2009 OFFICIAL XENA CONVENTION
Los Angeles, California, USA

January 30 - 1 February, 2009

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Con 09 LA LUCY onstage at the convention Part 2

by KT
fsktl@uaf.edu

When last we heard from Lucy, she was saying that to have a great hero, you need a great villain.

Then my notes say, “Like that tennis player. . .” And I believe Lucy fumbled out something like, “What’s (her/his) name?” She may have been talking to herself but whenever we get a chance to interact with anybody on stage, we are SO there! So dozens of people began to scream out their suggestions. Lucy’s head swung around a bit and then she began to make confusing sounds to imitate what she was hearing from us. “Daaawa mmmmbo wwwuuhhh hooolll mwah” (Note: Lucy may spell these sounds differently than I do.)

Then I have her saying, “I rushed out and got Dom’s? . . .” the next word in my notebook is either “carrot” or “haircut”. (You know what-I should just scan my notes and upload them. That would be a LOT easier for me.)

Or perhaps it was "haricot" and Lucy was just being full of beans. As usual. (My notes are just really hard to read at this point.)

However, after posting this on a Xena list, a helpful fan helped fill this in for me-Lucy was talking about Dana, the character on the show who is a tennis player. Lucy said that Dana’s haircut didn’t look good on her and she was in the process of growing it out, so that was why she was now wearing ponytails.

This con was a mix of people coming up to the mike and people just roaring questions out from their seats. This has been the pattern for quite a few years now. When the show was in its first run, there were so many people in the audience and the halls were so huge that talking to the stars from your seats was not feasible. Now it’s possible. And it’s nice that people can just yell out, but the hall and the audience are still big enough that we don’t all hear the question when it’s screamed from a seat. If the question is not evident from the beginning of the star’s answer, Sharon often interrupts the answer to remind the star to repeat the question.

Lucy always complies. BUT-repeating the question often puts her in a playful, teasing mood. Now, the following is mostly true, but I have cleverly changed the questions to protect the inane.

At times I’ve seen Lucy imitate a very quiet sports announcer (like one at a golf tournament) and she whispers the question in what I call her “Big kid’s voice” which is the formal Kiwi accent that she uses when she’s voicing documentaries. She also puts on an intense, absorbed, stiff, BBC kind of newsreader’s this is SERIOUS STUFF face when she does this. Lucy listens intently, then intones breathlessly and softly, “She is asking why Xena never wore a hat to keep her head warm.” At which point, some of the people in the audience begin to yell, “She did, she DID!” and then dozens more begin to scream out the names of ALL the episodes where Xena DID wear a hat. This is followed by small skirmishes breaking out all over the hall over whether Mel Pappas counts since she wasn’t really Xena when she had the hat on.

I’ve also seen Lucy listen to like three paragraphs of exposition from a fan who first reminds Lucy of when they last “met”, (“Seven years ago in Santa Monica when you passed by me as you left the hall and I waved to you and told you I had been to New Zealand three times and I tried to give you a key chain from Syracuse-remember?”) (Lucy does not nod) and then cruises into what Xena meant to them, then explains that they thought that some of the arcs could have been done better and then asks if Renee’s feet got cold in season four when she was barefoot. Lucy listens intently to it all and then repeats to us with questioning eyes and an “I’m not totally sure but . . .” look on her face, “It’s something about. . . feet.”

Yet Sharon continues to ask her to repeat the questions.

So now that I’ve explained that fans yell questions out from their seats, we can continue with Lucy’s appearance.

Oh one other thing. Lucy looked at Sharon at some point and said, “You’re dressed like us too!” (Meaning like Lucy and Renee were.)

After Lucy talked about getting the carotid haircut, a number of people tried to shout out a question all at the same time, yelling over each other. Lucy nodded and said, “Collective questions! I like that!”

Somebody won and said that speaking of great villains, she loved Lucy’s character in CSI and did Lucy think that they might bring that character back. I believe it was Lucy (and not the fan) who said, “I’d like that”.

Lucy talked about going on an ensemble show and not being one of the stars. And indicated that when she’s on a show, she’s sneaky, “I suck up”. She got a kind of warning look on her face and said, “Feed your character. Otherwise we take over your show.” Then, “I can’t help being a star”. And I think she played off that a bit, indicating maybe like in real life too she couldn’t help being a star. Maybe-at this point, my notes are nothing but a jumble of fallen letters at the bottom of a page.

She was asked about working with Rob and she talked about something they wanted to do. But then she said that on his new show there is no pseudo naked. It’s real naked-no body stocking. “It’s gratuitous nudity-great part-(the audience) sees a lot of ya.” Then I have in my notes the words, “He’s not thrilled.” Immediately followed by the sentence, “I need some dogs.”

And that’s the end of that notebook page, thank the gods.

At the top of the next page, a fan asked what she was reading now, because “You’re always reading.” Lucy replied, “I’m SO literary.” And then kind of snorted out, “I’m a slug. I watch Court TV and play solitaire on my ipod.”

Then she laughed and said, “I’m reading ‘Best Crime Reporting of 2008’”. She began to talk about an executioner. “Who can do that, put people to death? There is a quirk in there. You’re put in the position of God.” She told us about someone who wanted to grab the electric chair (during an execution) and had to restrain themselves. Ultimately he left the job.

Question: When do we get a DVD of the London concert? Lucy: “You did. It was on youtube.” I think then they were talking about the clips on her webpage. “I might refresh them.”

The next question was something about now that she’s appeared nude (nearly nude? about nude?) “Would you put the chaps back on?”

Lucy talked about the performance the night before. “Had I backed off, I would think to myself, ‘You’re so chicken’. When you’re pseudo naked in front of 400 lesbians—you’re so far out there.”

I think it was Lucy who asked us, “Wasn’t Laura amazing?” and talked about her dancing so well. Then she said that Laura wearing the obvious head mike was uh-what-maybe took away from the show a little bit? But that it was what Laura wanted, I think she said. Then I got something written that looks like “Big chew” *Siiigh*

And then I think she was asked about doing a comedy sitcom. And Lucy answered, “Oh, you kind of like things a little twity”. Yes, “twity” is what is written in my notebook. Quirky seems more likely, but I have twity there. Surely the question wasn’t would they make “Welcome To The Pleasure Dom” as a sitcom? Nawwww, not even US would ask that.

A fan asked what the name of the character was. Lucy said, “Sappho. Weren’t you listening? Sappho Warrior Princess.”

(And I used “Saffy” in my concert report because on her webpage, that’s what Lucy said the character’s name was. Now I gotta go do a “Find and Replace” thing when I fix all the other typos on there. Thanks a lot, Lucy.)

“The story came from a screen play for the movies. It’s set in the 80’s when aids was running rampant. Nobody knew what it was. There was lots of hysteria-what was it? I was 13-15 years old.”

“Mark Beesley (a Xena director) wrote it with Rob. Sappho was a washed up, coke addicted diva.”

Lucy talked about translating it to a stage performance. “In a movie, there are many worlds and you just edit it all together. In a theater, there’s a set space. And it’s totally different.”

She said they literally had 2 days of rehearsals. And when she told the band what songs they’d be performing, “They said they hadn’t heard any of these songs before. I said, ‘You’re kidding me!’” She explained that they were huge hits during the time that the show was set. (As many of us found out at the concert, at least in New Zealand, Australia and Britain they were.)

Lucy told us that the drummer and one other band member did not show up for the first rehearsal. “The first night was our first and only run through!” Either we or she said that it worked out great. And then I think we said thank you and she, as she always does, turned it back and said, “Thank YOU!”

And then BIG surprise-Claire Stansfield came charging out through the scrim curtain and up onto the stage.

And that’s the End of part 2.
KT