Liveblog: Vanderbilt Theatre's 'Keely and Du'

So, I'm an assistant editor for the Life Section of the Vanderbilt Hustler. I had to review the Vanderbilt production of "Keely and Du" the other night, which you can see here (sadly, a few jokes got cut). If you'd like to read a very thoughtful piece on the play, check out Kate Snowden's Torch article this month.

Anyway, the play's actually very well done. The objectivity was refreshing, but because I would probably liveblog a trip to the grocery store, I thought I’d toss this up here.

7:28- Really intense, like, bluegrass horror film music plays. Jasper knows he done Ella Mae wrong…but does Jasper know where the kitchen knives are?

7:44- After a good fifteen minutes of “Fried Green Angst: A Bluegrass Tribute to Linkin Park,” the lights dim and I get a fun PSA about not texting during the show. I’m also reminded to familiarize myself with the exit (already there).

7:46- Oh, no. Masks. What is this: Phantom of the Abortion Clinic?

7:49- “I’m easy to know.” Me too! I’m very easy to know.

7:51- After a solid two minutes of screams of “Let me go! Help! Please!” with tears and hysterics and hand cuffing to beds and phantom masks, I have already had enough.

7:57- “WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE?” Keely, darling, WWJD Zorro just blabbered on about it for like five minutes like he was Lex Luthor or something. They’re not really Andrew Lloyd Webber fans, they’re crazy pro-lifers who kidnap pregnant women like you. This is fun, isn’t it?

7:59- WWJD Zorro: “You will fall in love with your baby.” Just like a fall fashion!

8:00- Um, fantastic, y’all. I so needed a detailed description of abortion right after dinner at Rand.

8:04- “DON’T TOUCH ME.” Keely, enough with the screaming. You’re not pleased with being handcuffed to that bed, I understand. For the sake of my eardrums, change tactics, champ.

8:05- Ah, yes, the obligatory college theatre screaming of “FUCK YOU.”

8:07- It’s like Keely and Du are in a contest to drive me towards insanity first. If it’s not the screaming, it’s the folksy Great Depression stories.

8:09- “I’m a Bible Christian.” …Okay? Perhaps the Torah Jews and Qur’an Muslims can weigh in. If we’re lucky, we may get a Constitution American to jump in.

8:10- WWJD Zorro pops with: mouthwash, oranges, ketchup, and emery boards. Sounds like a man went grocery shopping. And, ew, he bought her underwear. Sounds like a sexual harasser went to Wal-Mart.

8:15- Ah, yes, a good ol’ abortion pamphlet from the Phantom Phanatics Club. I’m sure it’s entitled something atrocious like “Commonly Senseless: Abortion and You.”

8:17- Tiny baby shoes! Even if you don’t like small children, your heart has to melt just a tiny little bit when you see a pair of baby Nikes.

8:18- Starbucks bag: even religious fundamentalists will overpay for their coffee. The old lady’s husband got arrested attacking a clinic in Louisiana. It’s seriously freezing in this theatre, I would overpay…a lot for something hot right now. A hot beverage, that is.

8:21- Keely, make up your mind. Either stop screaming or don’t, just pick a side. “Tammy Wynette, [cough] somebody else’s choice, obviously.” Keely, you just lost some points with me. Also, Tammy Wynette has been dead for almost a decade.

8:27- The ballad of August and Du, here. He used to be boring until he was a born again Christian, and EW. OLD PEOPLE SEX. GAH. NO.

8:30- Gratuitous cursing.

8:31- Keely and Du are touching. I half expect Keely to scream “NOOOOOO.”

8:35- Keely: “I have such black moods, you know?” Trust me, I know.

8:40- More screaming. Seriously, make it stop.

8:43- It’s Keely’s birthday and she gets: warm beer. Du: “Oh, one won’t hurt the baby.” Wrong. Even one warm Natty Lite could really hurt the baby.

8:44- NOOOOOOO! The Jesus Death Eater’s name is Walter. That’s my imaginary husband’s name. He even lets me drive to Woolworth’s!

8:51- “To really be alone up there on that mountain, what a feelin’” FLASHDANCE!

8:54- Keely’s sick of always being around people: “Always hearing other people talk, other people cough, other people sleep.” Yes, those sleepers are just deafening.

8:56- The Antarctica metaphor for being alone and or dying apparently exists about three feet above my head. I look around helplessly like I can just stop being Antarctica if I just believe that I’m not.

8:58- Aw, hugging.

8:59- Not!Walter has come a-knockin’ in the post-birthday celebration. Keely and Du give it the old college try to hide the beer in that “Just a minute” routine that happens at least once a night in every dorm building.

9:03- “It would be difficult for two women in your position to not become complicit.” Well, thanks for the update on what being a woman is like Not!Walter, but I can think of more than a few women I wouldn’t get complicit with no matter how handcuffed I was to a bed. Wait, that didn’t come out right.

9:06- Creepy Cole, Keely’s ex-husband who raped her, brings up her body and Jesus within seconds. Creepy Cole, Keely’s a bit touchy about Jesus right now. Also, not so big on the touching.

9:11- Oh, God. Creepy Cole, the RAPIST, starts talking about how he worships her body in front of Not!Walter and Love Me Du, over there. Now there is screaming, of course.

9:13- Screaming, screaming, screaming. Aaaaaaaaaand, she bites him.

9:14- The stage goes dark as Keely starts, in her one moment alone, bending some wire. I'm sure there's a Mommie Dearest joke to be made somewhere in there. But really, when isn't there a Mommie Dearest joke to be made?

9:18- Role reversal! Poor ol’ Du’s up in the joint, getting robbed and on Prozac, and Keely’s come to visit and cry.