Buoyed by the play’s reception Down Under, Sonia and I decided to take Gertrude Stein and a Companion to America, during the summer and early autumn of 1986, on a campus tour where we played only to university audiences. We had hoped to play in professional theatres, but two women, who should have known better, stopped us.
Lucille Lortel in New York and Blanche Marvin in London had snatched Sonia’s script idea and presented their own mangled version of the play at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in New York in January 1986. The only good thing to come out of their machinations was that I hired an excellent lawyer, the late David Latham, to protect our campus tour — yes, they tried to shut that down as well, even attempting to bring in Actors’ Equity to stop us. (Years later, Sonia’s daughter, Rachael, joined David’s firm and went on to become a distinguished entertainment lawyer herself.) Ms Lortel died in 1999; if Ms Marvin is still alive, I hope she will never attempt to send me Christmas cards again, for two reasons: we’re both Jewish, and I loathe her. The Colorado College was our first American destination. The idea was that we would teach a semester in theatre studies (Women in English Theatre) and perform Gertrude Stein and a Companion at the end.
I enjoyed teaching, but Colorado College seemed to be full of rich, stupid kids on drugs. I found that irritating, so I opened by laying down the law. I said, ‘Now, in class you will not be necking with each other. You will be paying attention to me and to Natasha when we are speaking, and you will write an essay and hand it in without this nonsense of computers.’ (I’m a computer person now, but I wasn’t then.) They accepted my strictures, and I was quite popular in the end. Those young Americans were completely different from their English counterparts. How privileged they were, all with wealthy parents; like Australians physically, but they lacked the toughness of the Australian youth. They were flabby, both mentally and physically — big and blue-eyed, but soft and lazy. I had no time for laziness, then or now. I won’t have it.
At the end of term, we were in rehearsals for the first show. There is a scene where we’re walking around the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris, and Alice B. Toklas is holding a little basket with Tuscan herbs in. Natasha suddenly announced: ‘I can’t do this. I can’t work here. I’m sorry, I’m not doing the show.’ I said, ‘Why, what’s up?’ Natasha said, ‘These herbs — they’re not Italian!’ I said, ‘Darling, we’re in America. They can’t get Italian herbs. These are the herbs that she would have had in America.’ She said, ‘No. I’ve got to be absolutely authentic in my work. I can’t stand this!’ She stormed off, and we had the devil of a job to get her to come back. In the end she did agree to perform, but only after I had to practically go on my knees and beg for her return.
The last performance with Natasha was in Kingston, Ontario, at the university there. It had been a bumpy ride, but the work was good.
In 1987, Sonia and I decided to take the show on a tour of Australia, opening in Sydney, then back to the Universal Theatre in Melbourne in December. As an English actress, it was unbelievably difficult to get permission to do theatre work in Australia; I had to find an Australian Alice B. Toklas. Luckily, my friend Chris Westwood said that she knew the perfect person.
I arrived at Sydney Airport to meet my mail-order bride. I looked up… and up. And there she was, Pamela Rabe — my perfect Alice.
Pamela is nearly 6ft tall — Alice B. Toklas was about 4ft 10ins — but it didn’t matter. In her acting, Pamela encapsulated the brilliance and the charm of the character.
We instantly had a terrific working relationship; what a relief, after all Natasha’s tantrums. Pamela went on to win best actress of the year.
A few years later, I returned to America to play Gertrude again. Every year, in Michigan, there is a huge lesbian festival called the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival. The festival organiser had rung me and said, ‘Miriam, we’d love to invite you to join our festival. It’s just for five days, and women come from all over the world to the Land.’
‘What’s the Land?’ I enquired.
‘A wealthy lesbian lawyer owns a large property in Cedar Rapids and she welcomes our festival there for those five days. This year, as usual, we are expecting thousands of lesbians and we would be honoured if you would provide the entertainment. It’s often music, but this year, for the first time, we thought we might have a play.’
‘Golly,’ I said, ‘that’s quite a tall order, but all right, I’m in.’ I called Pam and she agreed to fly over and perform the shows.
Pamela and I were met at Grand Rapids airport by a sweet young girl, all braids and hippyness. She said, ‘Hi! I’m River.’ That was the first warning bell. Then she said, ‘Oh, WOW! It’s just so great that you two are here.’ She explained that the land on which the festival was held was ‘womyn’s’ land: no men were allowed on it.
River then drove us to the Land, which was a nice big meadow. It was her job to show us to our accommodation. I looked across the Land, which was a sea of tents. It looked like a Woodstock for dykes. River said, ‘We have such a great tent for you, Miriam. Follow me.’ ‘Tent?’ I shrieked. ‘Tent? Look, I don’t want to be difficult, River, but I don’t sleep in tents. Mummy always said that Jewish girls don’t sleep on the ground. [I have no idea if that’s true.] Is there any other kind of accommodation that we could possibly have?’ River replied, hesitantly: ‘Well, you could have a log cabin, I guess…’ ‘That’s the one! Thank you,’ I cried.
River led the way across the Land; we followed sweatily, weaving our way carefully through the legions of treacherous tent pegs. Eventually, we arrived at our lovely log cabins — by a mosquito-infested lake.
It was the middle of August, and it was hot — and I mean 40ºC in the shade hot. Unfortunately, there was an illness going around the Land: norovirus, an extremely unpleasant stomach bug that causes vomiting and violent diarrhoea. We didn’t get it, but apparently everybody else had a dose. So it was boiling hot, and the Port-a-Janes (note: not Port-a-Johns — the American name for Portaloos) were brimming with diarrhoea. The only time that men were allowed on the Land was when they came to empty the loos. At this, a great cry went up from all the womyn: ‘MEN ON THE LAND! MEN ON THE LAND!’ What with the norovirus and the heat, this sole male function was now a frequent necessity.
The next day was assigned for our shows. The matinee was to take place at 2 p.m. in their open-air theatre. And I must stress again that this was the middle of August, and it was boiling hot. They picked us up and took us to the theatre. I put on my velvet, long-sleeved, floor-length Gertrude Stein costume. I went out on stage; I took my pose in the Gertrude Stein chair and looked out to the audience. And that’s when I became aware I was being watched by 4,000 nipples, give or take a few (most people had two): sitting expectantly were over 2,000 enormous, and I mean ENORMOUS, lesbians, each and every one stark naked! (I don’t know what it is about lesbians, but we’re not known for svelteness. We’re quite a chubby brigade.) There was A LOT of flesh on view. It was completely overwhelming, but my main concern was, of course, Pamela, because she was due on stage in a few seconds and there was no way I could warn her.
On her cue, Pamela appeared, tall, beautiful, statuesque. I saw her look down at the audience, and from side to side. I knew I mustn’t look directly at her, because if our eyes met that would be the end of everything. But I couldn’t resist taking a peek out of the corner of my eye when I heard her come on. For a couple of seconds, she was transfixed — not with horror or disgust — but with huge surprise. Then, like the trooper she is, she gathered herself together and went on with the show. We somehow controlled ourselves — we never looked at each other, not once, because I knew that would be curtains — and we performed.