Folly Beach - Dorothea Benton Frank [107]
“What’s in it for me?”
“I’ll make you breakfast in bed the whole time you’re here. How’s that?”
“Just remember I like my coffee with one sugar and my toast light.”
“Sure. Big talk. Wait until you see the Porgy House.”
“Dump?”
“No, not at all. It’s adorable. Like a dollhouse.”
“How’s the piano?”
“Old Cunningham looks like she’s as happy as a clam.”
“A smiling piano. Only you would have a smiling piano!”
We arrived at the Medical University and saw Russ crossing the parking lot. I rolled down my window and called out to him.
“Hey! Russ! Wait for us!”
We parked and got out of the car and he hurried over to hug Patti and then me.
“Where’s Alice?” I said.
“In the car over there,” he said, pointing to his Jeep.
“What’s she doing in the car?” Patti said. “Hey, congratulations again, by the way.”
“Thanks!” he said. “I had the easy part, you know.”
“Gross,” I said. “What’s she doing? Is she coming in?”
“No, she’s afraid to come in.”
“What?” Patti said and we exchanged looks about his wife’s questionable behavior, which was almost never the thing either one of us would do.
“What’s she afraid of, son?” I said.
“Germs,” he said.
“Ooooh boy,” I said under my breath and thought great, it was going to be one long hot summer until that baby arrived.
Chapter Twenty-three
Setting: The Porgy House at the piano.
Director’s Note: Show photos of the beaches of Folly Beach, the church, and then George Gershwin with DuBose and Dorothy sharing a cocktail on the backstage scrim. Voice of DuBose comes from off-stage.
Act III
Scene 2
Dorothy: I’ll remember that summer forever, the one when George Gershwin arrived on Folly Beach, with his cousin Henry Botkin, supposedly to get down to work. We were away when George showed up but I had rented a little cottage for him. When we asked him what kind of accommodations he wanted, he was adamant that he wanted to live like the natives. I thought, okay, I can manage that. The place I found was within walking distance of ours but it had no electricity or running water. He wanted native? I found him native. Wasn’t that terrible of me? Surprisingly, there was no objection from him, probably because he fell in love with Folly Beach the same way everyone else does. But it had to have taken some getting used to for a city-slicker like him.
In fact, there was a story in the News and Courier that Ashley Cooper, the pseudonym used by one of our favorite columnists, came out to visit him, and George, ever the well-dressed man, appeared in a getup that he probably wore in Palm Beach—a sport coat and an orange tie! But soon he put his sport coat and orange tie in the closet and spent most of his time walking on the beach and diving into the waves. I think I forgot to tell him about the sharks.
Anyway, it wasn’t long until George found himself a lady friend but as I hear it, she was not particularly impressed with him. She thought all his swimming and athletics were some silly attempt to make himself into a he-man. In fact, the rumor mill said that George spent more time swimming in the ocean and counting turtle eggs, painting watercolors, and playing golf than he did composing music.
By the time DuBose and I returned to Folly, George had a scraggly beard and he was as brown as a pecan. Well, DuBose was having no more delays and shenanigans from Mr. Gershwin, so the first thing he did was get him over to James Island where there was a huge Gullah population. He took him to schools and church services so George could see the “Double Clap” for himself. Don’t you know George got so excited, he joined in? And, to his credit, George always left a nice donation so that word would spread and he’d be welcome to visit the next place.
I think the biggest disagreement between DuBose and George was about how much of Porgy and Bess should be sung and how much should be spoken like regular lines in a play. George wanted the spoken lines to rhyme, because that was the American operatic tradition. But I think DuBose wanted the actors to speak in straight Gullah, because that