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Feb. 16, 2007
Tackling "Franksploitation"
Comedienne brings her one-woman show to Vancouver.
KATHARINE HAMER EDITOR
There are a few things that set Betsy Salkind apart from the crowd.
Like the fact that's she an expert in drywalling. Or that she wrote
self-parodying jokes for self-help guru Anthony Robbins. Or that
she's famous for her squirrel impersonations.
The latter started with her eating a ginger snap "in a rather
squirrelly manner" at a rehearsal one day – and has evolved
into a signature sketch, Salkind confessed in an interview from
her Los Angeles home. The "squirrel" routine features
punctuated twitching, scratching and the consumption of a large
piece of matzah.
"I kept wanting bigger and bigger crackers," said Salkind,
"and a matzah was the biggest one I could find." She noted
that, "If anyone wanted to try it at home, it's important to
use the unsalted [matzah], because it's a dangerous piece and you
can cut your mouth, and the salt, it will hurt."
The squirrel is far from the only zany character Salkind's invented.
She also regularly plays a ventriloquist's dummy called Peanut and,
next week, she brings her one-woman show, Anne Frank Superstar:
The Story of Ethel Spilliotes, to Vancouver for the Chutzpah!
Festival.
"It's a play, but I play all eight characters," said Salkind,
"sometimes as many as three on stage at the same time. Basically,
it's the story of this 10-year-old who's very smart and witty and
opinionated and she gets picked up for a development deal in Hollywood
and the sitcom that they come up with for her is called Let's
Be Frank. And it all goes terribly wrong."
Salkind is quick to allay any worries that she's being disrespectful
to Frank's memory. "I think the idea of it frightens some people,"
she conceded, "but the piece itself has not offended anyone.
In fact, Rabbi David Nyman sanctified the show. He loved it. I think
people's initial fear is that I'm making fun of Anne Frank and the
Holocaust and really what I'm making fun of is how those things
get exploited.
"It's really a spoof about Anne Franksploitation, not her.
She comes off pretty well in the piece."
Salkind said her inspiration for the play came from a documentary
a few years ago called Anne Frank Remembered.
"The voice of Anne Frank was done by Glenn Close, which was
just so wrong," she recalled, "and the other thing was
that all the advertisements for the thing were, 'Anne Frank was
Hitler's most famous victim, but who was she really?' and I'm like,
'Well, why don't you just read the diary?' It felt so exploitative.
I think it did win an Oscar and to me, it just felt like it was
created for that purpose. It was a Disney film. After spending a
couple of days in bed depressed about it, it was just my satire
of, 'OK, let's just take this all the way and see where it goes.'
"
The Vancouver version of the show features all-new elements "because
a lot has changed in Hollywood after seven years," said Salkind.
"In the original version, the girl was discovered as a stand-up
and in this case, she's discovered on YouTube."
Salkind began her working life in the corporate world, after taking
degrees in management at the London School of Economics and the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"They didn't have a theatre department at MIT," she joked.
"In the beginning, I just thought I'd just do this as my day
job and transition into comedy, but it was so awful that I just
thought, 'Ah, I'm just going to quit and give this a shot' and that
was 20 years ago."
A former staff writer for Roseanne, Salkind now works regularly
as a stand-up. She's writing another play and volunteers in child
protection work.
And just in case you thought she couldn't add to her list of talents,
she's also a master of British regional dialects. It's a skill she
admittedly uses less these days, but, she said, "Americans
are such Anglophiles that occasionally I'll do it just to get better
service."
Anne Frank Superstar comes to the Norman Rothstein Theatre
Feb. 21, 22, 24 and 25. Tickets are $18. For more information, visit
www.chutzpahfestival.com.
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