Author: Charles Stoll

vvvThe Wizard of Oz

      	I ran ahead of my folks to the front door and knocked hard.  I heard Susie and her brother, Eddie, gleefully screaming inside and I wanted to join in the fun.  Mrs. Sharp opened the door, wiping her hands on a dishtowel.  She smiled her greeting because she hadn’t yet swallowed whatever she was eating.
The Sharps had been family friends ever since my dad had opened his shoe store and Mr. Sharpe had made all the tongue-in-groove shelving in it.  Mr. Sharp had met his wife, Rita, in Hungary during WWII.  That was why Dad called her “Fraulein.”
Everything inside the home was custom made by Mr. Sharp, from the window seats in the bay window to the nine foot built-in maple hutch in the dining room to the crown molding on the walls.  But the best thing Mr. Sharp ever made, from my point of view, was an eight foot stage in the finished basement because his daughter Susie demanded it.
Susie entered the living room, holding on to her childhood dollhouse.  Ed, Jr. followed, carrying a witch’s hat and a wedding veil.  Susie grabbed me by my shirt and dragged me along like another item for her play.  She tended to become bossy when it came to putting on plays.  I thought that Eddie and I were getting a little old, at eleven, for this play nonsense, but we had been doing it since we were five, and it was always a big hit for the family.  Besides, Susie was thirteen and only got more and more excited about the plays as she got older.
“What’s the dollhouse for, Susie?” I asked.
“It’s Suzzy,” she said harshly, “When I perform, I’m not Susie Sharp; I’m Suzzy Wilde.”
“A million pardons,” I said, bowing.
“The dollhouse is for the tornado scene.  We’re doing The Wizard of Oz tonight.”  She was digging through her old toy chest, which was now her costume locker.  She found the lion mask and thought for a second about the scarecrow and the tin man.  “Eddie, go into the garage and get me an empty paint can.  Pick a clean one cause you’re gonna put it on your head to be the tin man.  I don’t want you to get as…asphyxiated,” She struggled with the word, “And Josh, go ask my mother for a broom.  You can shove it down your clothes and be the scarecrow.”  We knew better than to question her when she was in her creative place and ran to do our respective chores.
Suzzy put her mother’s wedding veil in front of her and tied it around her neck.  She found a tiara to wear in her hair.  When I scrambled down the stairs, broom in tow, Eddie, who had a paint can on his head, ran straight into me.
“Hey, why do I have to put up with comedians when I am a serious dramatic actor?”  Suzzy was not to be trifled with.  “O.K., listen up.  Josh, you’re the scarecrow and the cowardly lion.”  She threw him a wig that might resemble a lion’s mane.  “Eddie, you’re the tin man and the wizard.”  She tossed him a bright tie-dyed shirt to wear as the wizard.  “And I, of course, am Dorothy…” she held her hair in pigtails, “and the witches…”she grabbed the witch hat and held it on top of the tiara she wore.  “And Glinda.”  She twirled in her wedding veil dress.
These plays required very little preparation once the roles were given.  It was our take on the play that made it so funny, like a twisted fairy tale.  And Suzzy could carry me and Ed if our wit failed us.  She would do a bizarre dance or tell a strange story.  She lived for the applause.  And as Suzzy grew older, she only grew brasher.
“Eddie, go get the folks before they get too drunk,” Suzzy Wilde commanded.
Eddie ran upstairs and found the folks, per usual, playing penny-ante poker in the dining room.
“Attention, attention,” he announced, “There will be a command performance of The Wizard of Oz in the Suzzy Wilde Theater downstairs.  He bowed and left.  The adults all followed and took seats in the four folding chairs facing the stage.
Suzzy jumped onstage and announced: “Today, it is your great privilege to witness the Wilde Group’s production of The Wizard of Oz, starring Josh, Ed., Jr., and I, Suzzy Wilde.  She stopped to soak up the applause.  Then, she picked up two scrunchies and made Dorothy’s pigtails.  She started to sing “Somewhere over the rainbow,” but stopped abruptly, making a scrunched up face.  “Oh, wait,” she said and ran upstairs.  She returned moments later with her pet schnauzer, Shotzy, in her arms.  She resumed her song.  
Then she placed Shotzy back on the ground and picked up her dollhouse.  Rocking it up and down in front of her, she said: “Oh, shit, it’s a tornado.”
I grabbed the witch hat and broom and flew back and forth in front of the dollhouse.
“Oh, shit, it’s a witch,” Suzzy cried.  Then she plopped down on her butt and landed the dollhouse on her legs so her feet, bedecked in Christmas socks, stuck out in front.  She attempted to wiggle her toes and curl up her feet under the house.  The audience tittered.
Suzzy looked up in the air with her back to the audience: “Who, who are you?” she said to no one in particular.  She bent down to fasten her wedding veil dress.  As she spun around, she pulled off her scrunchies quickly, hitting Eddie in the eye with one.
“Why, I am Glinda, the good witch.  Thank you for killing the bad witch of the east.  I don’t know her name.  Here are some ruby slippers.  You’ll have to get out of here soon, nothing but munchkins here.  Did you bring your broomstick?”  She spun around to become Dorothy again, but Eddie would not return the scrunchie that had hit him in the eye.  She quickly adapted and simply grabbed her hair in both sides to make pigtails:
“Yes, I have a broomstick, but where I come from, it’s only good for sweeping floors.  I don’t even know where I am.”  The munchkins tittered off-stage.
“What the hell was that?”  I was arguing with Eddie because I didn’t know the lollipop guild song, so Eddie got on stage on his knees and sang “I am the Lollipop guild” solo.
Suzzy threw her scrunchies to the side.  The audience should now understand that she was both characters.  Now she would differentiate between the two by using her voice and talent only.  A really great actress could pull this off.  As Dorothy, she said in her best little girl voice:  “I sure do wish I could go back to Kansas.”  She whirled around for emphasis, and said in a worldly, matronly voice:  “Well, then, you must go to the Wizard.  Just follow the yellow brick road.” 
 Eddie and I kneeled on the edge of the stage, singing “Follow the yellow brick road.”  The audience joined in the song.  Suzzy walked around in tight circles.  She kept pointing at the broom which I would need next, but I was caught up in the song.  Finally, Suzzy fell in a heap and said, “The broom, Josh. The broom.”
“Oh, yeah,” I said.  I grabbed the broom and stood and stood holding it in front of myself with the straw covering my face.  I only knew I would prefer to cover my face in this stupid play.  As usual I could do nothing right and refused to take things as seriously as Miss Suzzy Wilde demanded.
“The broom goes in your pants in the back, with the straw behind your head.”  We argued back and forth for a while about how important it really was, but Suzzy sensed she was losing her audience. “Doesn’t matter, well, it is obvious to me that you are brainless,” she concluded, drawing unexpected laughter from her fans.
“Oh, I wish I wasn’t brainless, cause…it ain’t exactly painless when you’re born without a brain,” I made up some of the words, most of the words. 
“Come with me to see the Wizard.  He will give you a brain.”  We hooked arms and danced off down the road.
Eddie threw on the lion mask, realizing too late that the Tin Man was next.  
Suzzy stopped abruptly when she saw him: “Hey, aren’t you supposed to be the Tin Man?”  Eddie reached over and put the paint can over his lion’s mask.
“That’s my problem.  I’m half a lion and half a Tin Man, and I can’t breathe in here.” The audience tittered at Eddie’s improvisation and Suzzy glared at him for taking the attention off of her.  I always got nervous when they wandered too far from the story line.  
“Maybe the Wizard can fix that.”  I offered.  We linked arms and danced off the stage, not knowing what to do next.  Suzzy ran upstairs to find Shotzy again for the last scene.  Eddie went to put on his tie-dyed shirt to be the Wizard.  These plays tended to fall apart in the middle.  I was left to explain things to the audience:
“Well, you might have noticed we took some liberties with the story.  This is because Suzzy is a perfectionist and custom designs each play to suit her audience.  She knows this audience is far too intelligent to bother with long drawn-out stories.”
“We like your version better,” my dad said, holding back laughter.  Suzzy came running in, dog in her arms, and yelled from offstage: “Hold on, I’m ready.”  Eddie threw on the tie-died T shirt and jumped onstage as the Wizard.  “Hey, you.  We need hearts and brains and stuff.”
“First, you bring me the broomstick from the Wicked Witch of the West,” the Wizard insisted.
I took the broomstick that was tucked into my pants and handed it to him.
“This broom is an imposter,” Eddie bellowed, “Now you must face the monkeys.”
“But we don’t have any monkeys,” Suzzy whispered, “Hey, Mom.  Can we be monkeys this Halloween?”
“You’re too old for Halloween, Dear.  Now get back in character,” Her mom said.
So we pretended we were being attacked by the invisible monkeys, swatting and crouching and running.  Suzzy reached down and put on the witch’s hat.  I grabbed the paint can and mimed pouring water on her.
Now Suzzy was in her element; it was her close-up moment, the limelight that she would not be denied.  A great death scene could make a great actor.  She extended her arm and stared beseechingly at the heavens, as she twirled, slowly lowering herself into a heap center stage.
“How could you assholes destroy all my lovely wickedness?” she wailed.  It was a loose interpretation, but it earned her a standing ovation.
My dad roared, “That should be on Broadway.”
“I don’t know how they come up with this shit,” Mr. Sharp said.
As the audience continued to clap and the actors continued to bow, we all realized we had a very tight, albeit peculiar, family circle.