by Laurie Graff
“You should do your own show,” he said.
“Of what?”
“Your stories. Tell your dating stories.”
“Right, just like that.” I acted like I had never heard it before, but people had been telling me that for years. I would tell some dreadful tale from my dating swamp “anxiety and sympathy” making it funny to keep the spirits high, and then everyone thought all I needed was a couple of tweaks and a little scenery and I could take my show on the road.
“Think about it,” said Fred. “Promise me you’ll at least do that. Everyone’s doing their own show these days.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll think about it seriously,” I said, knowing I wouldn’t.
I did not want to do my own show. Who was going to raise the money? Who was going to give me a space? Who was going to direct it? For God’s sake, who was going to write it? And who was going to be in it? Me? Just me? All alone up there playing me? Wasn’t the joy of acting walking in someone else’s shoes? Creating a character and living someone else’s life? It was hard enough being me and now I was going to create a show about it? Forget it.
“I’ll give it some really serious thought, Fred,” I lied.
“Okay?”
“Good. So. Where to, Little Lulu?” he asked. “How about we drop into a bookstore and pick up a copy of Your Name Here: An Actor and Writer’s Guide to Solo Performance.”
“My name where? What are you talking about now, Fred?”
“It’s a great book about how to do your own show. And then I’ll tell you all about Wedekind. He was a German expressionist.”
Oh boy. Fred was really into this. It would be a while before I could get myself out of that conversation and back into the one about Broder.
“Okay. But how about right now we skip the bookstore and we find a diner where we can get some eggs and then ride the bus home so we have lots of time for you to ’splain.”
Little Lulu and Karrie Kline. That would be a lot of ’splaining.
Four
The first two weeks of July are peak frog-calling time in France.
“Art imitates life,” Brooke said to me, pointing to the copy written on a cue card inside the little studio where we were auditioning for a wholesale bridal factory commercial. Brooke and I were signed with the same agent, but being completely different types we sometimes wound up reading for different parts at the same audition, like today.
The casting assistant had just taken our pictures. We stood against a blank wall while she snapped a Polaroid of each of us to be stapled to a size card we had filled out listing all of our measurements. Decades of commercial auditions and thousands of size cards later, I still didn’t understand why it was necessary to go through all that paperwork. Save the paperwork for the callback, I say.
“Hey—you know how sometimes they sell you the clothes you wear on a shoot for half price?” I said to Brooke while we waited for the casting director, who was in the lobby yakking with some actors. “Well, if you book this, maybe they’ll sell you the gown for your wedding. Wouldn’t that be a hoot?”
“It would be more like a hootenanny. I actually checked the place out.”
“Brooke, honey, let me see that ring!” Carol James, the casting director burst through the door, making a beeline to the glitter that had caught her eye. “When did it happen?” she asked, turning Brooke’s left hand over and inspecting the perfect emerald-cut diamond.
“Last summer,” said Brooke.
“I wanted the princess cut when I got engaged,” said Carol, raising her left hand and showing off hers. “But if I had to do it all over again I’d go with the emerald. Your fiancé has great taste.”
“I’m lucky,” said Brooke. “I have mazel.”
Brooke said the new Yiddish word slowly. It sounded like she was using the word in a sentence for the first time, because she put the accent on the wrong syllable instead of saying mazel. Carol caught this quickly.
“A shiksa marrying a Jewish man,” she exclaimed. “Just like me!”
Brooke shot me a quick look of apology.
“Now,” said Carol, getting back to business. “In this vignette everyone has been fighting over this one gown, but only one girl gets it. Brooke is the bride who gets the dress. Karrie is the salesperson. Brooke, you have only one word—fabulous. It’s written in red,” Carol said, pointing to the cue card that was sitting on a tripod positioned just to the right of the camera. “It’s up and happy. Karrie, your line is, ‘You can never be early enough to be the bride of your dreams.’ It’s the line written in green, and you’re envious. Got it?”
The audition had now accomplished the double duty of pushing two of my buttons.
“Let’s try one,” said Carol as she went behind the camera to shoot the first take. “And remember, Brooke, you’re a bride-to-be and you’re happy, and Karrie’s character is a little bitter. Okay, get ready to slate your names and your characters. Brooke, first, and...action!”
I waited for Brooke to finish and for the camera to point to me. I wondered if I should present me, Karrie Kline, as a nice, happy actress who would be easy to work with if hired to do this job by giving an upbeat slate with great big smile, when I said, “Hi, I’m Karrie Kline.” Perhaps it would be better to slate in character as the bitter sales clerk, which at the moment would not be much of a stretch. But if I did that, would the client think I’d be a pill to work with?
Every moment counted.
There were so many, many less auditions for women in their forties. Jane and I had recently gotten together for a mutual coaching session to figure out if there was something—anything—we could do to give ourselves an edge.
“They’re looking at hundreds of women on tape and let’s face it, everyone can do the job, right?” said Jane, while we were sitting in her den in New Jersey at our recent get-together, using the camcorder she and William had bought to record little Eve, hoping that seeing ourselves on tape would help us figure out how we fit into the cool I-could-care-less new trend in commercials.
“It’s a type—that’s one thing—but the slate is how you introduce yourself, right?” said Jane, analyzing this in the hope it was something that even deserved analysis and would therefore be worthy of a conclusion. “So that perky slate we used to do that got us all that work twenty years ago really has to go. That’s definitely out.”
Jane had just booked a big national commercial promoting the wonders of a depression drug and swore she got it from her warm but bland how-do-you-do new slate.
“I used my authority but also acted as if I had a million other things more important to do that day than be at that audition,” she said, making direct eye contact with the camera, smiling an ambivalently superior smile when she said Jane Murphy. “Now you try.”
Jane operated the camera. On action I looked directly into it, smiled and said, “Hi! I’m Karrie Kline!”
“No,” said Jane, turning it off. “That slate says my agent never sends me out and I’m thrilled to be here at this stupid audition because I really need a job. Let’s see some edge. You know what, Kar, next time you have an audition, don’t even wash your hair. Be casual. Don’t be so perfect. Try again. Action.”
The whole show of the whole business was starting to annoy me, I thought, looking at the camera like an acquaintance I’d just met on my way to some better place I had to go. Identifying myself with a self-effacing grimace I stated, “Karrie Kline.”
“Wow! That was great, Kar!” said Jane when we watched the tape and played it back. “That’s a much more interesting person than that outdated perky girl.”
“I see what you mean” I said, and this time when I watched the playback I did. “Ambivalent. Cryptic. Kind of off. But cute,” I said, hoping to open a new slot I’d fit into.
In the world of advertising, Jane, at five foot five with a voice that was sultry cosmetic, had always been able to play women you would trust. My agent insisted I would never be taken seriously at five foot on
e with an offbeat voice. No one with severe headache pain would ever buy an aspirin from me. If you want to know what acting had to do with it, I’ll tell you. Not much. Acting was in the theater. But the money wasn’t, unless it was Broadway. My stakes for booking a commercial grew, while the volume of good auditions shrunk. Much like dating.
“Okay. Now, Karrie,” said Carol, aiming the camera at me. “Slate your name.”
I looked ambivalent, cryptic, kind of off. And right on cue, “Hi! I’m Karrie Kline!” popped out of my mouth! Perkier than ever, perhaps even the perkiest, my same old slate just popped out causing me to feel distracted and upset throughout the entire audition.
We did two takes. Carol announced it was fine. Worse than when they just say thank you, was when they tell you it was fine.
“When’s the wedding?” Carol asked Brooke as she walked us to the door.
“Not till next year.”
“Mine’s next week! Then a two-week honeymoon in Paris,” Carol chatted to Brooke as we left. “I bet next time I see you we’ll be barefoot and pregnant.”
“If she waits as long as she did this time to bring me in for an audition we will be,” said Brooke as we waited for the elevator that always took forever. After a small eternity, we stepped in, but as the doors were about to close, an actress wheeling a baby stroller came running towards us yelling, “Hold it!”
“Old home week!” I said when the woman with the stroller turned out to be Jane. Little Eve looked up at us with the casual hipness of a one-year-old, wearing pink-and-green capris with a matching tank so cute I hoped it came in my size.
“Hi, honey,” I said to Eve, kneeling over and giving her a kiss. “What were you here for?” I asked Jane.
“A credit card company,” she said, slim in a light gray business suit and made up in what she would call her audition face. “I was supposed to have a sitter but she canceled last minute. William almost stayed home from work, but I just drove in from Jersey and brought Eve with me. Her first audition. A quick coffee?” Eve let out a sound saying that she readily agreed.
One Chai Latte, one iced Caffè Americano, and one Mocha Frappuccino later—ranging from small to tall to gigundo—we scrambled for tables, chairs, spoons and straws to sip java beans that were overpriced and overblown. But we finally settled down with a little time left to dish.
“Did you do the slate the way we tried?” asked Jane, rocking the stroller with one hand while sipping the medium iced coffee (yes, let’s face it, that’s all it was and all it would ever be) she held in the other.
“No, I did it the same old stupid way,” I said, annoyed with me but loving the Mocha Frappuccino that I treated myself to on special occasions. Today I was celebrating my complete inability to try out a new slate.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” said Brooke. “I was with you. You were fine.”
Even Brooke thought I was fine.
“We’re all on automatic pilot having done the same thing for decades,” said Jane. “It’s not easy to change,” she said, making me wonder what I should change first. My slate, my hair, my attitude, or my career.
“I want to feel the way I felt when we met on the road,” I said to Jane, fondly remembering the fun we had on that first national tour.
“We were so young. It was the beginning. It can’t stay that way forever,” she said, looking at Eve. “Are you going to grow up to be an actress?” she asked her little girl.
“Oh, boy,” said Brooke. “I love it, but I don’t think I’d want it for my kid.” I saw that Brooke actually could not wait to be barefoot and pregnant.
“You miss theater, Karrie,” said Jane, hitting the nail on the head. “Maybe you have to be more open about working out of town.”
I sighed. You practically lost money when you worked in regional theater, not to mention how you had to uproot yourself for months at a time. On some level I even blamed working out of town on my lack of a relationship. It seemed that every time I met someone I liked the lift improved my life as well as my auditions, so shortly after I got into the relationship I got cast in a job out of town.
“Well, it would be different if it was a role that I was dying to do,” I said. “I don’t know. Fred says I should do my own show. Perform my dating stories like a solo show. How’s that for a laugh. Urban femme fatale goes loco!”
“That’s a fantastic idea!” said Jane, jumping on this track and steering the train. “What a great idea. Take it into your own hands!”
“I’d love to do something like that,” said Brooke, “but I’d be scared to death.”
“Excuse me,” I said, using my two hands to point to myself. “And you think I wouldn’t?”
“So do it and be scared. So what?” said Jane, someone good at following her heart.
I’d have to give it some more thought. Not the scared part. That had already been well thought out. The “so what” part. I’d have to think about that.
“Hey. What’s everybody doing for the Fourth?” asked Jane.
I was brightened she asked because the holiday weekend was coming up, and I didn’t have a thing to do. Anne was going home to Philly for the weekend and Fred had finagled a way to thank Trey for the Tonys.
“Anyone up for the beach? Want to watch the fireworks from my roof?” I asked.
“Well, I’m stopping in Boston on my way to the Cape to do a shopping trip for wedding dresses for me, my sister and her girls,” explained Brooke. “Then we’re all going to my folks in Hyannis Port.”
“We’re going to my parents’ for a barbeque and the rest of the time will be spent doing home improvements,” said Jane, wiping a little dribble off of Eve’s little face. “What are you up to, Kar?”
When Henry was still alive he and my mom had a summer place in the Catskills. I always had a place to go. Sometimes, then, I looked at it as a consolation prize. But now with just my mom in Florida I see it was the prize.
“Nothing.”
All eyes were upon me.
“Well, MTW’s having a party and some people talked about getting together,” I said, thinking if I checked it out it might actually be true. “I’ll be fine.” That word again. Well, I would be. I might be a little lonely, but I would be fine. “So are all the bridesmaids’ dresses going to match?” I asked Brooke, eager to change the topic.
“It’s up to my sister. Kristen is matron of honor and we’re taking the lead from her.”
“Kar, you still have that maid-of-honor dress from my wedding?” asked Jane.
“Sort of.” I smiled. Saved by the bell. Someone’s phone was ringing.
“I never was a maid of honor,” said Jane.
“Me neither,” said Brooke.
Always the bridesmaid. Never the bride.
“Whose phone is that?” we all seemed to ask out loud at the same time. Everyone bent down to check their bags and it seemed the winner was me.
“Jerry!” I suddenly grew very animated, pointing my finger at my phone and nodding my head up and down so everyone knew my agent was calling me on my cell. “Wait a sec—let me get out my book. Anyone have a pen?” I asked, as I grabbed my date book with my right hand and a pencil from Jane with my left.
“Okay, I’ll wear my hair clipped up for the callback, baggy shirt... They’re making the character more frumpy for the callback,” I cheerfully whispered as an aside to the table. So thrilled was I to find out I had a callback for a big spot and was finally considered to be cast as one of those funny, frumpy, forties housewives Jerry kept telling me it was so hard to get me seen for. “And I’m on first refusal for the third week of July. Got it. Great... Oh, today? The bridal thingy? Oh... Yeah, I read with Brooke... Fabulous! ” I said, giggling with the gals as I hung up hopeful and happy.
Five
Frogs do not conform to one uniform means of mating, making this aspect of the frog fascinating.
I was on a commercial shoot for a major home appliance company at Silvercup Studios in Long Island City, Queens. It
was just over the Fifty-Ninth Street Bridge, a stone’s throw away from my old high school. We were on an extended break while the crew rebuilt the door to the laundry room on the set. In the spot my character, Wife, not only washed the pants in the family but also wore them, as her husband deferred to her about which washer and dryer would be best. In our last take when Husband flew through the door announcing to his honey he was home, the door flew off its hinge.
The women on the set could not ignore the irony that we had been employed to create this scene of domestic bliss. All of us were living single in Manhattan without husbands or boyfriends or, in some cases, a washer and dryer in one’s apartment building, let alone one’s abode.
“Well, it’s not over yet,” said Jenna, the copywriter on the commercial who was dating a man she had met buying the paper at a newsstand near her subway stop. She accredited this meet to resituating a plant in her apartment and throwing out a photograph of her most recent ex, thus creating better feng shui.
Jenna called all the single women on the set together for a crash course on how to feng shui your apartment. Gathering the wardrobe girl, her assistant, the makeup woman and me, Jenna had us draw the layouts of our apartments on the back of the day’s shooting schedule so she could advise how throwing things out would bring romance in.
“You want to make sure that between your floor plan and where you have your stuff the energy is flowing and creating good chi,” said Jenna, as she looked over each shoulder, supervising our drawings like a foreman in an architect firm. “If the energy in the relationship/marriage corner in your apartment is blocked, it’s not going to work for you in love.”
She stood at the head of the table showing a chart of the feng shui bagua, illustrating how an apartment could be sectioned off into nine areas. Each area was responsible for another part of your life.
Health was located in the middle of one’s apartment, putting the state of mine inside a wall. The wealth spot was in the upper left area of the apartment. Lush green and red plants would help bring in money. I would have to start a greenhouse in my shower, in order to get rich quick. Jenna went on to tell us that the bathroom door should always remain closed and with the toilet seat down, as not to flush your money away. Known to kill off every plant I ever had and having enough privacy to leave every door ajar, I made a mental note to pick up a plant and lock the loo.