11 April 2004 ORPHEA PROUD by Sharon Dennis Wyeth, Random House/Delacorte, November 2004, ISBN: 0-385-32497-9; Lib.0-385-90175-5

"So if you just put your hand in mine

We're gonna leave all our troubles behind

We gonna walk

And don't look back."

--Smokey Robinson & Ronald White

" 'Don't look back.' "

"That's what they told me.

"So I won't turn around, even though I'm itching to. I want to see what that skinny little pale dude up on the ladder is painting behind my back. But I can't, because I have to look at you. You're the audience, after all. And I'm the performer. Raynor Grimes, the guy up on the ladder, well, he's part of the performance, too, but he doesn't talk, he paints, which means he keeps his eyes on his gargantuan canvas, while I keep my eye on you. Without you none of us would be here, not me or Ray or Mr. Icarus Digits, the owner of this club, or Marilyn Chin, your waitress this evening who plays the electric bass and whose eyes look like they're bleeding on account of her burgundy mascara.

"Welcome to our show!--which we've kind of nicknamed Not a Rodeo, for reasons I'll tell you later.

"I'm Orphea Proud."

So begins Orphea's powerful and innovative performance. Orphea believes in the power of words. The storyline of her almost-one-woman show (with a little help from her friends) is the tale of her life, and the tragedy of love and friendship lost--the loss of Lissa.

"When my parents died, a gray fog highjacked my mind, leaving me to look out at the world through an unwashed window. Then Lissa came along. I was ten and so was she.

"The first time I saw her, she was flying a kite. Ruby had sent me to the park. The wind was fierce that day, biting. I stuffed my hands through the holes in my pockets, trying to warm them on my thighs. My lips were chapped.

"Lissa had long, thick hair; it, like the kite, was being tossed in every direction. She held onto the ball of string. The kite was so high in the sky; a shadow diving through the clouds like a lost bird. I thought for sure that the wind would tear it, or that the string would break. But Lissa wrestled it toward home, bracing her back against a tree as tall as a castle, fighting to recapture the taut string, winding until her hands burned, until the kite collapsed into the tree's branches.

"My heart sank. I could see now that the kite was a fish, lost forever, skewered on a bough. But then she began to climb the tree, which was probably fifty feet high, and she got to the spot where the kite was and brought it back down. By then I was standing beneath the tree itself. Her cheeks were tearstained and her nose was running. It was so windy, but I'd forgotten the cold. She held out the kite for me to see and smiled. One of her bottom teeth was missing. I smiled back."

From that moment, Orphea and Lissa are inseparable.

When first her father and then her mother died, Orphea was forced to go live with her half-brother Rupert and his wife, Ruby. Rupert, fourteen years her senior, is a harsh and intolerant man who learned from their late father, the preacher, how to rule with an iron hand. When Orphea is sixteen, it is Rupert's violent reaction to discovering Orphea and Lissa together that tears their lives apart. Now Lissa is gone.

I only wish that I could be a girl for a while, that I could take a crack at performing this one myself. In fact, one of our students is rehearsing the first chapter to use as her audition piece for enrolling in the creative and performing arts magnet high school over in Santa Rosa.

"You're a very sexy audience. I love the way you laugh. I bet you can dance on the ceiling and eat pretzels off the floor with one hand tied behind you. Admit it--you're an adrenaline junky, undulating hysteria about to explode, waiting to be discovered. You're not cynical, are you? Please tell me you're not. But if you are, I guess it's okay. I've had my moments, but it's hard to be cynical when you're telling a love story."

Interspersed with chapters of that love story is the story of Orphea's escape from Rupert and Ruby, and her journey to the stage upon which we now meet her.

"I opened my mouth and screamed. And I was sobbing into the quilt and pillow, seeing her face, drawing in ragged breaths of her fragrance, lemons, peanut butter, patchouli. My cheek fell upon a hard thing in the sheets, one of her earrings, a small gold hoop with an orange stone. I'm wearing it in my ear tonight, see?"

Orphea and her horse-loving buddy, Raynor, put on one heck of a show. Count me in for a standing ovation on this one.

Richie Partington

http://richiespicks.com

BudNotBuddy@aol.com