In youth, it was a way I had,
To do my best to please.
And change, with every passing lad
To suit his theories.
But now I know the things I know
And do the things I do,
And if you do not like me so,
To hell, my love, with you.”
― Dorothy Parker
Apparently, I was quite the theatre habitue back when I could get free tickets.
Orginal title: Actress’ One-Person Show Explores The Many Voices, Attitudes Of Women.
My “At Large” column from September 11, 1990. – JDW
“This is about women who think they are abnormal because there is no television show, no model, that exemplifies their life,” says Victoria Parker about her one-woman show, “You Can’t Tell Me From One Another.”
“It’s about their discovery that there is no such thing as normal… and that’s alright.”
Parker’s drama is abnormal. And that’s right on. “It’s an exploration of the fringe parts of myself,” the actress offers. “The parts that don’t fit.”
The parts that scare all of us.
Like Cigarette Lady, an older woman with the hypercritical voice that – almost arbitrarily – demands that we act the way we’re supposed to act. That we meet some preordained standard established by society. It’s a voice that Parker has heard often.
“I do not come from a critical family, so I was always curious where this voice originated,” explained Parker. “It became apparent that Cigarette Lady was seeking perfection, the perfect family, as dished out by TV shows in the early ’60s.” She pauses. “My mom wasn’t a Donna Reed mother, and I’m not either.”
Little Girl is the rebel. Nobody can tell her what to do. “She’s the counterpoint, the reacting child who is terrified by reality.” Admits Parker, “In my lifetime, this is probably the voice that has gotten me in the most trouble.”
A mother of two female teenagers, Parker wrote Little Girl around them, and she must have done it well. One daughter, upon seeing the play, had her eyes opened. “The first thing she said,” Parker said, “was ‘My gosh! I didn’t realize you remembered so many things I used to do.”
That memory amuses the playwright. “I wrote that character, in part, to show my children I was just like that, too.” There’s something else going on here. “Being grown-up doesn’t feel the way it looks when you are little,” she explains. “It isn’t easy. It is confusing.” More of us could admit that.
Parker, a working mother “all my life,” relates most to Woman, a not-fully-developed character who is the play’s protagonist. She’s trying to be the perfect mother, feels like she’s failing in the attempt, and wonders – on her worst days – what it would be like to run away.
“I’ve examined what my life would be like if I gave up, because I don’t fit the prototype,” Parker concedes. “Many women don’t try to explore, they anchor themselves. I know others who end up whipping themselves because they feel like they’ve failed.”
A healthy question to ask might be: By whose standards?
Woman simply has to realize that neither Little Girl nor Cigarette Lady is the voice of well-being. “The fact of the play is that she is OK,” Parker notes, “and she doesn’t have to go in either direction. Her children are fine. The struggle is fine.”
Parker struggles. She actually had a dream once that her offspring – several hundred of them – had called C.S.D. (Children’s Services Division) to complain about her parenting job. Such internal conflict is the source of Parker’s creativity. “It’s the Pearl Theory. From abrasion comes a jewel.”
“You Can’t Tell Me From One Another” is set in a junkyard, a place of waste, of discards, an unreal environment full of symbols. It’s more than a backdrop. Obviously, it’s no place for a child to play.
Another theme is less apparent.
“One reason we can’t relax is because there’s so much garbage in our lives. Television, for example,” Parker points out. “We live lives surrounded by a wall of junk that keeps us from hearing – as one character says – ‘the voices of angels.’ It’s also my belief that when material goods are in your way, when they don’t make you happy, then they are no better than junk.”
Co-director Melissa Marsland has this to say about the central themes of Parker’s work. “There is no ideal, there is only real life, and it is bruised and scarred and funny and unexpected and full of feelings, and that is all right.”
Secondly, she continues, “life requires struggle, and we can never be certain that the struggle we are engaged in is good, or that it makes any difference. But we must choose to struggle anyway. because to do otherwise is to die. Struggle is an act of faith, and maybe, if we do it very, very well, it makes a difference.”
Victoria Parker struggles on, making a difference.