Amy Lu's View

When I was in 8th grade, a friend told me that I looked like a rabbit in my class photo. 

That wasn’t exactly the look I was going for. 

This memory surfaced recently when I was playing gangster moll Edna Murray in the latest Landmark Center history play.  

Edna’s nickname was “Rabbit.” Well, “Rabbit” was  one of her nicknames. Edna was also known as “The Kissing Bandit” and “The Triple Escape Queen”–but those names don’t conjure up any awkward junior high memories. 

Unlike 8th grade me, Edna didn’t have any insecurities about her appearance. Or, maybe the real Edna did, but my Edna, despite her rather unsexy nickname of “Rabbit,” was a vixen who wholeheartedly reveled in the attention of the Barker-Karpis gang members without any second thoughts. 

It was a short but challenging scene. While it’s great fun to portray a flamboyant character, I find it hard to convey that confidence and physical grace. I found being graceful especially challenging in heels (even small ones) the week after I ran a marathon. 

I went right from playing Edna to playing Marcia in a monologue that was part of a one-act play festival (or I could say I was in a short one-woman show). Marcia was another woman who, like Edna, craved attention. Marcia was an aging theater actress suspected in the murder of her lover, who was completely upfront about hungering for adoration.

“Let me be blunt…I came here and I was adored. People stopped me in the street and asked for my autograph. I didn’t care what I needed to do to keep that feeling…Just don’t take that feeling away from me.”

—Marcia’s Lament by Brian Cern

Why do some people, particularly women (and Toads, see my previous post), seem desperate for attention and adoration? What does it mean to be a confident and powerful woman? How is a woman’s power impacted by societal expectations about a woman’s age and career? 

These are all interesting questions, and just the tip of the feminist-tinged questions about gender and power that are raised by the stories of Edna and Marcia. And while I did ponder these questions a bit while I played them, my most pressing questions included:

• Is my over-the-top Southern accent for Edna TOO over-the-top?
• How can I deal with my static cling issue with Edna’s dress?
• Do I look like I’m drinking too much gin/vodka as Marcia? (not a moral question but don’t want the audience to worry that Marcia is going to pass out)
• Am I going to trip in these very modest heels? Even if I don’t trip, am I going to look highly uncomfortable and awkward? (which wouldn’t fit Edna or Marcia)
• Is my fake hair color more or less appropriate? (I tried to down down the unnatural red color for Edna to be historically plausible, and figured Marcia could get away with some gray roots)

But maybe the biggest question I wrestled with is/was: “Should I be concerned that I love playing these characters, especially Marcia, soo much?”

I’ll be blunt now: I adored playing Marcia, and didn’t feel like I had to dig too deep to connect with the character. My inner Marcia apparently isn’t all that buried. And to hell with fake self-modesty, I think I rocked Marcia and audience members seemed to agree. I got more than a few comments that I seemed “natural” and “at ease.” (I even “self-directed” my performance of Marcia, in that I didn’t invest the time to get too much feedback from others and didn’t have an official director as I was trying not to bother Chad with his studying and such). 

And while playing Edna was challenging, playing Marcia felt easy. Maybe the difference is simply because Marcia sat down most of the time so I didn’t have to worry about falling. (Did I mention I am not a beautifully coordinated creature, to quote a line from one of our favorite plays?)

Playing Marcia may have also been easier for me because it was a monologue–while I love the energy and interplay and support of acting with others, there is something simple and empowering in being totally in control of a scene, for better or worse. This really plays out with lines: If I mess up my lines in a monologue, I don’t have anyone else to save me, but I’m not taking anyone down with me. 

Does my joy and comfort in playing Marcia reveal some psychological issues I should examine?

Perhaps. But as I reflect on this, I realize the most important question to me is: “When can I have a role like Marcia again?”

Hmmm, this post didn’t quite go where I thought it was going to. Not that I had a great plan for it–I mostly wanted to write something and I had this little bit about the nickname “Rabbit”–but I ended up with another disjointed exploration of my psychological foibles. 

I may just have to accept that psychological foibles are my consistent through line–something 8th grade Amy, Edna, Marcia, and present Amy can identify with. 

*I feel I can make this joke as I was a Women’s Studies minor in college.