For You My Door Is Always Open: A Visit With Golda Meir --Wrote and performed this one-woman show in North Carolina and Michigan

 

The Devil Touched My Tongue The World And Wit Of Dorothy Parker -- Wrote and performed this one-woman show in North Carolina and Michigan

 

WHY GOLDA MEIR?  Why NOT Golda Meir? asks RoseLynn.  Her courage led her into many hair-raising situations that simply make for great drama.

      She had a powerful influence on history, not only in playing a huge role to create the State of Israel, but also as a purpose-driven woman who was way ahead of her times.

      I’ve always longed to play a Jewish character and Golda is my first,” RoseLynn adds. “Dorothy Parker was half Jewish, but Golda is 100% the real thing!

      Also, I’m the right age to play Golda which enables me to turn being an older woman into an exciting thing. Not to mention that I’ve lived long enough to know how brutal life can often be. Golda knew this, too. In this we have much in common.

 

WHY DOROTHY PARKER?  I first reader Parker’s short stories at the age of 15, explains RoseLynn.  They left an indelible impression on me and have stayed with me ever since. What I didn’t know at 15 but know now, was that Parker’s work, in its own witty way, reflected the often absurd inequalities that women had to endure in a world that demanded they serve as handmaidens to men. As I researched Parker’s life, I saw clearly into the very essence of her humor: she laughed at pain to better endure it. Therein lie the conflicts of her life which make it inherently dramatic.

 

​THE ACTRESS WHO WRITES; THE WRITER WHO ACTS

 

       For me, acting serves as a sublime way of transporting literature into vivid, breathing life. And writing acts as the best of all ways to arrange and clarify my thoughts so that I can discover what it is that I truly have to say. So, for me, writing and acting converge, one nourishing the other.

       To portray a person who actually lived in our world, as I do with Golda Meir and Dorothy Parker, I begin by reading all the material that is out there, both works written by others and by my subjects themselves. My goal is to dig deep enough to discover what drove and motivated these women to live the lives that they did.

      In the case of Golda Meir, I found it was her strong and very maternal desire to protect the Jewish people that set the foundation for her life.

      As for Dorothy Parker, my hunt led me to see that her wonderfully funny black humor sprang from a deep well of sadness and anger she carried inside her from early childhood.

      I construct my shows around actual events from the lives of my characters. One scene in my Golda show depicts her being turned down for work on a kibbutz until she very passionately persuades the kibbutzniks to let her show them what she can do.

      You’ll see Dorothy Parker exchanging quips and wisecracks with fellow writers at The Algonquin Hotel in Manhattan, as well as being dazzled by Ernest Hemingway at one of the round of parties where they both make appearances as sought-after celebrities.

      After each of my shows comes a question and answer session which I always enjoy. It’s fun to face my audience as my real self and to laugh and share ideas with the people who have come to see me.