Another one of those psuedo-documentaries, like Dog Show. It’s kind of a cute movie.

Cory-in-the-closet has to direct the 150th anniversary play for Blaine. Red, White and Blaine is what they call it. So the documentary takes you through the lives of the people in the play.

The young lady works at the Dairy Queen. That’s funny. And the singing Dentist. He’s funny.

Cory, of course, it hilarious with his portrayal of the gay man.

But they are all excited about Guffman, who is a famous theater man from broadway coming to see their play. That just stirs up all kinds of feelings and reactions from everyone.

I think it’s worth seeing, a light little video. You have to see Cory’s little funky dance.

Those Southern writers–it seems like they are all filled with drama and theatricality. Appearances, tragedy and social position.

And those amazing accents!

I have to say that it can be really heavy, diving into the Southern drama. When I first started listening to the performance, I felt myself thinking, “Oh no, not another one of these depressing Southern Dramas.”

It was depressing. All the characters seemed so trapped. But the story showed about how people are.

It was incredible how much pressure was put on the son, the man of the family. I felt so sorry for him. He was the BREADWINNER, the one who had to make sure his family didn’t starve. Yikes! I’m really glad that we have more equal opportunity employment now. I would not want to depend on anyone to feed me.

Or have to feed other perfectly capable people, either. It made me realize that women in this story were not considered “perfectly capable.” They were supposed to be protected.

And Laura, the sister, sure seemed to need protection. Either that or a slap in the face. She couldn’t even bear to go to school and take an exam. All she had was her little collection of glass figurines.

But the mother! Whoa nelly! She was more capable than any of them. But she had appearances to keep up, and besides, she was a female and had limited earning potential.

She at least understood her handicap. She didn’t have any skills, but she wanted her daughter to be able to take care of herself. That’s why she tried to send Laura to vocational school.

But Laura was too helpless.

Everyone seemed to be focused on Males. The deadbeat dad, the breadwinning brother, the ‘gentleman caller.’

Not a place I’d want to be.

This particular version of the play was especially wonderful, because there is a recording of the author reading the last scene. His voice, with the accent, is so right for the dialogue.

If any actor wants to be in this play, they really should hear Williams himself reading the scene. It made it really come alive.

Also, Williams reads another short story of his at the end about the Yellow bird. It was a great treat that I wasn’t expecting.

This is another LA Theater Works recorded drama. As far as I know, it hasn’t been made into a movie. But it really should be, wow! Arthur Miller knows his stuff.

The story is of a working-class Italian-American family in the 50s. Times are hard for them, and have been for a while. Eddie and Bea have been raising Bea’s niece, Katy. Katy is turning into a woman.

It’s a struggle for parents to let kids go up. Men especially have a hard time letting little girls grow into women. Some fathers are famously protective. And Eddie gets really protective of Katy.

The narrator of the play is a lawyer, who sees the whole thing play out. He talks about it, like it was a train wreck there was no way to stop.

And I believed it, as I listened to it all.

Bea’s cousins from Italy sneak across the ocean to find work. They talk a lot about how hard times are there, that there is no work and that Marco’s, the older one, children are starving and dying.

But Rodolpho is not married. He is there to work and does not have scary responsibilities. He is happy to be there, and happy about a lot of things.

He can sing.

How could Katy resist?

And the train wreck is set in motion.

This was an incredible story. It was fully compelling. I wish they would make a movie out of it. I really felt something after it was done, and it stayed with me.