Behind the Iron Corset

This is Jennifer Massey (aka Mrs. Van Buren in Intimate Apparel). I see Andy Nagraj (Mr. Marks) has set the Barksdale blog bar pretty high. He gave an excellent account of the onstage atmosphere surrounding the show, so I figured it might be fun to go behind the scenes, give a few insights into the backstage "drama behind the drama", if you will.

For starters, there's a reason we ladies no longer wear corsets. Without going into too much detail, any woman who's ever had a mammogram will have an idea of what I'm talking about. "Ow, pain... Ow!"

Not to mention that whenever I don a new corset, I burp – loudly. It's sad, but quite unavoidable. If you don't believe me – drink 13 brandies and lace yourself into a straight jacket and see what happens. As ladylike and refined as Mrs. Van Buren is on stage, she's like a truck driver behind closed doors (no offense to any actual truck drivers out there).

It doesn't help that we ladies are actually wearing old-fashioned lace-up corsets. A lot of what we wear in the show has to be physically put on us in the dressing room. It's ridiculous. I don't know how anyone got anything done back at the turn of the century – seems like they must have spent a good portion of their day just changing clothes.

Luckily, we have a wonderful woman, Renee Jones, who assists with all the wardrobe changes and other backstage hoopla. If it weren't for her, Esther would be wearing the same outfit throughout the whole show. And, I'd be wearing my costumes home every night.

Also backstage with us is Audra Honaker, who most of you know better for her fabulous onstage work than her fabulous offstage work. Suffice it to say -- if Renee isn't doing it, Audra is – everything from repatching electrical wires to setting props. That Audra is a talented gal!!

Something rather anachronistic about the dressing room is that many of us bring our laptops with us to the theatre -- which was particularly helpful during tech rehearsals (which are traditionally long and tedious). We have a high-speed internet connection at the theatre (well... sometimes) so many of us boot up backstage to go online, check e-mail, write plays of our own. It's quite interesting. We're onstage being very old-fashioned women, and backstage being very modern women. I can't speak for the men, but I'm sure they're doing interesting things, as well.

Sadly, I rarely even see the men – on or off stage. Anyone who's been to the show knows that the characters in this play rarely cross paths... except with Esther (played by Adanma "Ida" Onyedike). She's our through line, and we all sort of circle around her. Even so, this is definitely an ensemble piece -- we all have a strong sense of the show as a whole, and we all feel the connection, not only with Esther, but with each and every member of the story. I reckon we love each other (as Esther says) "about as much as you can love someone you ain't seen."

I'm a little hurt that there's been no specialty drink created for our show yet. I understand that The Full Monty had the "Full Montini". And, that Mame even had TWO drinks to choose from. Where's ours?!??! Granted, off the top of my head, I can't think of a word that rhymes with "corset". But, surely there's something: Raspberry Ragtime Daiquiri, Mrs. Van Bourbon, Panama Smash... Bartender????