Sybil Bruncheon's "My Merry Memoirs... the early, EARLY years!!"...
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So many of you have asked about my early (very early!) career, before television, Hollywood, Broadway… even back before Vaudeville and the carny-show circuit… an actress, a serious actress applies herself to any and every opportunity when she’s starting out and she hones her craft in every possible venue… speaking of which, here are a few of my early (very, VERY EARLY!) projects… (clockwise from left)
TCHEPOULTA-PEGGY MEETS THE TRAVELING SALES-SHAMAN (725 BC): The story of a young inexperienced farm-girl in Meso-America who dreams of adventures in the Mayan Riviera with glamorous celebrities. She works her way up the ladder and across the countryside doing a musical comedy act with dancing chickens dressed only in a feather boa. She ends up headlining in some of the greatest human-sacrifice temples around. The finale takes place with the entire cast on a giant stone staircase, high-kicking and singing about the bird-lizard goddess of the moon when a huge earthquake destroys the city. The survivors throw her into a volcano to satisfy the monkey-papaya priest… or was it the mango-goat-god?... someone with a pierced nose… whatever.
BABBLING-LONIA & A SUMMER IN SUMERIA (1910 BC): A musical based on an earlier “ladies’ romance novel”… the story follows a young open-hearted socialite in Mesopotamia who is so full of joy and energy that she wins a vacation-cruise on the Tigris-Euphrates. Surrounded by exciting and glamorous people on the cruise, she becomes embroiled in a murder mystery/ponzi-scam with a Persian real estate magnate named Xerxes the Jerxes! He happens to be half-man and half-bull… with an emphasis on the BULL. Sadly, Lonia loses her little inheritance investing in beach-front property in Crete destroyed years earlier in a volcanic eruption. But all is resolved in a big musical finale when she marries Hammurabi… as his 37th wife.
UGGA-BUMBA BUILDS HIS CAVE FOR TWO! (12,000 BC….or so) A percussion only musical about an extremely handsome though unsophisticated caveman who tires of the trivial whirl of prehistoric urban life, and decides to settle down. Unfortunately, like so many extremely attractive and scantily dressed men in the primitive world, he is offered the very best and most exciting diversions that can be had when you’re wearing nothing but a loincloth. Saber-tooth tiger furs, pet Pterodactyls, rare and exotic shells and rocks, and the rarest vintages of monkey-papaya wine…all these and Brontosaurus filets a l’Orange are his for the asking, but Ugga-Bumba wants love. He meets Neander-Nancy in a small café where she’s the barista serving coffee beans and other seeds and barks to be chewed and spat out. He drags her out by her hair into the sunset.
OH! SIRIS! (927 BC) A fabulous tour of Ancient Egypt during one of the most glamorous dynasties. I played Hattie McHapshuts, a milliner in Thebes who specialized in the stylish hats and crowns of high society made with feathers, jewels, and of course gold… and maybe a touch of jackal glue. Hattie meets all sorts of interesting and frolicsome folks from Nubia, Thrace, and Phoenicia. One afternoon as she models one of her more festive creations in her shop, she’s mistaken for Empress Zarantha of Assyria. A stampede of fans, thrill-seekers, and autograph-hounds descends on her. Although she’s man-handled and the crowd tears her clothes for souvenirs, Hattie is captivated and decides to take on her new identity and all its trappings. She enters the world of show business, starring in the great tragedies, but rewrites them into cheerful musical comedies with happy endings. Medea reconciles with Jason on a Mediterranean cruise, the Trojan war ends in a merry pie fight, and Oedipus Rex only scratches his corneas… Sadly, during an autograph signing at the Clytemnestra Stab & Stew Melody Barn, Hattie is crushed under a stone tablet she was carving her name into for an adoring house-wife from Karnak.
OOO-PHY AND HER VISITORS (date undetermined) A strange rhythmic-dance recital about a primitive settlement on a remote island in the South Pacific. Some spoken dialogue interspersed with grunts, screams, gourd rattling, and rock-banging… and an occasional mooing from off-stage livestock… some of it actually scripted! The second act (such as it is) involves the entrance of odd creatures who both cajole and harangue OOO-PHY, a lovely young native girl clad only in a coconut brassiere and palm-leaf skirt, who has opened a raw fish bar on the beach. Gradually, she realizes the visitors are from another planet and want to take her to their home world… either to install as their queen… or eat… or perhaps both. They leave in their flying saucer… just as a volcano erupts.
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