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Am reworking the script for my show ‘A Superior Type of Girl’ with the aim of performing it at some fringe festivals to people who have never heard of me. And when I say rework I really mean jam a few more jokes in to cover up for the sad bits where no-one laughs and I get horribly uncomfortable.
I also want to find a better ending. Endings are difficult, at least in scripts. People in real life don’t have to come up with the endings to things, they just experience them as they go along and have no idea how hard it is for us writers to come up with something that isn’t predictable, preachy or nonsensical.
To add a bit of drama to the end of my story I’ve decided to try and track down my birth father, the elusive not-French man.
You won’t find this kind of plot commitment with the New York publicist version of Maggie Gallant. She’ll be too busy upsetting the Don Manning’s of this world with her tirades about babies on planes and whether cowboy boots for dogs are just a fad. You can watch her here talking about ‘Bethenny Getting Married’. Gallant was her publicist for the show. Bethenny is now unmarried. Coincidence?
Although I am a brilliant master of Google I have decided to hire a Private Investigator to help me find the not-French man. A Dick to find a Dic, brilliant, better make that the title. Having my own Private Investigator feels a bit bad-arse and very American. Like talking to strangers and enduring a 30 minute firework display. These are the things on which US Citizenship should be based.
I do like to think of myself as the fruit of my father’s loins (though preferably a fruit with peelable (fore)skin like a banana or a kiwi and not an unwashed Texas berry that will give you Cyclaspora and explosive diarrhea) and am wondering whether he’s starting to get a tingly feeling that I’m trying to find him. Or is he completely oblivious and merrily living his life like a Nazi war criminal right before Simon Wiesenwhatshisname tracks him down and makes him pay for his shameful past. My father will try to protest his innocence and claim that he wasn’t in Paris in 1963 and has never heard of anyone called Sandra but then my Private Investigator will make him bare his sticky out right ear and that’s when he’ll know the game’s up. Then my Private Investigator will show him a series of photos of me and it’ll be like looking in a motherfucking mirror.
Yes, this is exactly how it’s going to go. I have told the Universe.
If only I were famous I could be on that ‘who the bloody hell are you?’ show where they track down your ancestors and they all turn out to be hateful racist, bigoted individuals but you have to forgive them because ‘well, it was just the times wasn’t it’.
Anyway just to be clear, this search is entirely for the benefit of my show and has nothing to do with any kind of secret longing or desperate search for identity on my part. I am a selfless performer.
There’s not a whole lot for my Private Investigator to go on. We know that Dic got his MBA at INSEAD in Paris so he’s trying to get access to the alumni records if only to confirm that Dic actually existed. INSEAD does have a reunion coming up in October but not sure an 81 year old is likely to make the trip. But what a great scene in the script that would be if we met on the very campus/bushes/bins where I was probably conceived. Damnit why doesn’t some TV company want to get involved with this brilliant story?
I’m not entirely sure I want to meet this man, especially if he is anything like me in personality. Of course he may also be dead. In which case I’m even less keen to meet him. On the positive side I suppose if he did father any children that he decided he wanted to keep then they’d still be around and I could shatter any illusions about their lovely dad.
But once I find him, alive or dead, I’ll have the perfect show ending. In fact I could invite him on tour with me*. We could have the big reveal at the end and he could come on wearing a beret and a string of onions just for the irony. How we’d all laugh.**
*So long as he’s alive, I don’t have the energy to lug around a cadaver on the Fringe circuit.
**As above.