~amaryllis~
February 9th, 2019
During six years of performing arts school, I was always cast in the character role (Mad Hatter, understudy for Alice, etc), when I longed for the boring lead.
In our 5th grade production of The Music Man, I played the mayor’s wife, Eulalie Mackecknie Shinn, who learns to throw off Iowan provincialism and honor her inner light—via Isadora Duncan/Delsarte poses. (How did my drama teacher know?!)
You’d learn the whole script in rehearsal, and so this plant name always conjures a piano lesson scene (Don’t dawdle Amaryllis) I wasn’t in, but still can recite from memory.
In it, says the mother to the prude librarian: But darlin’, when a woman has a husband and you’ve got none, why should she take advice from you? Even if you can quote Balzac and Shakespeare and all them other highfalutin’ Greeks? And so on. It’s here. Duncan below.
