The winsome and irrepressible Miss Pixie was born at Perishable Theatre for 2002-03 post-show discussions, the whimsical suggestion of Marilyn Busch, who was the theater's publicist at the time.But that stage was too small to contain her. Miss Pixie Feingold started showing up at benefits and fundraisers, interviewing Mayor Cicilline and the Blue Man Group, among others. When Casey Seymour Kim talks about Pixie's career, she can't help but decorate her comments with chuckles and outright laughter. (Insert them as you like to her remarks below. You'll be close enough.)
"Pixie likes to think that she's hip, but her frames of reference are currently like she got stuck in the late '70s," Kim says. "In order to rationalize what she was doing at Perishable with the talk show, she was sort of like this third-tier child star. And that might explain why people haven't heard of her."
Each time she has performed Pixie, Kim says, she discovers new things about her "checkered career," her casting about in search of a satisfying identity. "You mean she actually went through that phase where she tried writing tone poems, she was going to join the Beat Movement — oh, really?" Kim asks, like a surprised audience member. "When you're a child star, you peak when you're like eight years old!"
And, "Like everybody else did, she slapped together a cabaret act. But instead of doing the big venues in Vegas, or even Reno for that matter, she went to Tahoe. It's that kind of thing."
I suggest to Kim that someone like Pixie has to protect her ego from nagging doubts by inflating her ego even larger.
"It is ego, but it manifests itself like it's all about the audience," she replies. "She needs them desperately. Everything is always about give, give, give to the audience — but that act itself is so ego-laden!"
Speaking of ego, Kim's is minimal as she makes a point of crediting Gamm artistic director Tony Estrella for helping shape the show, though he hasn't taken billing in the program for doing so.
"When you are doing stage stuff, directing yourself — woough!" she says. "That's kind of wretched."
