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The Reality Of FANTASY

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 11, 2008

Updated: 05/11/2008 12:11 am

WEEKI WACHEE - Perched on the edge of a turquoise throne, above sea level, the beautiful mermaid swishes her tail as she waits for the camera's flash.

"Do you want to touch my tail?" she asks, using the silky voice of a fairy tale princess. She is iced like a cake with pink eye shadow and perfect, red lips.

The tiny blonde sisters from Harrisburg, Pa., are mesmerized. Afterward, they are so excited they can't stop hopping up and down.

The retirees are waiting, too, for a photo with Mermaid Lauren. Their eyes are filled with the vision of her, as they smooth their T-shirts and lean in for a photo.

They get as close as they can without touching her.

As the tourists trickle away, a prince in khaki shorts carries the mermaid to the lounge behind the theater at Weeki Wachee. She'll unzip her tail, scrub off a coat of makeup and drive home to study for finals.

"Being a lawyer," 18-year-old Lauren Dodson says, "is going to be so boring compared to working here."

Of course, she also gets the skeptics - the kids who look for the zipper on her tail and tell her they don't believe in mermaids.

But the ones who believe make it all worthwhile. She looks straight into their eyes and watches their minds turn, as they make the connection that the fantasy in front of them may be real. She loves that.

"It blows their minds," Dodson says, grinning. "You kind of feel like Santa Claus, like you're pulling the ultimate prank on these kids.

"But it's not a prank."

Not that it's real, either. It just seems very real.

Their performances are intense; they spend much of the day in the water, 30 feet below the surface. Out of the water, they are expected to maintain mermaid manners.

Cultivating a fantasy, it turns out, is hard work.

The enigma of their lives - on land and in the water - may get public exposure, though, if the latest development at Weeki Wachee becomes a reality.

The management of the park has agreed to allow a production company to film a reality show, including the off-limits areas in the locker room, the lounge and the off-campus lives of Weeki's mermaid stars.

One week last summer, a crew from New York-based Tony Harding Entertainment Media followed the mermaids inside and outside of work and put together a trailer to promote the show to television networks.

Negotiations with networks are still hush-hush, but if the show sells, the crew would come back and follow the mermaids for four to six weeks and produce 12 episodes.

The production company has until the end of the summer to make its sale. A half-dozen other companies, though, are waiting for their chance to make Weeki the next reality TV sensation, says the park's public relations director, John Athanason.

It's not an altogether new experience for the mermaids. Even though most are in their early 20s, they are used to attention from reporters and photographers.

The lines between reality and mythology already are blurring, thanks to MySpace (the mermaids know to keep their profiles discreet, to discourage perverts) and continuing interest from news media.

The Siren Effect

The stories, including a recent feature in The New York Times, now have unlimited reach and lifespan on the Internet.

Still, it's a bold move for a place whose identity is its own folklore, well-tended and protected.

The park tries hard to keep its mermaids in character; they are forbidden from unzipping their tails in public view. They have to wear full makeup - eye shadow and red lips - at all times.

The mermaids are so used to wearing their makeup and their personas, they admit they feel exposed when someone recognizes them as a mermaid in their off-time.
Dodson says that when classmates ask her about being a mermaid, she is caught off-guard. Answering questions, she sometimes slips into her mermaid voice without realizing it. She has to stop herself.

"I come to work, and I am a mermaid. And I go home, and I dream about being a mermaid," says Dodson, whose mother swam as a mermaid in the early 1970s. "You get sucked into it sometimes."

Just like the magic has a pull on mermaids, it has a grip on outsiders, too.

From his position outside the group, Athanason sees what their appeal can do for Weeki Wachee. Their pull has the potential to draw in audiences from all over the world, he says.

He arranges for them to pose for photos and sign autographs at Rays games, and recently he even sent a few to a promotion of a Ripley's museum in South Carolina.

He calls them "my girls," and they jokingly call him their mermaid pimp.

Wherever they go, they're a hit. Athanason sees the hold they have on little girls - and grown men.

It was a New Year's Eve event at Hard Rock Casino in Tampa last year that drove home for him the mermaids' potential.

Like sirens, they sat on the edge of the pool and reeled in a line of dolled-up men.

The holiday partiers set aside their cocktails, rolled up their Armani pants legs and stepped into the water's edge.

They were mesmerized.

Athanason is betting a network show would be good for the park, which made a million dollars' worth of improvements five years ago and is just now getting itself back in the black.

The attraction, owned by the city of Weeki Wachee, is vying to become a state park to ensure its future.

"It's a big if. It's a long shot," he says of the reality show. But if it works, it'll be worth it, he says.

"I think it'll put Weeki Wachee back on the map."

It's Not All Rosy

He knows what he's risking.

The fairies in this tale are not perfect. They're real girls. They party. They have egos. They argue. Some of their personalities conflict.

"These are entertainers," Athanason says. "There is a competitive nature among them all. Not every day is a rosy day."

He tags along on most of their publicity trips - ballgames, Hard Rock, hotels in South Beach. But he knows he can't be with them every minute they're on camera.

When they follow one mermaid to her job as a bartender at Applebee's, or another to her waitress job at Hooter's, or to accounting classes at a community college, Athanason won't be there.

Just being in the locker room is a startling reminder - these aren't munchkins in Oz.

They are women, naked a lot, as they strip their costumes, shower, dress and start over again three times a day for each show.

And, yes, they shower together. It's the way it has always been, in the rush between shows.

"We're not supposed to talk about that," Dodson says.

"It's almost a taboo thing because this is a family park and we want to uphold a wholesome image. We don't want people to think about what goes on behind the scenes - some of the more unpleasant details."

She pauses.

"Although we like to think they're not so unpleasant," she says, smiling.

A reality show, they all know, would open those doors wide.

Another World

The fantasy part of their jobs is so intense, though, that it's sometimes the part that seems more real.

The jobs are demanding on a level that requires ultimate devotion.

In many ways, the work they do is more strenuous than on a stage in Vegas or at Disney. They are performers to an infinite degree because they do their shows - and endless practices - underwater.

It is another world.

They spend much of their day in the silent womb of Weeki Wachee spring. Their only link with the outside world is the air hoses that give them oxygen one breath at a time.

It takes concentration; it's not just holding in a big gulp of air. They train themselves to take in just enough oxygen to weigh their bodies and stay in position. They keep careful count between breaths, to control their movement.

For the most part, the performers are blind to the audience peering at them through the glass. They interact only with each other and with the turtles that weave in and out of their choreography.

They describe the seclusion as relaxing, for the most part.

They think like mermaids. They get detailed questions from kids at the park: "Do you wear perfume?" ("Yes," Mermaid Lauren tells them. "Algae. It smells great underwater. I put it right behind my ears.")

In many ways, the women are - almost - mermaids.

At the same time, they see it as a job. Many of the dozen girls work six days a week, starting out at minimum wage, and work second jobs at night.

Besides the glamour of the locker room and the endless pageant of shiny tails and glittery eye shadow, there are chores.

It is the mermaids who wash the theater windows and scrub algae from the underwater castle and statues with a toothbrush. They take out the trash - pizza boxes and empty bags of Goldfish crackers that pile up from their rushed lunches.

The three male performers on staff (the princes) help out, even though they get less glory for it. Having sea legs that are really legs, they are used to attracting less attention than their bewitching counterparts.

There is hard training for at least three months before a mermaid has her first show. And most mermaid applicants never make it to the training.

In an audition, senior mermaids can tell in five minutes if a would-be mermaid is comfortable enough under water to make the cut.

It's not just about swimming. They have to smile and make it all look easy.

Mermaid Kisses
Mermaids here have always worked hard. In the 1960s, the park's heady days under the ownership of ABC, there were 35 mermaids who did eight shows a day for a half-million visitors a year - about twice what the park sees now.

Today's mermaids love that they can maintain the fairy tale for others. From the outside, it still seems mythical.

A family from East Sussex, England, is the next to approach Mermaid Lauren for a photo.

The mother holds up her camera. "Smile! Say fish and chips!"

Of the three daughters, Harriet Camsell, 8, is the most enchanted. She thinks she would like to be a mermaid.

"You could just swim freely, and you wouldn't have to go to school," she says.

She inspects the photo of herself and her sisters alongside the vision in the pink tail.

It's signed: "Mermaid kisses, Mermaid Lauren".

Reporter Gretchen Parker can be reached at (813) 259-7562 or gparker@tampatrib.com.

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