Fiction
Queenie
A Short Story
The Regent Theater was on Queen Street--and still is. It was regal. Its curlicues painted antique gold, it had dark red carpet lining the foyer and the wide staircase.
Nana, raised on the gold fields and orphaned early, belonged in the arts and was a theater girl at heart. She painted, played the piano by ear and by vamping (she hand colored her own vamp card); she used to accompany my Russian grandfather on the his mandolin and balalaika until my mother grew old enough to do it; she made all my mother’s classical and modern dance costumes; and she took my mother and me to almost every performance that came to the Regent.
Brisbane was not a raging metropolis then. It was a large country town. So we experienced a range of performances, all of which had the same effect on me because, unless told, I was impressed by anyone who stood in the stage lights.