Mother and son performe opposite each other in a play

Mother and son performe opposite each other in a play, “Oh for God’s sake David, how many more times,” Lionel wailed. “This is the high point when lovely Lady Primrose is offering you her beautiful body. She’s hot for you and you’re clinging together…you are lusting for her, your bodies intertwined, and what do you look like? I’ll tell you, you look like one side of an archway. Look at Kath, she standing upright, she’s even has her pelvis thrust forward, and you’re arching away from her.”

I was playing the role of Garth in the Wagaloo Thespian’s production of the farce “The Mature Lady Always Wins,” directed by Lionel.

The story was that Lady Primrose Grantly, an ex-chorus girl, who had married the wealthy and decrepit Lord Grantly (recently deceased), had a penchant for young guys, but at last she has met her fate in the sexy gardener Garth.

We had one more week of rehearsals and we were in the Wagaloo Memorial Hall rehearsing, and I knew I was making a mess of the role.

“David my treasure,” Lionel continued, “you were sensational as the male stripper in “Girl’s Night Out.” Think of the brilliant critique you got in the Wagaloo Weekly Trumpet, so why…why…why…?”

Mother and son performe opposite each other in a play

“It’s…it’s difficult Lionel,” I said.

“Yes…yes…yes…darling, we’ve been over all that before, Kath is your mother, we know all about that, but for God’s sake sweetheart, you’re supposed to be an actor so get on with it. Now try again and put some libido into it my treasure. She’s beautiful…she’s hungering for you and you…oh never mind, just do it again.”

I’m not sure if I had been type cast for the role, but mum only sort of fitted the Lady Primrose character. I saw the ex-chorus girl as being a bit rough round the edges although attractive in a raw sexy way.

Mum is more your real Lady Primrose, tall with a superb figure, and gorgeous Grecian facial features – a real lady. But she was certainly doing of good job of Primrose, and I was spoiling it.

She’s a good actor by local amateur standards and I have to admit that she’d really got into the role of Primrose. If physically she wasn’t quite how I saw Primrose, she did have certain aspects that fitted her for the part.

For example, in real life she had married a wealthy – I won’t say decrepit – older man who was now deceased. Of course he hadn’t been a Lord – he’d got his money making and selling pet food, and by the time mother became his third wife he had a nice house with plenty of land round it in rural Wagaloo. In older times he’d have been a sort of local squire, but of course we don’t go in for that sort of thing in Australia.

Dad as I said made his money selling pet food consisting mainly of chicken beaks, horse and cow hooves with some other doubtful things chucked and, and it was marketed as, “Healthy Pet Joy.”

Mum had once wanted to be an actor, but had married dad too young for her career to get started, but she still hankered for the stage. When we moved to Wagaloo the Wagaloo Thespians had been struggling on for some years with audiences of at best a couple of dozen; most of them relatives of the actors .

To please mum dad started to put a bit of money into the Thespians and that meant at least two things.

First, mum got leading roles in the plays. Now I know what you’re thinking, that mum only got the parts because of dad’s money. That’s only partially true because as I’ve said she really is a good actor, and at the time in question (“The Mature Lady Wins”), she was thirty nine but could and had played roles much younger than that very successfully.

For example, at age thirty eight she’d played the twenty one year old Lady Windermere in “Lady Windermere’s Fan,” and nobody questioned it.

In the play that I’d starred in as the male stripper, “Girl’s Night Out,” mum had played a twenty three year old woman who had been brought along by her friends to see a male strip show for the first time.

The second thing was, the local trades’ people got a lot of business from our family, and so dad made sure that they advertised the plays and sold tickets to their customers. As a result, the Thespian’s fortunes began to look up, and now consistently played to a packed Memorial Hall.

After dad died mum still supported the Thespians and they had continued to flourish.

In the current play I knew I was making a mess of the part, but it was the first time I’d had to play a love scene opposite mum.

** * * * * * *

Lionel stumped back to his seat in the auditorium, a look of despair on what he hoped was his aesthetic countenance, repeating, “Get on with it…just get on with it.”

Mum whispered, “Come on David, there’s really no need to be shy.”

We went into our Lines:

Lady P. “Oh Garth, do you know how I long for you?”

Me.”But your Ladyship I am only the gardener, and I would never presume…”

“Lady P.”There can be no class divide where love prevails, kiss me Garth.”

Here we were supposed to go into a clinch. I did my best. There was a groan from Lionel, but he didn’t stop us.

Lady P.”Strip me darling, look at my beautiful naked body.”

I fumbled with straps that went over her shoulders and the dress that was supposed to slither down mother’s body to the floor got hung up on her hips. There was another groan from Lionel.

After a bit of a tussle the dress did manage to descend hesitatingly to the floor and mother stood there in her panties and bras. I was supposed to start to undo her bras to reveal her breasts.

My hands were trembling; in fact the whole of me was trembling as I reached behind her back to unhook the bras.

“Oh no…no…no…” Lionel screamed, “how many times…how many more bloody times do I have to tell you, you know we arranged for the bras to unhook at the front, to make it easier, so why…?”

“Sorry Lionel…sorry…” I mumbled, “I feel so nervous I forgot.”

“Just try that bit again,” Lionel wailed, “and I plead with you…I beg of you get it bloody right this time.”

Mum tugged up the dress and went into her line about me stripping her again. This time the dress slithered and I reached up to the bra clip – in front this time – and undid it. The bras were about to fall off, “Blackout” Lionel yelled. The lights went out and mum clutched at the bra cups to hold them against her breasts.

“Well at least you got that bit right, more or less,” Lionel said in the darkness. Working light up,” he yelped.

Mum had re-clipped the bras, the cast gathered on stage, and we stood there waiting for Lionel’s further comments.

He seemed to have aged about out twenty years since the start of the rehearsal, and he had a look of desperation on his face.

“Well, my treasures,” he said, in a desolate tone of voice, “it seems we have a first class potential bloody disaster on our hands. The seduction scene is the whole point of the play and if you screw that up – and you are screwing it up – we might just as well not bother. Now the rest of you can go, but you, David, stay behind and I’ll try and teach how a seduction scene should be played.”

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