During the mad dash to GET TO THE DENTIST that needed not be mad — it began with a photo shoot around me and the dress she told me to buy on the edge of an oceanic parking lot. She grabbed some unsuspecting techie to become her photographer at the arts center. “I gotta get to lunch,” he said, eventually. He looked at the phone, there are like…a lot of pictures of me, “why is she posing like that,” Harris asked him. I’m laughing. “She laughs at everything I do.” He goes to lunch and some lone person crosses the oceanic parking lot. She turned…watching him, almost an ant, approach his scooter.
“Should we get you on the scooter?”
She asked.
We naturally transitioned into her work as an acting teacher in the middle of an oceanic parking lot, dry as a bone, not a droplet of water, life, creativity, and yet she was so fertile. She threw me under a palm tree— “it’s hard to get you to focus.” She was right. Focus was a big problem in my case, personally.
In this scene, I come under her gaze. We’re watching one another, I guess, but we’re just getting to know the other, but part of her journey arc is — believing in me. Anyway, this acting lesson in a parking lot brought out a different side of her — sharp, not “bibbidy bobbidy boop.” This is ninja Harris — winning in a switch blade fight against Vietnam.
What I loved the most about this time — perfect timing, how life seemed to meet us, but that’s also true, it does. As she begins to switch fast, wanting to know what time it is, the dentist, a garbage truck pulls us — beep beep — behind her. The mad dash across the parking lot to get the dentist begins…these two garbage men…the only witnesses to this scene, loading the garbage, slowing down their movements, as Harris is flailing and spurting “PETE, GREEK,” etc.,” as I am just verifying on my phone where it is: 15 minutes. I grab the piece of white carpet off the arm of a cactus since we did a photo shoot. One last look at the garbage men at the top of her porch, little tower, the sun breaking over their bodies casting them in silhouette.
Classical music washes over me — we’re fifteen minutes away. She dashes to the bathroom so she can do her make-up — quickly.
“Don’t lose your slut,” she said.
“Or?”
“You’ll be just another nut.”
Blush.
She takes off and suddenly appears a little too far to be possible: the kitchen, standing there with an iced coffee with berries in it. “You made me something…?” I said, touched. “Yeah,” she shrugged.
“You’ll starve!”
She hands me the glass, sets me up to be funny, and she keeps going.
I collapse, sort of, by the door; I have to put on my shoes. There was no reason for me to act like there was any risk of being late but this was so fun and she could operate as she wanted to. She paused by the door, a moment that comes back to me so vividly, and why? She ended up mentioning the Apple Tree and I took her lead. I didn’t ask her any more questions, really, unless she opened up the discussion after the first night. Taking my shoes by a potted plant, in a golden light, she paused at her front door, a black gate, her figure covered in sunspots, a star, the sun.
Did you write that monologue for Harry Kellerman?
No.
Well, Herb Gardner said she did.
She mentioned The Apple Tree.
“How did you do that with your voice?”
I tried, I’m a singer…also thanks to her. I sing again. Her work re-opened a past that was locked away. That was part of the reason why I was here, personally, though this is subtext, not the main drive. She got that. I figured she would. See through me. That was fine.
“I just put on a funny voice,” she shrugged, “you try…”
“Chimney…”
Sure.
Then, the mad dash continues…the two of us….me with a glass of iced coffee with berries in it…getting into the Honda Civic…where she tells me how Marlon Brando asked her out and they invented tea kettles that don’t drip. She believed in me, I didn’t want to hear that, so when I took this time out all these years later, I understood what she was doing, too, since this, I think, is a rich story because of the layers that it has. We’re on our way to “the dentist” where we’re learn how sick she is — which gives that mad dash to the dentist an emotional body…the classical music washing over me…does she know? Not know? What we’re going into, in some regard. People have different styles of communicating and with a piece like this, if I do a book around her, not just a dramatic piece, that is, as a script it stands on its own, I might think about what that was about…she trusted me, on some level, but then, I was there. I say that more because of where I can possibly relate to her or at least offer a bit of my personal experience since I had a lot to work out, personally. I’m not there yet so.
She’s about to go over the divider and turn in circles in a lot next the parking lot… “where where “ where to park…THERE. Get back to the parking lot. We’re going in.
The wise screenwriter coming through me right now — “this is about connection.”
Final point, crossing his living room, passing the orchid.
Gotta go.
Anyway, I was thinking about her this morning…as I am preparing some ideas for a production house which makes me very happy, and her support in me, I guess, spiritually, has been really felt on my end. That’s it, yay, Barbara Harris. I love this project, time, and I’ll continue to develop it. It was special. I want to wait until I have a contract before entering into her personal life further. I can pitch it to see what’s going to interest an editor…especially around the mental health stuff, it’s true, there should be no shame there, because everyone but everyone talked to me about that, and to say, “don’t” feels suffocating. And I came from one hell of a story, you know, so I can comfortably offer some about my mother and father — even in dialoguing about denial, the homes that one might come out of, family dynamics, that too. Her childhood was — traumatic, that’s what her relative said.
I’m reading profiles, too, right now, so I’m clearly thinking about what that entails. Vulnerability might be my angle in since this is a sign of strength. This was her “extraordinary ability” on stage along with “becoming someone else” to the point that Arthur Kopit is drawing a line in the sand — this is not Daniel-Day-Lewis, she’s not becoming the role but another person. Again, this is…I have questions for other actors who “become.” Does that make sense? Well, she had issues offstage, sure, but I would appreciate talking to more people about her.
Was she even properly diagnosed? You see. If she exists in a more mysterious category of mental health too — that’s really appealing, I think, as a story, in that she — a woman — was a genius or prodigy with exceptional if not extraordinary abilities. That seemed to come with “illness” or complications. And I was talking to a young man the other day about my story and he mentioned that his father was a bit of a crazy genius himself. Those people always have…right. What is that? I’m speaking more about expectations. How real they are. Outside of one’s personal framework of thinking. The world, in a sense, is a real psychological structure, as well.
And to her family…was she? Seen as such.
On some basic level, if you think about her having had “problems” her whole life to get swept away to stardom — like no, you’re actually gifted. Her watching Cinderella…after Rodgers and Lerner, wow, say — you’re it. We’re writing a musical for you. She walks out — she can’t do this. Isn’t that great? Someone who doesn’t know what they are capable of but does she know? I don’t know, ask someone else. Me? I just got in touch with that.
Barbara Harris would have been someone I would have courted as a psychologist if I had gone in that direction with the same very agendaless interest in her actual experience. That might have taken time to get there because we’re taught, even, as I was — to adopt ideas that might not be “true” in the absolute. Like, was I a bitch at four years old? The biggest bitch. I guess, but that’s not the point: I was four. I had to un-program what I learned down the line. Maybe not cared for properly. Even just going through these four years with her — didn’t get there — both my parents were sick. I had some complicated thinking to work out, coping, also.
I gotta get to work. I guess I should put this in my Barbara Harris newsletter, so I’ll do that later.
I guess I had some dreams around language, the language that one uses around a person, especially a performer, and I mention that not because it’s not merited but it’s very true…and she’s Barbara Harris so she’s a highly respected artist…a founder of improv. She’s intuiting Academy Award-nominated monologues in the middle of the night. She might say, I’m in the energy of the thing, I’m a part of a project…this is Herb’s writing, idea, but I’m serving it. She still wrote that, though. And before I even got that confirmation, I had that question, feeling, so she said no, but it was really yes. I get that. Why she did that. I don’t want to over-analyze her either.
Thanks for reading this morning.