Pair 'o Strokers
| Convention skit | |
|---|---|
| Title | Pair 'o Strokers |
| Fandom(s) | Man from U.N.C.L.E., includes characters from The Professionals, Starsky & Hutch (1993), later rendition appears to include The Sentinel |
| Author(s) | Paula Smith, Jody Lynn Nye |
| Troupe | various fans |
| Date(s) | 1993, 1999 |
| Related articles on Fanlore. | |
Pair 'o Strokers was a MUNCLE themed con skit written by Paula Smith and Jody Lynn Nye.
It was a takeoff on the zine Perestroika. The title is also a play on words: the British word for "/" is "stroke," both a reference to slash.
The skit begins with Kuryakin having been declared dead, and Solo mourning at his grave in Moscow. The caretaker at the cemetery turns out to be Illya in disguise, and Solo sweeps him grandly back to the States, and installs him at his palatial mansion. After a few plot twists and turns, with Solo nearly losing Kuryakin at one point, true love between partners is achieved, and everyone lives happily ever after.
The play was first performed at ZebraCon 1993 and again at MediaWest*Con 1999. It must have been slightly revised for the second showing, as the character of "Blair" was added; that character is possibly Tony Blair, or it could be Blair Sandburg.
This is one play in Play by Playbook: Collected ZebraCon Plays (1995).
Sample
from Play by Playbook: Collected ZebraCon Plays (1995)
from Play by Playbook: Collected ZebraCon Plays (1995)
Author's Comments: 1995
From Paula Smith:
The primary reason I wrote a Man From U.N.C.L.E. play for ZebraCon, aside from the fact that it's my favorite fandom, is that having come up with the title, I couldn't bear not to use it. You might notice that all the song tunes have the word "rose" in their titles. A couple of times I've used some sort of theme in picking out songs for my lyrics. Makes for weird song choices sometimes, but gives it that extra layer of cohesive humor. Thematic unison: your guarantee of great theatre. Jane Mailander was, far and away, the best Napoleon I've ever acted with. I think everyone loved the tux with white sneakers. Well, Karen B did like Lois Welling in the skating outfit... [1]
The 1993 Production
The 1993 Cast
- Napoleon: Jane Mailander
- Illya: Paula Smith
- Slasha: Pat Massie
- Blackadder, Bodie: Jody Lynn Nye
- Baldrick: Steve H
- Hutch: Barb P
- Brian: Lois Welling
- Exeter, Gorbachov/Reagan: Pat C
An Actor's Comment: Jane Mailander as "Napoleon"
In 2017, Mailander commented about this performance and her role in it in Media Fandom Oral History Project Interview with Jane Mailander.
The fact that I didn’t watch the show much didn’t mean that I didn’t read some of the fan fiction. A lot of the fan fiction kind of solved problems from the original source material that a lot people, especially women, would kind of bring up, like, “Yeah, these guys are really great making quips and shooting guns and stuff, but they’re also friends. Shouldn’t they be talking about something bad that just happened instead of saying ‘oh well, let’s go have a date with these two different women.” Something bad just happened. Shouldn’t you talk about it or deal with the aftermath?
So, I began to read some of the fan fiction mostly because there was that gorgeous Susan Lovett art attached to [Perestroika], and because the people who wrote it were able to write enough information about the show into the fiction, you didn’t need to watch the show to pick up on it, or to read it. So I became a fan of Perestroika and some of the other amazing fan fiction out there, and from Paula Smith who wanted someone to be “Pair’ o Strokers.” Her stuff has been funny for decades. She used to have, like, the Star Trek Dick and Jane stuff in zines. It was hilarious. It was illustrated by the then-unknown Phil Foglio, who is also a Star Trek fan who made good, but her stuff was hilarious and I leapt at the chance to be in one of her plays. I actually watched Man From U.N.C.L.E. episodes to kind of get an idea of how to play Napoleon Solo. I said that instead of voguing, I was “Vaughning,” as in Robert Vaughn, the actor who played him. Like, how he walks, the little facial things he did, and I had a great deal of fun doing it.
Ahhh, yeah, I take these things way too seriously, but it was — what I also was able to do because the girl playing Slasha — I was supposed to be a Valley Girl, and the actress, the fan playing her, was from New York, so I, as a native Californian, was able to be her accent coach, to teach her how to talk like a Valley Girl for the play. That was fun, too, and I loved the fact that I was able to catch a little bit of Robert Vaughn’s sweetness as Solo because at one point, when I kind of walked away from the stage, everyone on the stage and the theater went “Aww.” I was, “I got ‘em!” (laughs).
The 1999 Production
The play as it was performed at MediaWest*Con 1999 appears to be revised. This version was written by Paula Smith and Jan Davies.
The 1999 Cast
- Shoshanna as Napoleon Solo
- Nancy Hayes as Illya Kuryakin
- Judy Toth as Slasha
- Carol Lynn as Blackadder and Guard 1
- Rebecca Morris as Baldrick
- Kath Sanders as Hutch
- Barbara Presgrove as Bodie and Guard 2
- Kim Smith as Blair
- Bill Koenig as Exeter
- Paula Smith as Gorbachov
- Grace Carafelly as Weatherlady
Fan Comments
We were treated to another Paula Smith special. For the first time Paula presented a PROFESSIONALS play, explaining that she forced herself to watch an episode all the way through. She chose The Purging of CI5 and wrote "The Pieing of CI5" with plenty of whipped cream pies included for dispatching the agents, one by one. Paula played a very Scottish Cowley, in kilts, while Terry played Boyle to TACS' Bodie. [Blonde? Bodie?) It was great fun, with the usual witty puns. [2]