower and was reminded once again just how tedious having to shave every day is. I flirted with the idea of keeping the beard for the winter, but I’m not really in a beardy mood right now. A few people suggested that I just shave the sides and keep a goatee. I shot them where they stood.
I remember thinking back in 1994, “OK, fellows, we’ve done the goatee thing…it’s time to move on.” And yet here we are a decade later and people are still advocating a small pointed or tufted beard named for its resemblance to the beard of a he-goat. I just don’t get the appeal. And while I understand on an intellectual level that “goatees don’t kill people; people kill people,” have you ever noticed how many of those people have goatees? (Exhibits A, B, and C.)
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Goat, Goatees.
See? Perform a linguistic study of the word “goatee” and you can immediately see why goatees are evil.
Alas, if I could only grow a nice bushy beard, a la ZZ Top. But I can’t. Sigh.
Hi Dan.
Local theater message boards?
http://www.playersanonymous.org
I don’t know any others.
Please don’t get to comfortable in that recliner since I’d love to get to see you in another play. I haven’t gotten to for a while.
I hope you won
Scraggly beards no! but beard growth that’s about a week old (just past prickly) just screams sexy. It gives the appearance of a little ruggedness (read tough guy so no calling AAA if you have a flat).
Even if you ain’t the dangerous type, you can still look it – women love that! And keep it trimmed! Grizzly Adams was never touted as a ladies man but Don Johnson was. Must have accessories include at least one Indiana Jones hat(and practice that one eyebrow lift.)
You tease. I thought I was going to get a glimpse of the face behind the tiny pineapple, and all I see his a puff of brown hair and maybe an eyebrow.
Goatees are devilish.
Women do NOT love scraggly week-old stubble. Gives you chappy lips. Need Mentholatum.
The only man I know who can carry it off is Geoffrey Hughes.
I’m putting the “Jud Fry: Pansy or No?” debate to an end right now. In every other production of “Oklahoma” I’ve seen–and I’ve seen my fair share–Jud has been portrayed as a big, dumb lout. Grettir’s portrayal, however, was more more subtle. Jud wasn’t an oaf, so some might automatically conclude: lack of oafishness equals pansiness. But that wasn’t the case. As I watched the play, I just kept thinking, “That pore/poor guy must have had a terrible childhood.” And (forgive the social commentary) those are the type of people who in today’s world seem the scariest and wreak the greatest havoc–not hulky Rod Steiger types.
Grettir’s Jud certainly wasn’t a pansy. But since these judgments are all relative anyway, I’d have put money on Jud over Curly any day of the week. Curly (in gray suit and tan hat) looked like I (a 37-year-old housewife) could have taken him in a grudge match.
Unfortunately, Tracy, what you see in the picture is not even Jud’s hair or eyebrow–simply Gertie’s feathers atop her hat. The only bit of Jud you can spy is a white sleeve.
BTW, I agree with all about goatees. Of Satan. And have to side with Jenny on the stubble. Hughes’s Onslow puts all Don-Johnson-pretty-boy-wanna-be-tough-guys to shame.
I need to clarify one thing. My “choice” to play Jud Fry the way I did wasn’t really a choice at all. I’d like to say that my performance was based on a thorough psychological and artistic investigation into the character’s psyche and motivations, but the truth is…I’m just not that good an actor.
I played him the only way I knew how. I tried making major modifications to please the director and a few others who had strong opinions as to how it should be done, but when it came right down to it I couldn’t really make it work any other way.
for what it’s worth (nothing): Technically, a goatee is a beard trimmed to cover just the chin from the lower lip on down. The mustache in what has now come to be known as a goatee theoretically lands the style in the “vandyke” category. Of course there are many other styles from which you could choose should the vandyke not suit your liking. If you do decide to go shaggy, you can always register your beard.