2002 Pasadena Xena Convention

DISCLAIMER: The following is a purely subjective view of what happened during the convention weekend. Most quotes are paraphrased or simply my own impressions of the moment.


My Report: Evening 1 - Friday

Josie, Josie, Josie! What to say about Josie Ryan? A spitfire! Not to mention extremely talented. Sister Wonder Woman is a thoroughly entertaining and insightful piece: undoubtedly inspired by a mixture of her and LL's own sisterly experiences, added to the whole Linda Carter/Wonder Woman mythos, and compressed into a fictionalized world of fictional characters. It's a series of interspersed scenes and moments. She plays Rhonda (a TV star) in a series of interviews throughout her career. In this way, she shows the various stages of the downward motion of her life. In addition, she plays Rhonda's little sister (I'm forgetting her name at the moment) from childhood, being a fat little girl with a big fantasy life, on through to her attempts at adjustment as an adult and her ultimate confrontation with her big sister, who's image has been overshadowing her whole life. Of course, Rhonda has been dealing with her own problems of being overshadowed by the image of Wonder Woman, the character she played for a couple of seasons in the '70's. Josie also plays their father in a scene and the younger sister's boyfriend, along with other incidental bits.

My favorite moments are: Rhonda is in an interview and is encouraged to disrobe and reveal her WW costume she is obviously wearing under her dress. She walks away from the chair (and the interview) in protest only to be stopped by the sudden sounds of the WW theme music. She turns around in an uncontrollable, physical urge to do... an entire mime of the WW credit sequence. Absolutely hysterical!!! An over expressive face is certainly a Ryan family trademark. Too funny!! After taking off her dress and revealing a stunning replica of the WW costume (complete with headband), Rhonda does the whole girly, slow-mo running bit, and the "ching, ching" of the bracelet's crossing in front of the face, the lasso pull, and of course... the twirl.

The other favorite moment of mine is a scene in which she takes a red, stretchy cloth sack, puts it over her head and upper body and becomes Rhonda's "little secret" - an unborn child. The baby comments on (among other things) how they have to keep him/her a secret due to the show and WW's image. All the while, Josie's stretching and moving inside the sack as well as spinning around in place every few lines or so. Finally, the baby says something like, "But what I really can't take... is all the twirling!" as she spins around several more times. OMG! The audience about died laughing, most especially me. Too damn funny. Of course, you'd have to see it to get the full impact. One of the women sitting in front of me said later that she didn't get why Josie was spinning around until the baby's last line about mom's constant twirling. LOL!

At the charity breakfast, Josie came over to our table early on and we were encouraging her to take the show on the road to other conventions, and even to New York. She, of course, is all for that. So I'm sure the more requests made to Creation the more likely it'll be that they'll ask her back. This show is a "must see"!! A very funny, but also a very moving and poignant play. Some of us felt that the audience didn't always appreciate some of the more serious toned elements of the show. I did, though. A fascinating piece of theatre. A few people mentioned to her later that people in Phoenix don't speak with a drawl as she depicted in the play. However, as I suspected, she pointed out that it made it easier to distinguish between the characters. I gave the Kiwi some slack. After all, her standard American accent was just as impeccable as her sisters.

And yes, Josie has many, many similarities to LL, especially in facial and vocal expressions. However, Josie has brown eyes, and a sweet, adorable personality all her own. Nevertheless, they most definitely are sisters. Actually, she reminded me more of LL on stage than in person. Josie wears these cute little glasses and her long dark hair in a ponytail. She's slightly thicker around the middle, but an exceptionally beautiful woman with an inviting, teethy grin and sparkling eyes. She's also quite a ham... another family trait?... who loved all the posing for photos and attention she received all weekend. After the Friday night show, she came out front and was cornered by some of the audience for autographs. Slowly the crowd surrounding her got bigger and bigger, and more and more squished (not her, just we autograph hounds ). At one point Sharon Delaney came up to her and asked if she was ok with this and Josie was all smiles saying, "Oh yeah! Lovin' it." LOL! As Sharon went by, I jokingly said, "Leave her alone. She's having fun." Sharon just smiled and scurried away. Hee hee. However, just as I was standing at Josie's side about to get my turn, Jamester came up and announced that we had to call it quits for the evening, but that they would arrange an autograph session with her on Saturday. Therefore, Josie stopped signing and started talking to Katherine Fugate, who had been quietly sitting there waiting for her. I heard Katherine say that Josie could sit with her during her signing session after her talk Sat. afternoon, which is exactly what they did.

Now we come to... The Hudson and Claire Show!!!! *thunderous applause!* There were three acts to their piece. The first was "Fred and Ginger," then "Callisto vs. Alti," and finally "The Boom Boom Boom" (a scene from the play by David Rabe).

"Fred and Ginger" opened with the lead-in scene from the Fred and Ginger film Top Hot to the song and dance "Cheek to Cheek" showing on the big screen. As the song was about to begin, Claire and Hudson appeared from behind the screen in tuxedo and white evening gown, respectively. Oh good god! Are there words to describe the vision of Hudson Leick looking like a young, gorgeous Ginger Rogers reincarnated? My heart nearly exploded!! And to be fare, Claire was quite a handsome sight in that tux. Anyway, after Claire took Hudson in her arms, they began to sway and dance as per F&G on screen, with Claire lip-syncing to the song along with Fred, as she tried desperately not to laugh and lose her place. Claire missed several turns here and there, and in embarrassment, had to try to play "catch up." It was very endearing. Hudson told us the next day that (DUH!) Claire was terrible at leading and kept wanting Hudson to do it. But when the real dance began, a handsome young man in a tux (Forrest Walsh - the choreographer/dance coach) came out on stage and took over for Claire, while she went off to the corner and smoked a cigarette. Then Hudson and Forrest began synchronizing their movements with the real F&G on screen. OMG! They were amazingly accurate!! Hudson RULES! (as well as Forrest) Then when F&G started their fancy footwork H & F broke away from the original dance and started doing their own stuff, including some amazing leaps and lifts. Holy Shit!! By this time, Claire had had enough and went to cut in, which prompted a lovely little fight sequence between C & F. He finally retreated leaving C & H to finish out the final few romantic steps together. WOW! No words...

The next act was Claire's short film "Callisto vs. Alti" (a.k.a. "At Last"). I don't think any of us were quite prepared for what we were about to witness. We new it would be naughty, as only Claire can be, but... By the gods! I don't think I heard more than a half dozen bits of dialogue through all the gales of laughter. DOLLS!!! She used the 12" Callisto doll and the 12" Sin Trade Xena doll for Alti (black eye-liner added!), and voiced by Hudson and Claire. She filmed the funniest little story: Callisto has Xena's head; Alti comes for the head; they fight over it; then decide to join forces and start their own show together... But first... love takes over and captures both their hearts. What follows is a series of "around the world" shots of the two dolls in various loving and highly compromising positions in front of different "location" scenes from a book placed behind them... all to the song "At Last." LOL!! This thing had it all: campfire scenes, a hot tub scene, yoga, sex, nudity (the plastic doll variety, of course), elaborately edited fight sequences, star gazing, and... Claudia Christian, as depicted by her Babylon 5 doll... "still in her packaging!"... She floats in the night sky and tells the grrls that "love is the way" (or something like that - couldn't hear much by this point!) The moral of the story is, "We don't need Xena. We have each other." Holy Crap! That was funny as hell!!!

Last but certainly not least... "The Boom Boom Boom." The first scene is Claire and Hudson, in full costume, doing a Vegas showgirl dance - big feathery headdresses... the works. Hubba hubba! (to say the very least!) Actually, Claire did better than she hinted at in her Q&A that afternoon. It was a very sexy dance, which Hudson, of course, was enjoying waaay too much.

Anyway, after the dance they go off and then come back to their "dressing room." This very intense scene is about Hudson's character being very unsure of men and her interaction with them, thinking there's something wrong with her. Claire's character tries to explain to her that it's men who have the problem. All this leads up to C declaring that she wants to make love to H. H is shocked and moves away. C goes on a bit more about how they are just two people. It's not about genders, it's about individuals. H still doesn't think she can do it. C reluctantly accepts this and gets up to leave. H suddenly stands up and stops her. C turns around, grabs H and kisses her, then walks off. H is left on stage to contemplate what just happened. Lights out.

A very powerful scene with very intense performances. Claire didn't have too much to say in it, but she was very subtle and real. Hudson was just so damn intense... sitting on the edge of her seat, leaning into and towards Claire like she wanted something desperately from this woman. Her candor, her confusion, her shock, her thoughtfulness. Amazing.

That afternoon, Claire talked briefly about putting the show together and working with Hudson. She talked about how nervous she was and how intense Hudson is. However, Hudson was just so amazing and Claire was so thrilled and excited to have this chance to work with her. They did an awesome job! It was fun to see these two incredible women finally working together.

What an evening!

Copyright - Sarah Mears, 2/18/02; Edited: 2/24/02
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