I wake with all kinds of unpleasant irrelevancies popping around in my head: Dreams. I used to analyze them and write them down in an attempt to figure out what went wrong. Unfortunately, analysis doesn’t always lead a person out of the woods and sometimes only further into them. Speaking of “Into the Woods”…
Stephen calls from the living room, “Bernadette Peters is on…in full costume.”
Translation: On NBC’s morning “The Today Show”, Bernadette Peters is about to perform a song from “Gypsy”. She is currently playing Rose, the most driven stage mother in history, in the Broadway revival. She is in costume from the show and she will now belt out “Everything’s Coming up Roses” in which she will clearly demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that nothing could be further from the truth.
Well, let me see here, what gives?
From the first note to the eye-watering last, it can only be described as every “professional” singer’s worst nightmare. Actually, what it amounts to is a devastating and incomprehensible display of mind-over-matter. Her larynx is in near lockdown. Nothing wants to happen without extreme exertion. There is not a muscle in her body that desires to move, let alone move in this manner. Still, she forcefully rams megawatts of adrenalin, oxygen and glycogen through her veins, blasting her tiny throat and mouth open, bringing to a brilliant fruition a new level of artistic self-annihilation. Like the Hindenburg, she bursts into flames before our eyes. “Oh the humanity!”
On closer inspection we see an eight-shows-a-week-battle-weary-entertainer, a victim of contractual and psychological obligations, blasting herself to smithereens in front of the cameras by the force of her own inner Liza Minnelli; and all this before 8:30am EST.
What is wrong with this picture? The facts speak for themselves: Everything is not coming up roses, no matter how loudly or hoarsely Bernadette Peters incessantly screams at us through our televisions; not for you, not for me, not for America, not for Iraq and not for Easter. She knows it and so does her audience. And no one is fooled. We live in harsh times.
Stephen says, “She’s been doing the show for months now!”
No wonder I feel so exhausted.