GiGi! Chiana! Rhymes of FarScape
by Nancy Hepner
August 20, 2000
GiGi appears on stage. Her coloring is nothing like the grayish silver creature she portrays. Her black lips now appear the perfect pink of a child. Her skin tone is as a china doll painted a soft pale fleshy color. Her build is slight and slim. Such lovely wisps of corn silk color hair float about her face, sometimes framing it and other times flowing from it making her appear to move always even when still.
Almost floating, her soft tread brings her to the center of the stage where she continues her perfect angle toward us to hear our echo back. As she speaks often she rhymes and makes meter with her speech. Gaily laughing she is delighted with us.
GiGi opens with the format of "Something Funny Happened To Me on the Way To The Forum". She reveals the jocular danger and loving relationship she has with her work mates in the telling of her morning's escape.
She tilts her head Chiana style then tells us in her thick Australian accent the story of her harrowing day.
"I nearly didn't make it to the convention. David and Sue took me on an excursion to Tia Juana." We all burst out laughing. [Tia Juana is in Mexico, just across the border from San Diego, California.] "Need I say more. And we almost had to [wait] a few hours locked in a Tia Juana border jail! I forgot my visa waver."
"So I got to the coming across the border and they said,"No ma'am!" She speaks in the crisp military tone used by the border patrolman. "You can not come back in the country ma'am!"
"Well you have to. I'm doing this convention, it's very important. It's a big thing for me!" She answers him.
She stands at the angle the border patrolman had, leaning in the car window. "You're an illegal Australian alien ma'am!" We laugh and scream at her mistake!
"Yeah, how'd ya' know?" She answers.
"And then I ah, then David did some fast talking, as David often does. I and then I'd say, "Good on ya' David! No odds made!" She claps to Dave sitting in the front row while we howl at their luck!
"I don't want to take to mucha' time." She says in her thick accent. "Too much of your time." Then she corrects herself.
"And I want to thank you for making this, this dream a reality. I wrote you a little baby sonnet, slash, poem for you guys to thank you for all having me here today. "
"Usually I remember my lines but I have Q cards here today. I've never had such a big audience!"
"Ok, here goes."
"I wanted to tell you of
how you helped
me grow my wings.
I wanted to tell you
of all the silly things.
But you are all
so far
so far
far away from me
Across the sunset
beyond
the deep blue sea.
And now I'm standing
here before you
naked,
feeling a little drafty
Not covered in silver
gray.
Before you
Find me here
on this
beautiful
Beautiful day."
[End]
She's so sweet we just wanna' eat her all up!!! You would never peg her as the one referred to as "Tough Chick of the Universe" by John Crichton. (Astronaut hero of our story played by Ben Browder.) I remember when she was first introduced to Moya's Crew. I remember thinking it would be great if she stayed with the show. Holding my breath when the new season started to see if she was there. I thought it was impossible. Most Scifi shows begin and end the same. So sure they would have to get rid of her. I was thrilled when she was still with the show in "The Human Reaction"!
GiGi is a very exciting player! In the episode "Nerve" she travels with John Crichton (Ben Browder) to a secret Gammak base to save Officer Aeryn Sun (John Crichton's love interest played by Claudia Black). Chiana leaps through the air from a fiery explosion in "Hidden Memory" and takes a long drop in "Taking The Stone". I expect GiGi (Chiana) to continue to amaze us with her gymnastics and super acting in this, the most fantastic of SciFi Fic genre FarScape! --nh