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Yes Sir, That's My Baby!
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Sanders
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By Debbi K. Swanson
Beverly Sanders is known to many from TV as the Arm & Hammer spokeswoman for
10 years and as Rhoda’s eternally pregnant neighbor Easy Susie. In real
life, she was not easily detoured from what she wanted -- a baby.
She brings her highly entertaining and moving one-woman show to the Fremont
Centre Theatre in South Pasadena after its successful premiere in Burbank
last year. She’ll have you
laughing, crying, and getting just plain angry at the insanity of the adoption
process as she tells of her attempts to have and to adopt a child more than
15 years ago.
The story is still as topical today as then because the experience is
timeless, and the horrors of adoption/child welfare laws still make news.
She opens up by asking an audience member to take her picture -- for the
adoption auditions she’s about to pursue. How appropriate for an actress to
have to audition for the part of mother. Let’s face it, life is one big
audition for one thing or another in one way or another. The process was
especially ironic for Sanders who had played the part of being pregnant for
so long.
Starting out lighthearted, the tone soon changes as she tells of first trying
to get pregnant, but at 40+ the hormones and eggs just weren’t
cooperating. So, after humiliating herself and her husband in this process, it
was time to go through the even more tortured path of adoption bureaucracies
and private attorneys where the laws surrounding the rights of parents and children make those going through the system actually feel insane.
Sanders, with warmth and honesty, reveals intensely personal moments of
embarrassment, such as sperm collection. Another the painful moment occurred when she and
her musician husband were forced to return a baby they had come to love after
three months to a teenage mother who’d changed her mind. Making it even
worse is the mother was living with a man who’d been banned by the courts from seeing his
own three children for his irresponsibility. See? Child protection laws will
make you insane.
Unlike other stories, such as The Baby Dance where the mission to have a child
nearly destroys the people involved, Sanders and her husband were destined to
succeed. So in true Hollywood style, they lived happily ever after -- except
for the menopause. This is one one-woman show that’s more than worth your
time.
Yes Sir, That’s My Baby!, at the Fremont Centre Theatre, 1000 Fremont Ave.,
South Pasadena, (626)441-5977. Performances at 7 p.m Sundays indefinitely. Tickets:
$15.,/i.
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