Vaudeville
Camille Scaysbrook (verona_beach@geocities.com)
Thu, 07 May 1998 22:09:49 +1000
> Take out the Glass/Gallagher vaudeville of it, and it's sad indeed.
I've been thinking a lot about Salinger's characters and the theatre world
since it occured to me that all of his major heroes and their families have
theatre-related patriarchs - Holden's father funds Broadway musicals, Jane
Gallager's stepfather is `some kind of playwright', Teddy's dad acts in
`three radio serials at once' , and of course we all know about the
Glasses. Chronologically, Salinger seems to have got more rather than less
interested in this.
It makes me wonder how much of the Glasses is a *performance* - how much is
said and done specifically for others' benefit? This would also explain
their pursuit of truth, made extra difficult in the false world of `It's a
Wise Child'. A lot of images go through my mind - the way an audience is a
big (and perhaps lovable) abstract of humanity; the travails of child
stars who were robbed of their childhood (I heard once that Salinger was a
fan of Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney - they're prime examples of that kind
of lifestyle) Does Seymour's gunshot wound follow the last act of his great
starring role? It strikes me that the Seymour cult is very much like the
ones that follow people like Marilyn Monroe, and more recently, Princess
Diana - these people become deified, because, in their absence, they have
no way to disprove what we want to believe. Seymour is a character a little
like Godot - always talked about, always hovering somewhere in the
background, but more or less wholly created by others' perceptions of him.
Weird stuff. I'm going to have to let my own mind chew over this too.
Anyone else have any other ideas on this ?
Camille
verona_beach@geocities.com
@ THE ARTS HOLE
www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/6442