Word: keillor
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...Keillor is one of the sharpest and funniest extempore wits in show business, but in conversation he has a disconcerting knack of sounding like a Minnesota-born Henry Kissinger discussing the dangers of excessive arms control. Asked whether he might play a part in the Wobegon film, he went into his Kissinger mode and said, "That has not been discussed." O.K., did he expect to do any sort of performing? Here he brightened, for he likes the risk of live performance. "You have to perform now and then, to keep stage fright under control." He waves away the idea...
Ninety minutes to show time: backstage at the World Theater, the 6-ft. 4-in. Keillor is now chest-deep in an army of young Hawaiians, the 49 members of the Kamehameha School glee club. Singer Kate MacKenzie, a.k.a. Sheila, the Christian Jungle Girl, rushes up to check a cue. Sound men and stagehands circulate. Buster the Show Dog signs autographs, in the person of Actor Tom Keith, who also does the voices of Father Finian and Timmy, the Sad Rich Boy, motor and siren noises and dandy skyrocket effects...
...before the beginning of the show named after Prairie Home, a cemetery in Moorhead, Minn., the theater doors open, and fans who have been waiting all afternoon in 99-degree heat file in, wearing T shirts advertising Powdermilk Biscuits and Bertha's Kitty Boutique. At the 15-minute mark Keillor wanders onstage, looking solemn, and tells everyone he does not believe in unsentimental farewells. He wants howling and lamentation, he says; he wants people to throw themselves on the floor and wrap their arms around his ankles. Yessir...
Then the red ON THE AIR sign winks on, and Pianist Rich Dworsky whacks out a couple of yards of barrelhouse. Keillor swings into his theme song, the old Hank Snow tune Hello Love: "Well, look who's comin' through that door/ I think we've met somewhere before...
...Jean Redpath has sung in her lovely, clear voice, the Hawaiians have aloha'd, Guitarists Atkins and Leo Kottke have laid down some elegant tunes, Buster has woofed one last time before going on unemployment, the Norwegian bachelor farmers have made their final appearance at the Chatterbox Cafe, and Keillor has carried on shamelessly. "I'm going away, for to stay a little while," he has sung, "but I'm coming back, if I go ten thousand miles." Does he mean it? The ON THE AIR sign turns dark, and Keillor bows himself offstage. Goodbye, love...