Looking for Mrs. Peel 3: Smoke Under the Door

Dorothy Nixon: My grandmother, secretary of the Kuala Lumpur Book Club, Changi Double Tenth Incident Survivor.

Scene Four: Lemon Creek Living Room

SOUND: Announcer on radio

Announcer: ( This is Roger Scott broadcasting live on location from Expo 67 Or Girl Watching Central.( sx cheesy wolf whistle sound effect) Everywhere you turn a gorgeous young thing in a sarong, sari, or kimono. Still it takes more than a beautiful face and perfect proportions to be a hostess at the fair. All 240 Official Expo hostesses speak both English and French…and have some college; And lucky me,in a minute, I get to interview two leggy birds from the British Pavilion whose miniskirts are the envy of all the Expo hostesses, (ID. CFOX. MontreeeeALL The Island City) But first this word from Clairol.Who writes this shit?

(sx radio: Sad-sack women’s voice: Oily hair?? My hair is so oily this big man from Texas came up and asked if he could invest. PSSSt. Good news for you; fade)

Marthe: Mark. Dorothy. Come to the window. They’ve found a parking space right in front.

Dorothy Vo: She is small. Very very small. With a broken down sparrow body, the high forehead and steely gaze of a chicken hawk and a giant square chin just like that Tasmanian Devil on TV. Her hair is snow white and short cropped. My tall tall father shyly takes her little birdy hand as she materializes onto the sidewalk from the rusty cocoon of our Austin Cambridge car. With my fine-tuned daughterly radar I can sense that despite his big bones and broad shoulders, my dad is the one feeling very very small.

Dorothy: I bet Granny’s never seen anything like Madame Dufour’s pink Thunderbird with the wings at back.

Mark: They’re fins, tail fins, not wings.

Dorothy: I bet they don’t even have cars in Malaya. Bunga’s father doesn’t drive!

Mark: No they travel by rickshaw and elephant, mostly.

Dorothy vo: My peregrine progenitor has to pause three times to catch her breath as she climbs the 18 or so freshly swept stairs to our second story 5 and a half.

Marthe: Don’t crowd the door.

Peter: (Indistinct grumble)

Martha: Dorothy, so pleased to finally meet you. This is Mark,our eldest and, this, of course is “my” Dorothy, or String Bean as we call her. (whispers: Mark:HO HO HO Green Giant. Dorothy:Shut up Mark)

Granny: Oh, Martha. What enormous children you have

Martha: Well, I am very proud of my cooking. I am French.

Daddy: (growl)

Martha: Mark, help your dad bring up your grandmother’s suitcases. Dorothy, you must be exhausted. Let me show you your room.(fade) I hope you like the colour yellow, we bought new curtains for your visit. And we finally found a store that sells yogurt, so you can have your usual breakfast in bed.

Granny: Oh, you needn’t have bothered.

Scene Five: Nixon Living Room

SOUND: Drone of TV. (CFCF 12 Montreal)

Man on TV: Good Evening.I am Pierre Berton. Last month the Australian Rock Group, the Seekers, sang at Expo67 and their performance was broadcast live to over 70,000,000 people worldwide by Telstar satellite. Newton N. Minow, the US Broadcast Regulator (who famously called Television a “vast wasteland” back in 1961) claims that satellite technology, will, in the long run, have more of an impact than space technology, because spaceships only send men into space while satellites will send ideas into space. Our special guest today is Marshall McLuhan, University of Toronto professor …fade

Dorothy vo: A few days later, Granny, recently retired colonial librarian, lectures my older brother on a point of media literacy.

Mark: When Bridge on the River Kwai played on TV, the next day everyone at school was whistling (whistles tune) I told them my grandfather helped build that bridge.

Granny: Oh Mark. Don’t believe anything you see in the cinema. It’s all bosch. If you – and your sister – come to visit me in Malaysia I’ll let you read some first hand accounts. Many of my good friends died on that beastly Thai Burma Railroad. Yes, many friends, British, Chinese, Malay and Indian.

Dorothy: When I go can I have a mongoose like Riki Tikki Tavi ? I don’t want to be gobbled up by a King Cobra like Daddy’s dog. And I don’t want lizard tails to fall into my oatmeal. No way. And I don’t want to see a monkey being killed, because they cry just like human babies, Dad says.
Granny: Girl. Whatever are you chattering about? What tall tales has your father been telling you?

Dorothy vo: So, I decide to ignore my grandmother, which is easy as it is Canada’s Centennial year and those magical Expo islands are only a short bus and metro ride away. (sx Mexican mariachi band. Israeli fiddle; Trinidad steel drums). Expo, with its mishmash of experimental eye-candy architecture,is better than real life, anyway, a mind bending multi-national experience, McLuhan’s Global Village in giant size diorama. I lope miles over the macadam on my long giraffe legs and queue for hours in line in the wilting humidity,(or biting wind or freezing drizzle, whatever the 6 month Expo season serves up)to gawk at cultural signifiers like wallabies and totem poles and scorched space capsules and visit “the future” with its talking robots and video phones, and uncluttered modular dwelling places. At the International Broadcasting Center, around the corner from where my father works, I see how radio programs are produced (in tiny little rooms) and learn that it takes a mile of tape to make an hour of TV.
When my senses get overwhelmed I visit the Australian Pavilion to sink my burning toes into the decadent deep wool carpet there, or I escape to the near people-free garden behind the glittering geodesic dome of the American Pavilion to lie down in the prickly grass, by some mini waterfall, often the lone fleshly figure amid the park’s many bizarre Cezanne-inspired sculptures. But not always

Scene 5 1/2 Park at Expo
(sx) water, wind

Dorothy: I like your lipstick. What colour is it?

Woman: Blue Surf by Yardley. The London Look

Dorothy: Yardley opens your eyes.

Woman:Huh?

Dorothy: That’s their slogan – in Mademoiselle oh

Dorothy I like your white Go Go boots too

Woman: Oh, they are part of my uniform.

Dorothy Uniform?

Woman: I’m a hostess at the Kaleidoscope Pavilion

Dorothy: You are a beauty queen then. The TV said every hostess at Kaleidoscope is a beauty queen. .

Woman; They exaggerate. I was a contestant in the Miss Canada Pageant, that’s all.

Dorothy:That’s pretty good

Woman: Yea, that’s pretty good

Dorothy: What are you reading? Beooo

Woman: Beautiful Losers

Dorothy: Is it good?

Woman: Sort of. It’s by Leonard Cohen. He’s from Westmount, you know

Dorothy: Read me a bit

Woman: No. It’s too grown up for you. But I can recite the words to Suzanne for you.. Have you heard the song on the radio?

Dorothy Sort of

Woman: Well Suzanne was a poem before it was a song. We studied it in literature class. Suzanne takes you down. Beside the still water..

Dorothy:Sorry.I gotta go and meet my brother. We were watching movies at the Cuban Pavilion. About the Revolution. But I got bored.

Dorothy VO:I do watch dozens of other movies at Expo67, much much happier movies. Multi-screen movies, interactive movies, movies that surround the audience 360 degrees and movies where the stage- and audience- move around the screen. Movies where the medium is the message. Movies that teach about point of view. And sometimes, on the site, if I hear the sound of polite applause rippling my way I know a major movie star or world celebrity is soon to rise up out of the ether. Twiggy? Princess Grace?

Scene Six: Expo 67

SOUND: wave of applause, growing louder

Martha: Look! It’s Bobby Kennedy and his family.

Dorothy: Where?

Martha: Over there.

Dorothy: I can’t see anything except his golden hair. All those men in black

Martha: Those are his secret service agents. He has a lot of protection. He has to have.

Scene Seven: Nixon Living Room

SOUND: background cocktail party chatter. coughing in background

Dorothy VO: Returning home I wolf down a savory pot au feu and catch a summer rerun of a favorite TV show, the Man from UNCLE, and drop with numb knees onto my little cot. My father, an accountant for the Fair Commission, works late most nights, so my mother tackles a second shift, entertaining Granny, who fairly crackles with charisma in the company of grownups, especially men.

Granny: Yes, Martha. A double scotch would be fine. We made our own amusements in those days. Dances at the Royal Selangor Club,in the Reading Room on Saturdays. Cricket on the padang. Once I was given a polo pony by the Sultan of Jahore’s son Bu. For keeping him on the straight and narrow, before a match. And, I was the only woman ever allowed into the men’s bar at the Club, as Selangor’s official cricket scorer; and in 1953 I was actually filmed scoring a match in a March of Time newsreel about the Emergency. Millions saw me.

Man: (chortle. grunt.)

Granny: The children were in England, at school.

Man: HUH?

Granny. Of course I missed them. But duty called – and my duty was to my husband. Still, during the Depression I travelled steerage to England on a banana boat just to see them.

Man: Grumble Granny: If you are referring to Somerset Maugham, I must warn you. He has painted a rather unflattering portrait of colonials. In my opinion he’s a misogynist. He hates women.

Martha: I know what misogynist means. I was taught both Greek and Latin at the College Marguerite Bourgeoys. Jules, did I tell you about my visit on the Royal Yacht Britannia. Il ya deux semaines. The Queen was in Halifax and the boat had to go back and get her. Meanwhile Peter and I were invited to a soiree on board, on June 28, I think. Well, the lights were off deckside and there were frogmen in the water and a crewman asked me why I wanted to kill the Queen. I said, “I don’t want to kill the the Queen. I’m not a maudite separatist. He said he didn’t care one way or da udder because he was Welsh.

Granny: Ah, what an appalling thing to say, even in jest.

Dorothy: (coughing) Mummy, I can’t sleep. The smoke is coming in under the door.

Martha: I’ll open annuder window.

Looking For Mrs. Peel Complete play pdf

ear aches, celebrity couples and Ancient Greek Hunks

My son and me, Parthenon and bust of Man, Pius the Hunk or something, in Agora Museum. It’s as if the man were still in there.

So, it was a wild ride, but I got to see the Parthenon – and I’m happy I did. It’s about the scale. And it’s about craftsmanship. (I know, duh, Dorothy) And I don’t think pictures capture it, or replicas. You have to fill in the blanks using your imagination, but the frieze (sp?) must have been beyond spectacular to look at before Lord Elgin the Pillager destroyed it. That reconstructed bit with Dionysus, well, so beautiful.

I almost didn’t get home because of this side trip to see one of the world’s most famous heritage sites. Perhaps the most famous. I took the ferry to Athens, assuming I could just cancel the first leg of my trip, Mytilini to Athens, sans problemes, when I got there… And as I have had an ear infection from beginning of my trip to Greece, I was happy to avoid one plane ride. And I wanted to see the Acropolis, even though my brother said “It’s just a ruin, like that old theatre in Montreal, the York, near the forum, the old Montreal Forum that is, another kind of heritage site…but I digress.”

But apparently you can’t. When I got to Athens I phoned my so called agent, an online agent (I will NEVER use online agents again) to be told that you can’t just cancel. It’s all a package and if you miss the first flight the other flights are cancelled, too. What? I mean I subscribe to Les Grands Ballets, but if I don’t use a ticket, they don’t cancel the other shows on me.

Anyway, I had to go to the Athens airport at four in the morning, on no sleep (indeed, I didn’t sleep on the overnight ferry to Athens the night before) to book a flight back to Mytilini to take the very same plane back a few minutes later.. . in order to prevent spending thousands on a new ticket home…but between Air France and Delta I managed to avoid both of these two unpleasant scenarios and get on my Air France flight from Athens to Montreal, although the procedure seemed more complicated than mapping the human genome.(and I wasted 200 euro on that Athens-Mytilini emergency flight. A tax on spontaneity.)

As the agents were communicating in Greek, I had no idea WHY this procedure was so difficult. Anyway, I got re-issued a ticket at no charge (I hope!) and I got on the plane to Paris I had been booked on all along. And I like Air France. Nice food and booze and on the overseas leg I had the big seat where I could completely stretch out my feet. and I am tall as you can see. (What you can’t see is that my feet were totally swollen, another thing that happened to me in the dry heat of Greece. (Dropsy, the syndrome was once called.) As I was waiting in the line to check in, my son, who was with me for moral support, spied an Academy Award winning actress and her family right in front of me and pointed her out. My son told me her husband was equally successful, but I didn’t recognize him. My son had a brain blip from lack of sleep and couldn’t remember his name. (I looked them up on IMDB and yes, the father is very busy, as they say. He’s just completed a movie with arguably the two most famous actors on the planet and he got third billing.)

Nice to see a ‘celebrity couple’ that can live a normal life. No one recognized them, it seemed, they sat beside me on the plane. I assume most celebrities get left alone, but I’m sure people gawk.

Anyway, I had an infected ear and no medicine except vinegar drops and paracetamol, and swollen feet, and still I loved Greece. 13 days with not a cloud in the sky. (I suffer from SAD syndrome.) And the great food, and the gentle Greek wines, although I got a little tired of delicious, healthy, cheap food in the end.. Funny. Too much of a great thing. But I can see why Greece is doing so poorly economically: the sales people are so laid back. (Unlike Cairo, where my son had just been and where he had been followed miles by people trying to sell him things, or rob him.)

And I am happy I spent two hours on the Acropolis, although I (rather fittingly) have a fear of heights. Acrophobia! (Now, that’s where I should have started my essay..) I paid 100 euro for a guide who gave us a Freudian tour of the site. She told me that she does this because she assumes we North Americans have all learned about Greek Myths in more cartoony terms. But, of course, she was talking to a person long converted to such ideas.

Very happy- and at the end of the day- despite my fatigue and frenzy over the ticket (try talking to people over the phone with blocked ears) we visited the New Museum, a beautiful structure filled with astounding artefacts .. (bits and pieces, my favorite being the Nike taking off her sandals (my son pointed out how her thigh muscles are visible through her gown) which I’ve seen in books…and awaiting the many more that belong to Greece but are in other museums like the British Museum). It’s built over an archeological dig, and you walk over a glass floor, and that scared me too.. although it was intriguing. (My son told me a story about his visit to the CN tower with its glass floor, and how a huge obese man beside him jumped up and down for fun and freaked him out.)

Anyway, if the Parthenon can be said to be like the old York Theatre on St. Catherine, the Acropolis is like Montreal’s Mount Royal, with the city down below all around.

And oddly, I was not at all tired during the long trip home, four hours in de Gaulle, where I could understand the language and daydream about my upcoming trip to France and Italy in the spring. I have to work out this ear issue, though. My ears are very blocked today, so it is the plane ride that does it to me.

And I got to Montreal and waited aeons for my bags, I think they were first on last out, and I was in a summer dress which was fine, as we’re having a heatwave, of sorts, 29 and 30 and sunny for the rest of the week…. (I would have froze on the plane, but my seat had a blanket and a gift bag with socks and moisturizer and even a toothbrush. Very nice! And I watched A Single Man on the plane, again, for looking at him is comforting to me, and half of the Ghostwriter, but I was too blurry-minded to watch a political thriller, but Pierce Brosnan really is good in that movie, as in the Matador, a movie I just love for his wonderful peformance.)

And today, having slept about 6 hours, so that makes about 8 hours in four days, I suddenly have a small headache. It’s all caught up with me. Or maybe it’s my smelly animal-dander encrusted wall to wall carpet…hmm.