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Vicki Lawrence to bring 'Mama' into Bartlesville
Comic actress Vicki Lawrence brings herself and "Mama" to the Bartlesville Community Center on Sunday.
Courtesy/Kevin Scott Hees
By KAREN SHADE World Scene Writer
Published: 10/11/2009 2:26 AM
Last Modified: 10/11/2009 5:49 AM
The show is billed as a "two-woman" show, but Vicki Lawrence is alone on the stage.
Or is she?
"I often feel like I could fall off the face of the Earth," Lawrence said by phone. "As long as Mama was around, nobody would really miss me. People really think of her as an actual person. People all the time see me and ask, 'Where's Mama?' Like she should be with me."
If that were so, the striking comic actress most recently seen playing Hannah Montana's Grandma Stewart on the Disney Channel would be walking side-by-side with a flower-clad matriarch in pearls and knee-highs rolled to her dress hem. Mama Thelma Harper may sound docile, but you'll never see them both at once because Lawrence is Mama.
"It's like your crazy aunt or your grandma at Thanksgiving who says the most horrible things out loud," Lawrence said. "Then when you're in the bathroom with your sister after dinner, you're laughing about it — but you're going, 'She's right, you know!'
"When you're a crazy old lady you can get away with that stuff."
They'll both be in Bartlesville on Sunday for the touring production of "Vicki and Mama: A Two-Woman Show," a humorous retrospective of Lawrence's life and career in act one followed by a visit from Mrs. Harper in act two.
"We just came up here for a couple days just to relax, get away and, actually, to see Carol tonight," she said. Here is Santa Barbara, and Carol is, of course, Carol Burnett, who gave Lawrence an incredible opportunity to join the cast of "The Carol Burnett Show" in 1967 when Lawrence was only a senior in high school.
Lawrence spent 11 years on the show with Burnett and grew close to the cast's leading men — Harvey Korman and Tim Conway. Mama Harper was a cranky, mouthy mother hen created by two of the show's writers for Burnett, but the lead was drawn more to Mama's screwball daughter Eunice.
"I was the second female lead, so that was my job to play all the witches, spinster aunts and old school teachers. At the time she was just another old lady to play. That's what I did," Lawrence said. "On 'The Carol Burnett Show,' there were a lot of crazy old ladies that I played. Fortunately for me, it's been a part that I can grow into."
Lawrence credits her late co-star Korman with helping her create the character.
"He taught me so much about characterizations. He said, 'She needs to laugh, she needs to be colorful.' And I said, 'She's never even smiled, Harvey,' but he said, 'She's you, you are she' — which is frightening!"
After a Burnett show reunion, Lawrence decided to write a living touring show, in which she now shares bits of her own life. Mama has also been made "modern" and, though she is still the character fans remember, she is more topical.
"She can talk about politics. She can talk about health care. She can talk about celebrities and what's going on in the news," she said. "Speaking of which, what about that whole David Letterman mess? Good Lord! I don't know what to make of it!"
Vicki Lawrence and Mama: A Two-woman Show
When: 7 p.m. Sunday
Where: Bartlesville Community Center,
300 SE Adams Blvd., Bartlesville
Tickets are $23-$44, available at the
center’s box office, (800) 618-2787,
tulsaworld.com/bartlesvillecc
Karen Shade 581-8334
karen.shade@tulsaworld.com
By KAREN SHADE World Scene Writer
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