Now, going to matinees with my mother is a little different from going with just any Connecticut housewife--my mother is Elieen Heckart. She has graced the stages of Westport on many occasions herself. The blue-haired ladies were (and are) huge fans of hers, and when they weren't saying, "Look Marge, there's Joan Hackett!" they could be quite sweet. Except for the lady who knew my mother from the unemployment office. She seemed to have contempt for the fact that Mom was always there between runs. All this made us less than anonymous, and I loved every second of it.

One of the mid-season "prior to Broadway" tours that summer was a piece directed by Joshua Logan called Why I Went Crazy, starring Imogene Cocoa, Richard Castellano, and Arnold Stang. Mr. Logan, for all his brilliance, directed a huge spate of flops in the mid-to-late '60s and this was no exception. I don't remember much, save for the fact that all the men played women and all the women played men in the first act, then they all switched roles in act two. I can still see the beefy Mr. Castellano in a blond wig and housecoat while Ms. Coca strutted around in a three-piece pinstripe suit telling the "little woman" she had spent too much at the grocery on pork chops.

There was one moment where a young woman got pregnant, and Mr. Castellano (now out of drag) handed her a couple of condoms. Arnold Stang, playing the child (looking rather obscene at age 50-something in knickers and a pinafore), saw the condoms and exclaimed, "Oh boy--balloons!" He took them offstage to blow them up and the audience howled. Now remember, I was nine. I leaned over to my mother, amidst the audience's guffaws and said, "What the matter with the balloons? Why is everyone laughing?" She quietly whispered, "I'll tell you later."

I promptly forgot about it, as children do, until three days later we were driving home from Caldor's in the olive-green '67 Cougar. I suddenly proclaimed, "Now, about Arnold Stang's balloons..." She laughed, took a long drag on her True Blue and said, "Well, what do you know about sex?" "Not much," I replied. She proceeded to tell me the facts of life. If it weren't for a summer matinee at the Westport Country Playhouse, I might still be in the dark.

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Lina Koutrakos
Singer/songwriter, performing at Fez July 19 at10pm

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Jeff Calhoun
Director, currently in rehearsals for the national tour of Annie Get Your Gun and the upcoming Broadway revival of Bells Are Ringing

Click here to visit Jim Caruso's website.