Deidre Hall as Charlemagne and Mary Beth Evans as Kassandra.
It’s doubtful that DAYS’ Mary Beth Evans and Deidre Hall didn’t delight in the challenge of bringing to life to characters so thoroughly antithetical to their beloved alter-egos.
In the Body and Soul universe Evans was Kassandra, a raven-haired Hellraiser, and Hall played Charlemagne, clearly the soap’s grand doyen.
Both Kassandra and Charlemagne were walking billboards for the 1980s [despite the program apparently being set in the mid-noughties]. Outsized tresses, accentuated shoulders, sequences, blinding bling on digits and wrists, a fur coat for Kassandra — hardly the kind of threads and accessories that Marlena and Kayla would indulge in. The hair…that’s a different story.
In fact, in Charlemagne’s duds and do Hall could pass as her younger self from the decade of greed; Evans too, if you can imagine her Kay without her signature blonde.
As Kassandra, Evans sauntered into a room raring for a fight. “You and I are going to have it out, once and for all,” she bellowed.
With that pronouncement, Evans lifted her head high, her nose haughtily displayed, her eyes wide. Hall, meanwhile, narrowed her peepers and managed to raise a single eyebrow. The appreciable parody of the soap opera genre had begun in earnest. The battle between the ladies had commenced.
In a flash, the fight turned physical — which merely consisted of Evans and Hall locking arms and ever so gingerly [and hilariously] rocking one another to and fro.
Hall theatrically untangled herself and then demanded to know, “What are you raving about now?!” Kassandra’s reply? “I know you rigged the ballot box…You are not going to get away with stealing the election from me…You can’t stand that Rhett loves me and not you. You’re going to do everything in your power to make sure you are voted Woman of the Year.”
“Accuse me of whatever you want. You have no proof. And I’m going to be Woman of the Year whether you like it or not.” More eye work. Squints. Bugging. A rogue eyebrow.
The contentious convo continued on; more plot was recapped. Charlemagne and Rhett were an item and then he was stricken by that most dreaded of soap opera diseases: amnesia! After that, Kassandra got her claws into him.
Mary Beth Evans and Deidre Hall were real troopers, leaning hard into the tropes, paying homage to the type of over-the-top soap that fans of the genre seem to recall with great fondness with a palpable playfulness.
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