Pygmalion

So Beau came back to town
With this lovely Sicilian girl
Who could say three words

'Happy,' 'Yes,' and 'Primavera'

Hey, I didn't say all of them were English

Everybody in the acting company knew
It was only a matter of time
Before Beau was going to want to put his girlfriend in shows

Most people assume that all directors think their girlfriends can act

That's not true

Most directors know their girlfriends can't act
But most directors are men
And all men like having sex
So you do the math

The girlfriend was going into a show
In the middle of the sixth season

Into Pygmalion, no less
Beau was putting this girl
In a Shaw play
If you can believe that

This poor little Italian peasant
That he picked up
Off the streets of Palermo or something

And now here she was
The first lady of theater
In our little town

We used to call her Evita a la Borgia
Even though, we didn't actually know
Whether or not she was a bitch
Since we couldn't understand anything she said

Beau's ex-wife
Back in the acting company
After having been thrown out
Right before the divorce
Was livid at first
That he was going to put his little ravioli
On the mainstage
But then she realized the girl was probably going to fall
Right on her face
And in front of critics, no less

Her temperament improved
Significantly after that

Beau, however, was no idiot

No way was he going to stick a girl onstage
Who could barely speak the English language
Let alone do an English accent

So, one day, Beau calls me into his office
And tells me that because I have voice and dialect experience
It'll be my job
To prep his girlfriend
To play Eliza Doolittle--Acts One and Two

He was right, I did have training
I had sung opera for years
Before joining the acting company

I lived in the city
Where I met my husband
And then we decided we wanted to have kids
So we moved out of the city
And then...

And then we didn't have kids

Back then, you didn't have the options you do now
If you had trouble conceiving

God, we didn't even say conceiving
We didn't say anything!

It was 1969
It was a small town
And my husband and I had uprooted ourselves
Just so we could have a big family
And a backyard
And now we only had the yard
And so what was the point?

Then I started acting
And that helped
Helped me anyway
My husband was still pretty miserable

We talked about adoption
But he was proud
He wanted 'his own'
Stupid as I thought that was

So, to be honest
It was nice
Having a little project
To keep me busy
In addition to the theater

The girl would come over before rehearsal
I would go over the lines with her

I knew I couldn't teach her English in eight weeks
So I figured I'd just give her line-readings of everything
And hope that she'd pass

Luckily, she was so gorgeous
Even I wasn't listening to her half the time

Acting is all about emotion and vulnerability
And she had that in droves

There were times
Sitting at my kitchen table
Where she looked at me
And I just burst into tears

Everybody thinks a good actor
Is someone who can make themselves cry

No, a good actor is someone
Who can make other people cry

So, opening night came
And she did...all right

It wasn't any miracle success story
But it was good

It was as good as Pygmalion's going to get
All due respect
To the Shaw fans out there

I think half the audience was wondering
Why we didn't just do My Fair Lady

But that girl was so happy

She came up to me at the after-party
Going on and on
About how much I helped her

I said, 'Sweetie I didn't--'

But then she put her hand on me
Right on my stomach
And she said--

'The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain'

Perfectly

Just like that

I laughed

I mean, why wouldn't you laugh?

It was funny

She was very funny

She was also deported
A few months later

Beau was inconsolable
And...honestly
So was I

She was a very sweet girl

And I remembered how sweet she was
That opening night
With her hand on my stomach

A few weeks later
I found out I was pregnant

It was the first of five times

My husband I were...

Dumbfounded
But obviously overyjoyed

We had no explanation
For how it happened

You know in the movie Moonstruck
When Cher's fiance goes back to Sicily
To see his dying mother
Only to have recover miraculously

Cher's mother says--'It was a miracle'
And Cher says--'A miracle?  It's modern times.'
And her mother says--'I guess it ain't modern times in Sicily.'

I think that just about
Says it all