Stepping Out (1931)
It’s a pre-code comedy, and it’s pretty much like stepping into another world. Charlotte Greenwood (“Aunt Eller’ in Oklahoma) is part Eve Arden and part Celeste Holm. She was six feet tall and known for her ‘high kicks’ —“I’m the only woman in the world who could kick a giraffe in the eye, ” she said. At one point in Stepping Out she refers to herself as a giraffe, and near the end she is thrown in the bathtub all splayed and spread eagled, soaking wet. She’s a good sport, that Charlotte Greenwood. She and Leila Hyams take revenge on their husbands for flirting with starlets by going to ‘Caliente' and flirting with Spaniards. Greenwood is horny for a man much shorter than her (most are) who says “Don’t kid me about my size, I may surprise you.” Hyams is attracted to deliciously handsome Lane Richmond, (who went on to play The Shadow ‘ as in: ‘The Shadow Knows') in the famous films of the same name. The dialogue is filthy, people jump in and out of bed and bathing suits at a moments’ notice. But I can’t despise it, it just makes me sad. This is a world that seems over. It’s a world where no one cares about anyone else’s feelings-- “Haven’t you any conscience?” “Sure, I ignore it.” And -- “I love my wife.” “Rather strange thing to say to a girl you’ve just been kissing.” And --“Hello Mrs. Smith —is Mr. Smith here?” “No, I came here for a good time!” Cynical — or perhaps realistic — it’s the the world of farce. If the dialogue was better this would be Restoration comedy. 'Oh my husband is here! Hide in the closet!' That sort of thing. (‘Vickers Knickers’ is what Christopher Newton used to call it) What’s freeing about farce is the frank admission that we are all animals — vain, lustful, selfish. It’s no accident that Restoration comedies marked the return of theatre after the puritans shut them down. It returned with a bang — men played women’s parts out of prurience in Shakespeare, suddenly women were playing scandalous women, and playwrights were writing epilogues in which actresses invited the audience to have sex with them. I’ve always know that theatre is essentially degenerate, that the puritans were right (then, and now), it cannot be redeemed. And if you try and pretend that it has a moral purpose you undermine the very foundation of it —which is watching pretty people get slightly undressed and talk and act naughty. We are all philistines, we are all objectifiers, My friend — an older woman — (she’s kind of like me with an actual vagina) recently invited the two teenage sons of her friend to come over and construct some Ikea furniture for her. She said “Sky; they were so beautiful; I just wanted to eat them alive.” What was so beautiful about them?” I asked. “Well, they were — young.” No she’s not Blanche Dubois; and this was not the newspaper boy. The only danger those young men were in, was simply this: they were being watched. The theatre is where we get to be voyeurs, it’s just that close to a strip joint. The actors may be undressed, and/or they may undress their deepest secrets; it’s all about nakedness. My favourite cartoon (my mother gave it to me, from the New Yorker) features two elderly matrons in theatre ‘box seats’ peering eagerly through their opera glasses. A young man stands before them under a spotlight, shirtless; resplendent. Is all this despicable? A beautiful young actor I knew (and often worked with) was playing Wolf in an amateur production of Bent. All that Wolf has to do is bound out on stage naked, and the actor had better be hot. My actor friend did bound out, and low and behold, he has (I discovered) an enormous, swinging, member. I don’t hold it against, him (or rather I’ve never had the chance) but after the show when we chatted, I found myself stammering — my compliments all seemed to employ the word ‘huge.’ We are still friends he and I, and I still work with him. I even made him a character in a sem-autobiographical novel, in which I used his real name, and pretended — in the novel — that I had touched him inappropriately backstage — all untrue (I would never do that). But in the novel I said that he must have had a fluffer' backstage when he bounded out as Wolf, because that appendage was just much to big to be, well ‘au-naturelle.’ I had to get permission from him to use his real name in the novel, so when I sent him the passage to read, he called me back, and said: ‘Fine, fine use it, I love it!’ but ‘One thing, there was no fluffed backstage. That’s the way I am.’ Imagine my surprise! I am not telling you this simply to shock or even disgust you, but because when I see a movie like Stepping Out — it takes us back to the roots of theatre. (In Greek comedy the actors paraded about with huge fake phalluses —and western comedy was thought to originate in phallus worship). It makes me very sad, because that is opposite to the ‘direction’ of theatre today (where’s the redeeming social message?) Well, no one cares about ‘theatre’ of course — except me, and some grannies who are hoping their grandchildren will release them from Mississauga lock down and take them to the latest revival of Oklahoma at The Royal Alex. But I care, and I also know that the death of theatre has been greatly exaggerated. Radio didn’t kill it, Neither did TV or movies. And neither will COVID-19. There’s something about being in a room with people who you don’t know, people who are displaying their bodies and their souls to you, live, in real time —and who are depending on your respond to them — like strippers. A good stripper knows to make the client think they will fall in love with them— just as a good actor makes you believe he is performing only for you, and the two of you are suddenly alone in the room. He is crying only for you, laughing only for you, confessing only for you. And you -- and you alone -- get to see this. In this way theatre is just a little like love. Unless you think that social distancing is doing away with love in addition to everything else? I saw a sign today “spread love, not viruses, stay at home.” It’s a false paradox based on a false premise; there is nothing at home but you, and your computer, and that freshly baked pie. For imagination needs theatre and love. But thank God, love is more infectious than COVID-19.
