doing it anyhow. Make it worth our while. We ask this in your name—whoever you are, and whether we believe in you or not, which most of us don’t. Amen.”
“Amen,” we all said.
Billy took another swig off his flask. “Anything you’d like to add to that, Peg?”
My Aunt Peg grinned, and in that moment she looked about twenty years old.
“Just get out there, kids,” she said, “and kick the living shit out of it.”
From Walter Winchell, writing in the New York Daily Mirror:
I’m not bothered about whatever play Edna Parker Watson is in, just so long as she is in it! She stands head and shoulders above other actresses who think they know how! . . . She looks like royalty, but she can bring the ham! . . . City of Girls is a masterpiece of flapdoodle—and if that sounds like a complaint, folks, believe me, it is not. In these dark times, we could all use some more flapdoodle. . . . Celia Ray—and boo to whoever has been hiding her all these years—is an iridescent minx. You might not want to leave her alone with your boyfriend or your husband, but is that any way to judge a starlet? . . . Don’t worry, chippies, there’s something tasty for you in this show, too: I could hear all the ladies in the audience sighing for Anthony Roccella, who oughta be in pictures. . . . Donald Herbert is hilarious as a blind pickpocket—and that’s what I call some politicians these days! . . . Now, as far as Arthur Watson goes, he’s way too young for his wife, but she’s way too good for him—so I bet that’s how they make things work! I don’t know if he’s as wooden a fellow offstage as he is in the spotlight, but if he is, I feel sorry for his cutie-pie wife!
Edna got the first laugh of the show.
Act 1, scene 1: Mrs. Alabaster is at a tea party with a few other opulent ladies. Amidst the general chatter of idle gossip, she casually mentions that her husband was hit by a car the night before. The ladies all gasp in shock, and one of them asks, “Critical, my dear?”
“Always,” replies Mrs. Alabaster.
There’s a long beat. The ladies stare at her in arch confusion. Mrs. Alabaster stirs her tea calmly, with one pinky raised. Then she looks up in purest innocence: “I’m sorry, did you mean his condition? Oh, he’s dead.”
The audience roared.
Backstage, Billy grabbed my aunt’s hand and said, “We got ’em, Pegsy.”
From Thomas Lessig, in the Morning Telegraph:
The high-battery sex appeal of Miss Celia Ray will keep many a gentleman glued to his seat, but the wise audience member would do well to train his eyes on Edna Parker Watson—an international sensation who announces herself in City of Girls as a star whose big day in America has finally come.
Later in Act 1, Lucky Bobby is trying to convince Mrs. Alabaster to pawn her valuables in order to finance the speakeasy.
“I can’t sell this watch!” she exclaims, holding up a large gold watch on a handsome chain. “I got this for my husband!”
“Good trade, lady.” My boyfriend nods approvingly.
Edna and Anthony were hitting their punch lines like badminton birdies right over the footlights—and they did not miss a single shot.
“But my father taught me never to lie, cheat, or steal!” says Mrs. Alabaster.
“So did mine!” Lucky Bobby puts his hand over his heart. “My pops taught me that a man’s honor is all he’s got in this world—unless you get a chance for the big score, and then it’s okay to fleece your brother and sell your sister to a whorehouse.”
“But only if it were a quality whorehouse, one hopes,” says Mrs. Alabaster.
“You and me come from the same kind of people, lady!” says Lucky Bobby, and then they launch into their duet, “Our Dastardly, Bastardly Ways”—and oh, how hard we had fought Olive for the right to use the word “bastardly” in a song!
This was my favorite moment of the show. Anthony had a tap-dance solo in the middle of the number, during which he lit up the place like an emergency flare. I can still see his predatory grin in that spotlight, dancing as though he aimed to tear a hole through the stage. The audience—the handpicked cream of New York City theatergoing society—was stomping their feet along with him like a bunch of apple-knockers. I felt like my own heart was going to explode.