'Esquire Magazine'

April 1989



“Women We Love:”
Elizabeth Perkins

By: John Guare

*Transcribed By This Website

IMAGINE: Aphrodite and Clytemnestra and Medusa and Leda and Antigone, all living within one woman like blood relatives. Each fights her way to the surface at unexpected intervals. The consequences are always unpredictable.

The first time I beheld Betsy was onstage in Chicago in a play of mine called Gardenia. Wait till you see her, the director had said. She’s too young for the part. She’s never played a lead. She’s great. I came into the theater during dress rehearsal. The membrane between role and actress did not exist. She just was the part. Fierce. Funny. A beauty. And Mine.

I traveled a lot by air last fall, and Big repeated on four flights. I kept looking at up fro my book to stare at the woman on the jiggling screen. Who was she? Back on earth, I searched out an ad to learn she was… Elizabeth Perkins! Why hadn’t I recognized her? She belonged to me, for a while. But she was Betsy then. Now, well, she was always a woman who could transform herself.

I tracked her down. I guess I had to. Turns out Betsy spent the last year not working, holed up alone by the beach writing mysterious fables of women in various drastic situations. A woman sailing. A woman in a war. A woman underwater. No one has seen these stories, these myths. But trust me. They’ll show up. Her imagination has already begun to add those women to her face. Medea. Circe. Penelope. Try to imagine the reality of being involved with all at the same time. Worth the chance.

[ Back To The Transcripts/Articles Page ]