We All Loved You, Jenny Jo
SSAATTB (CHORUS): Ah (in Disney style).........ah!
Police Inspector: Wait! What's this all about?
SATB: Who is this blockhead? He does not know our Jenny Jo.
Glory and honor were heaped upon her,
Medals and prizes of different sizes.
Who is this blockhead...etc.
SSAATB; Ah....ah...S: We all loved you, Jenny Jo,
'cause you're pure Hollywood, you know.
She suddenly left her dressing room, carrying
only her faded, tattered, wrinkled, scrapbook.
SATB: Vanished, she vanished; the famous star has vanished.
Oh, where are you, Jenny ,
The famous star has vanished forever more.
Police Insp: Does anyone have any information about this case?
SoloSST, SATB: We must help the police,
because we love them and they are our friend.....what would you like to know.
We will answer.. (the secret of Jenny's sad end)..yes or no.
Police Insp: Was she nervous? SSA: yes.
PI: Was she happy? SSA: no.
Was there trouble ... in the family?
SSAATTBB: yes..yes...no...yes...(etc.)
PI: No! Can't I get a straight answer around here?
SATB (shouted): Straight!... Are you kidding?
PI: Start at the beginning.
Tell me all about her childhood.
SA: Jenny Jo kept a diary...PI:Ah!
SA: She revealed all.
JJ (spoken ala Dickens, David Copperfield):Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life,
or whether that station will be held by anyone else, these pages must show. to begin
with my life I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday at twelve o'clock
midnight....the clock was striking.. (slow fade..)
SSAATB: Ah, Ah, Ah!....Ah.....
T solo: And thus our starlet entered the world in
Dickensian glory. The daughter of a peanut butter magnate and a former Miss America.
SATB: America, so beautiful (to the tune of "America").
JJ (in "high school play refined English) as Eliza Doolittle in Shaw's
Pygmalian: Oh! if only I could go back
to my flower basket! I should be independent of both you and father
and all the world!
SATB: The high school play, so beautiful (to the tune, "America").
JJ (as Eliza D): Why did you take my independence from me?
Why did I give it up? I'm a slave now,
for all my fine clothes.
SATB (fugue): It seems that she was overacting.
She charmed us with her obvious gifts....Oh!
SATB (as a football cheer): Screen test, screen test, rah rah rah,
We want a screen test, sis boom bah.
SATB: Take one....JJ: Andersen's Soup...SATB: Take two... JJ: Andersen's Soup,
SATB: Take three!...JJ: Soup..SATB: Four!.....OOP!
JJ: Andersen's Soup, so rich and green,
waiting in the hot tureen.....TTBB: Soup of the evening, beautiful soup (Lewis Carroll paraphrase).
JJ: Oh yeah!.. TB: Won't you have some soup.. oh Andersen's soup so rich and green..etc.
PI: At last, some hard evidence. Tell us more.
T solo: We will tell you everything. With excellence in drama her career was launched,
A great, wide, balloon of talent, floating over a sea of soup and mouthwash.
TBB (as slaves on the plantation): They would like to send us back to Africa
(simultaneously, as Scarlett O'Hara) JJ: Oh Ashley, now that we're alone, just you and me together.. do ya really..love me?
TBB: Hallelujah...They would like to send us back..etc.
JJ:(Emily Dickinson, #172) So much joy.. so much joy,
If I should fail, what poverty and yet..
as poor as I have ventured all...have gained,
hesitated so.
This side the victory...(echo) TB: This side the victory.
SA: You were so chic, my dear.. JJ (interrupting): you're kidding,...SA: Oh so charming, Jenny Jo.
Your love life was so alarming...JJ (interrupting again): I just wanted love.
SA: How much we loved to read about all the things we dare not do ourselves...
JJ: You exaggerate my powers.. SA (interrupting):So modest..
Since my husband was a bore, I looked elsewhere after hours,
SA: And collected many more [husbands]..JJ (interrupting): I really only wanted love.
SSAAATTBB (overlapping speech): Her acting..performances were..punk...was just a drunk (JJ: "I just wanted...")
BB: She was just a common.....so...courageous... a legend....that shows times were tough.
PI: You mean to say she disappeared because she was unloved.
SATB: The last entry in her diary.
JJ (aria): I feel that my life is as thin as the celluloid upon which it's
stored. (Dickinson, #1123) A great hope fell, you heard no noise.
I prayed to the Lord, but He was bored.
T solo: Dear audience, do not be alarmed.
Jenny Jo's end was not so sad.
She was reported living in Hackensack, New Jersey....under the name of Patricia..JJ (interrupting):
No, it was Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. SSAATTBB (variously in two versions: Amen..Amen.. Amen, brother.
Libretto by Paul Reale, with apologies to Charles Dickens, George Bernard Shaw, Lewis Carroll, David O, Selznick, and Emily Dickinson.