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play: women who talk too much
Miriam Meisel
MUSIC: DIXIE
(MIRIAM ARRIVES ON STAGE WITH A RUSSLE OF PETTICOATS, A BIG BOW IN HER HAIR, HIDDEN BEHIND A TWIRLING PARISOL. SHE HAS A THICK SOUTHERN ACCENT)
Miriam: It’s so nice of all y’all to gather for the 21st anniversary of little ole me becoming a Canadian. (FLIPS PARISOL OVER TO REVEAL HER FACE.) Go leafs go! Ooh! It’s so cute when they bash their little heads into the boards. (SHE FLIRTATIOUSLY TITTERS AND GIGGLES). I know what you must be asking. How does a shy, southern, polish, Jewish girl named Miriam Meisel, leave the bayous of Louisiana and end up somewhere “slightly north of Montana” and becomes Micki Moore. (WEDDING MARCH PLAYS, HER FRILLY UMBRELLA TURNED UPSIDE DOWN BECOMES A BOUQUET OF FLOWERS. SHE HURRIES TO BACK OF STAGE AND SLOWLY MARCHES UP THE AISLE WITH AN INNOCENT, GIDDY LOOK ABOUT HER)
(V.O. MALE VOICE, SOUTHERN ACCENT): Do you take this Canadian fella to be your lawfully wedded husband?
Miriam: And there, under the hoopa, the Rabbi proclaimed,
(V.O. MALE VOICE, SOUTHERN ACCENT):“May the Lord bless you and keep you, as you head for the GIANT TUNDRA to the NORTH.”
Miriam: And all starry eyed, I’m thinking... to myself, “What’s a tundra?”
I ran to the library in the synagogue and looked up the word. (SHE SEARCHES THE BIG BOOK. SHE FREAKS OUT) “Tundra” - a vast Artic wasteland. So I packed up all my petticoats and pretty bows, and sure enough, the first thing my new Canadian husband asked me to do was go outside with the garden hose and make a hockey rink. (SHE ACTS OUT THEIR CONVERSATION) “Well, little darlin’, just how do I do that?” I said (BATS HER EYELASHES) batting my eyelashes. (PUTS ON MASCULINE PERSONNA) “You take the garden hose, pour water on the ground till it freezes. Then you do it every hour on the hour, again and again, till you have 15 layers.” (FEMALE PERSONNA, STILL ALL SWEET AND SMILEY) “But it’s 20 below zero out there.” (MALE PERSONNA) “That’s when you make the best hockey rinks.” So at the divorce hearing, I told the judge, “Your honor, and what a fine looking man you are, (BATTING HER EYELASHES) I just don’t do hockey rinks.” (MISCHIEVOUSLY) So much to my regret, I no longer had a place to skate, but I did have two babies to look after. All the while, I had my eye on the TV, trying to figure out how to get the rest of me on it. In the commercials, there were people who looked like people having people’s problems: bad breath, underarm odor, drippy nose, dirty laundry, pounding head. I said to myself, “I’ve got all those things.” The next morning I woke up and my sink was stopped up. It was a sign, an omen. Did I call a plumber? No, I called an agent. And I landed my very first commercial audition. It was almost too much, too soon cause I got that first whiff of fame. I’d be walking down the street with my kids, and people would say to me, “Aren’t you the woman in the Milk of Magnesia commercial?” And my son would say,(IN A CHILD’S VOICE) “Yes, and my mom is the constipated one.” For that job, all I had to do was stand around with a pinched face. (DEMOSTRATES IT) “Feeling logy, Marge?” (NODS PAINFULLY) and for that, I made $5000.00. Then I learned, there’s even more money, if you can speak on camera, so I signed up at the Royal Conservatory. (VOICE OF INSTRUCTOR, IN PRECISE UPPER ENGLISH ACCENT) Say, “How now brown cow”. (MIRIAM REPEATS IN THICK SOUTHERN ACCENT) “Hoooow noooow brooown coooow.” After 2 years of practicing, I finally learned how to speak Canadian. Listen: “How now brown cow, EH!” Pretty soon I had my own television show and a new name, Micki Moore. Little did I know that my son, while I was lying in backyard sunbathing, was going up and down the street, shouting, “Come one, come all, see Micki Moore in a bikini. Only 25 cents.” He sold out. Lying on the cot, I open my eyes and I am surrounded by a group of grade school boys, all staring directly at my chest. (LITTLE BOY’S FROGGY VOICE) “Them sure are nice, Mrs. Moore”!
Well, I almost had it all. I had the kids, the TV show. I had my identity, my autonomy, my RRSP and my IUD. Now I was looking for the man of my dreams. And suddenly, a “gentleman caller” turned up with such charm, such savoir-faire. He had a way with words that melted my heart. He had a new store opening and he wanted me to attend, so he said,(TALKS AS MALE PERSONNA), “If I can’t get a real celebrity, can you come?” Then before I knew it, he whisked me away to South Africa for a kind of Meryl Streep, Robert Redford dangerous, passionate “tame the lion” safari in the jungle. It was hot, it was primitive; the hyenas in heat were howling. He gathered me in his masculine arms, pulling me close to him. Then he whispered in my ear, those words every woman longs to hear, “Capitalism is far superior to socialism.” After my whirlwind romance and (PAUSE) political science lecture, a very exciting thing happened. He asked me to marry him. Only it’s eleven years later and this time it’s in France.
MUSIC: THE WEDDING MARCH
(MIRIAM DUPLICATES WEDDING MARCH WITH UMBRELLA AS FLOWERS, INNOCENT LOOK)
(V.O. MALE VOICE WITH FRENCH ACCENT) “Do you take zis Canadian fella to be your lawfully wedded husband?”
Miriam: “OUI” to the tundra, but “NON” to the hockey rink. So you see,
I’m not a lumberjack or a Mountie
I don’t live in an igloo or eat blubber
I say schedule instead of schedule
My name is Miriam Meisel
Here's to standing tall and saying it like a true Acadian
Honey child, I looove this land, I love this tundra
Cause I am a Canadian.
Now y’all come back now, ya hear.
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