Teach That Girl to Act

-- This piece has been driving me absolutely insane. First, I had a general idea that this would be similar to a storyline in the "This Can't Be Theater" blog when Nicholas is banished from Potter's Theater, but it just never seemed to get written that way. Then last night it all just came tumbling together (and yes, that's what it feels like--my inspiration doesn't strike, it tumbles) and I realized that the speaker had to be a critic, and his motive for saying what he says had to come from a deeper love of theater in general, rather than just the building itself, and I'm going to use the critic from the "Manitoba" piece--see how I recycle? I thought I'd use the "Theater" blog to supply the characters, and make this a sort of back story. I should mention that I did love the original title--"My Father Built This Shithole." One last thing, I feel like the speaker should have a Southern accent. Don't ask me why. --

"Teach That Girl to Act"

Darren
Sugar shorts
Baby
Baby
Oh, baby
You had better--

Hahaha--

You had better
Listen to me now
Don't just snort
And walk away

I'm trying to help you
Don't you know that?
I just sat through two hours of bullshit
Supplied and paid for
By you, baby boy

The least you can do
Is listen to my opinion
Unless you'd rather wait
And read it in tomorrow's paper

Why don't you get a glass of champagne?
I think we might need some champagne
For this

Or have you stopped drinking?
Me?

Oh, on the contrary
I just started
That little performance
Your girlfriend gave
Has made me realize
Why people become alcoholics
In the first place

Hmm?
Your girlfriend
That girl
The one onstage tonight
She is your girlfriend, isn't she?
Or are you just screwing her
Once or twice
Every night after the show?
Did it begin in tech?
The read-through?
Half-way through the invited dress?
Hmm?

Sugar
I can spot your mark on an actress
Like I can spot shit on a pig
And that girl is just dripping
With you
She is dripping
And not just with you either
But with a lot of you
That much I can tell

She reeked tonight, Darren
Reeked
Oooohhh
You need to talk to that girl
You need to teach that girl to act
Before you put her onstage again

And don't go trying to make her another
Liza Lee Gunner either
Because if you do
I'll tear her apart so bad
She won't have legs to stand on
When she tries walking on that stage

Liza Lee went off to New York
Because you filled her head with so much glory
She thought she could float her way to the top
And didn't those critics in New York
Have fun making her their punching bag?

I had to put up with Liza Lee for years
I was an actor then
I was under your thumb then
But I'm not under your thumb anymore, Sugar
I most certainly am not

And it's a lot harder listening to bad acting
When you're sitting in front of it
Then when you're backstage
And you can pretend
You're not in the same play
As the one the donkey braying onstage is in

I don't have that luxury anymore
But I do have the luxury of being your critic
And I'm no optimistic chicken either
Like that Phillip Von Whatever-His-Name is
He'll give you the benefit of the doubt
I'll just give you my backside
When I walk out of this theater
The next time that girl is up there
Wailing and shouting
And trying to tell me that's acting

That isn't acting, Darren
I know what acting is
And that isn't it

So you better teach
You better teach that girl to act

What was up there tonight
Was disgraceful
Completely disgraceful
You should be ashamed of yourself
For letting her carry on like that
Like a chicken with its wings stapled to its body
That's what she looked like
It was atrocious

You better tame that girl, Darren
Or she's going to keep going like that
She'll be shrieking her way through Shakespeare
She'll be caterwauling through Chekhov
She'll be eating Ibsen alive
And you'll just be sitting up there
In your little director's chair
Thinking of how good her skin's going to smell
Once she's got a little sweat on it
After you get her home

Well I don't get the pleasure of her sweat
I merely get her performance
And pretty soon
I'm not just going to want a refund
I'm going to want blood
And so are your subscribers

You can walk away if you want to
You can say--

'Oh, I don't read the reviews'

But sugar, you do
I know you do
Everybody does
I did
And that girl does
And she's going to read mine tomorrow
And I wouldn't be surprised
If you find her on a ledge two hours later

And I don't feel bad about that
Because you told her she could act
And she was dumb enough to believe you
You could tell me I was a surgeon
Doesn't mean I'd believe you

I sure as hell wouldn't waltz into an operating room
And try my hand at an appendectomy
That's what we all saw tonight
Maybe you didn't see it
But me and the rest of that audience did

We saw a botched operation
Led by an incompetent doctor
Hung out on a limb by you, sugar
Who let his dick direct for him
And who does the blocking?
Your cirrhotic liver
Or your bad temper?

Because it offends me
It offends me as an actor
To know that I got booted
Out of this shithole
Just because I couldn't figure out
Which of your ass cheeks I had to kiss
To get a role worth playing

And that bawling gazelle
Is allowed to gallop all over this stage
This stage that my father built
Or have you forgotten that?

My Daddy put every brick in these walls
Every plank, every floorboard
Every picture hook
Every seat cushion
And every wrinkle on your fucking face
Sugar

My Daddy built this shithole
And two seconds after the coffin's shut
You kick me out of it
Well, that's fine by me

I have no interest in doing what you're doing
Once upon a time
I had a notion
That I was going to bring you down
But just look at you
Doing it for me
Taking away my life's mission

And don't tell me
You're an artist
Don't tell me what I just saw was art
Sugar, I've seen the Mona Lisa
I've seen the Sistine Chapel
And I've seen you
Back when you still had a head on your shoulders
And not in your pants
All that was art

What I saw tonight
Was not art

But you don't care what I think
You don't do it for me, right?
You don't do it for the critics
You don't do it for the audience
You don't do it for the art
Hell, you don't even do it for yourself

You do it because you have to
Because you recall
That at one point
You actually enjoyed yourself

And look at you now
Groping around in the dark
Trying to find the light
Thinking it's going out of some girl
Who thinks Coriolanus is something
You rub on your chest
When you got influenza

My father would have been so disappointed in you
He would have been more disappointed in me
But he liked you more than me
So it should sting you a little bit more

Let me tell you something
You don't have to do anything for me
But if you're going to be one of those snobs
Who says they don't do it for the audience
Then you deserve every word
I'm going to pelt at you and your little cake slice
Bright and early tomorrow morning

If you're not interested
In what the people in these seats
Have to say
People who paid good money
Who scrimped maybe
Who gave you a night of their time
Who spent twenty dollars on a babysitter
And another fifteen on parking
Just to come here
And hear what you had to say

If you don't care about those people
Then stay in your livingroom
And do your theater
With your actress
And let somebody who gives a damn
Do something worth seeing

I'm not looking to cut you down, Darren
But I'm going to speak my mind
Because I'm in one of these seats now
And that entitles me to talk
And it entitles you to listen
Believe it or not

And if that girl wants to keep talking
On the stage my father built
Then you tell her to make her voice
Loud enough
So that people can hear it
And believe it
And want to hear more

You better teach that girl to act, Sugar
You better teach her
And teach her soon

Otherwise I'm going to do it for you
With headlines and puns
And nasty little wordplay
Until she changes my opinion

She's going to earn her place
On that stage
Just like you and I did
And if it's by water or fire
Well, that's up to you

You better teach that girl to act
Because so help me, Darren
If you don't
I'll take her on myself
And I'm one tough teacher