Chapter 18 TV Gives us Poor Reception

Chapter 18

TV Gives us Poor Reception

I was glad of the diversion of performing with our group of local entertainers, so as to get away from the secrets and the lists. (I was still concerned whether migrating to Australia was the right decision for Bill.) Our performance had a miserable reception at the Women’s Prison. They were the toughest audience (in more ways than one) we had ever encountered. They made it quite clear that they would just as soon watch television, and yelled at us to ‘get off the stage’; apparently the audience was missing their favourite TV shows. There was a cordon of guards at either side of the hall.

Television figured at the top of the list again when we were asked to perform at the Cherokee Women’s Mental Hospital. We didn’t know in advance that they had just installed the first TV sets in the hospital - on the day of our show. We were the last people they wanted to see, and they were very unruly as they entered the hall.

Most of the audience sat and sulked, calling out loudly to each other about preferring their TV. Some covered their heads with scarves, and others sat backwards so they didn’t have to look at us. The performers were talented people but they were ‘dying’ on stage. A live show couldn’t compete with TV.

“May I make a suggestion?” I interjected, back stage. The Mistress of Ceremonies and the crew were anxious to hear what I had to say. “We can’t fight ’em; so, wouldn’t it be better to join ’em? Let me go on next and I’ll try something.” I hoped I was right; I was taking a gamble but it was worth a try. “These women aren’t stupid; they’re sick, mentally sick. I’m crazy enough to want to join ’em!” The gang laughed and backed me on that statement.

“I think you’ve got something,” Vera Williams said. “If anyone can win them over, you can Ruth.” That, I accepted as a left-handed compliment.

I had a circular, black taffeta skirt, and I swirled around and around across the stage, yelling, “Whoa, whoa, look at me, look at me!” Then I pretended to be extremely dizzy and staggered all over the stage, pretending I couldn’t find the opening in the curtain, and yelled again, “I can’t find my way out!”

Someone in the audience called out, “No! No! Go back the other way. Go back!” Several women joined in, telling me to go left, and then right. When I told them I wasn’t dizzy anymore, I sat on the edge of the stage and asked them to call me Frosty. They liked that and a few clapped. I got up and went to centre-stage and put a scarf over my head, playing peek-a-boo with some of the women who were still hiding behind their scarves. Slowly, all the scarves came down. I thanked them all for helping me when I got so dizzy. Now I was one of them!

“Who can stand on their head and stay up for one whole minute? Come on! Let me hear you!” I got no takers, thankfully, except from the woman sitting apart from the rest of the group.

She called out, “You think you’re so smart, Frosty, you do it!” Exactly what I wanted to hear! Before I stood on my head, I ask them all to count to sixty together. I stood on my head, and my skirt fell down and covered my head and hands, and all they could see of me was black panties and legs in the air. When they got to 200 I pretended I was riding a bicycle with my legs. The audience was cheering.

“We can see your underpants, Frosty. When are you going to get down?” one woman called out.

My acting as if I couldn’t get down and was stuck under my skirt, scared them. Everything went quiet. Three of the women tried to climb up on the stage to help me, which brought some of the nurses down from the back of the theatre to get the patients back to their seats. Once I was upright again there was another cheer. I sat on the edge of the stage again, talking to them for another thirty minutes, thanking them all for being so helpful and declaring that I hadn’t had that much fun in a long time. More laughter and clapping!

“Would it be OK to come back so we can all do it again?” A cheer went up, most of them clapped and some chanted: “Frosty! Frosty!” The rest of our troupe came out on stage and we said goodbye to our audience. Momentarily they had forgotten all about their new TV sets!

Most of us had little concept of what it was like to suffer a mental illness, but after our performance, I believed that for a short time we had all walked in their shoes.