pt at large

Fat Tuesday in Iota, Louisiana: Tips The Scale of Tradition

Tuesday, February 17, 2015
Iota, Louisiana

For the past 28 years, Iota becomes the little town that could every Mardi Gras day. The dust mote-sized town has a population (1458) smaller than that of your standard sized office tower. A good chunk of them are here along with tourists, dance vagabonds, and residents of nearby towns.  The a 300 yard stretch of the main street, Duson Avenue, is turned into a street fair with a raised dance floor being the jewel in the setting.

All the better to listen and dance to the bands playing Cajun music. More importantly, it’s the spot where men and boys sing the Mardi Gras song after returning from the countryside begging for food and making good-hearted mischief since a bit after daybreak. 

At mid afternoon, Mardi Gras wagons carry revelers in tattered wildly colored clothing, screen masks and conical capuchins (hats) that hide their identity. The masks and hats were important since this was the one day in centuries past that common folk in Europe could mix anonymously with upper classes and make fun of the nobles and bishops who lorded it over them for the other 364 says of the year.

Similar festivities are happening in nearly every town and city within a fifty-mile radius of Lafayette, Louisiana, where the population is still predominantly connected by blood and history to the Acadian French who emigrated here after being expelled from Canada in 1755 for refusing to sign an oath of allegiance to the British monarch.

Mardi Gras is commercially oriented in some quarters but at heart, it’s Acadian heritage that’s being buffed up. There are few places in America that preserve cultural traditions as tenaciously and proudly as small towns and cities of southwest Louisiana.

Here they come down Duson Avenue, some still begging for coins and folding money.

Saluted like returning warriors, complete with chickens...

in a Mardi Gras pageant repeated in Iota for the past 28 years.

Young children get a taste of the "courir;" somehow a black baby pig has been commandeered during the day's begging for food.

Men and boys have left the wagons and get ready to swarm the stage to sing the traditional Mardi Gras song...

but not before one more round of begging...and showing off prize roosters.

One cupped hand and the other pointing to it, this mute communication says put something of value in my hand...

so a dad hoists his son up to put coins in the outstretched hand.

Dancing after singing the Mardi Gras song...

and relaxing and posing for photos...

and showing some love to this reporter!

Photos and videos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

 

Iota, LA: Small Town, Big Time Mardi Gras Fun

Tee Mamou Mardi Gras Folklife Festival

American Legion Hall Iota, LA
104 Duson Avenue Iota, LA 70543

Iota is so small and out of the way that odds are that you’d never drive through it even by mistake.

Iota, Louisiana, Mardi Gras Day, “Fat Tuesday,” February 17, 2015

I am in the American Legion Hall listening to the plain, unvarnished, below-the-radar Cajun singing that assures that this kind of music isn’t going away anytime soon. The American Legion Hall looks like it’s been here since WWII. And aside from the dates on the plaques on the wall, there hasn’t been a need to change a damn thing since then.

Polished gray linoleum floor, a big American flag pinned to the back wall, plaques along both side walls, it could be an installation piece at the Smithsonian titled, “America Redux.” A few people, mostly local, on one side sit at gunmetal gray folding chairs on two long sets of banged up wooden tables. On the other side – food, of course.

A raised 10 x 8 foot stage is nestled just inside the front door. Men playing guitar, fiddle, and bass join in with teenagers on the crowded stage. Cajun two steps and waltzes like the plaintive strains of  “Jolie Blonde” fill the air. The men aren’t the show: the teenagers taking turns singing and playing drums, fiddles, accordions, and guitars are what people have come to see.

In spite of social media, or maybe even with a boost from it, teenage kids are singing the songs their great-great-grandparents sang when they were teenagers themselves. Radio stations like KBON out of Eunice play southwest Louisiana music day and night. I’ll bet there’s all kinds of music on their iPhones, some of it as far from Cajun as Iota is from New York City. Today’s hits will become tomorrow’s history. The Cajun music issuing from the bandstand is birthright material. Its shelf life spans lifetimes.

VIDEO INTRO to the scene

VIDEO1: Cajun waltz

VIDEO2: Cajun two step with a rock n roll intro!
VIDEO3: The Mardi Gras song

VIDEO4: La Porte D'en Arriere, "The Back Door" written by D.L. Menard of Erath, LA. Folklore expert Dr. Barry Ancelet of Louisiana State University/Lafayette says it's the most sung and performed song in the Cajun song book.

Cajun music has been described as “singing the blues and selling the bad times for the good times.” That seems to be the point of “Jolie Blonde,” one man’s plaintive wail at having been abandoned by his woman.

Since the original was sung by Amedie Breaux and his brother Ophy and sister Cleoma in 1928, it’s been covered and rewritten by an incongruous range of singers from country singer Roy Acuff and rock legend Bruce Springsteen.

A man and two women on the other side stand behind two tables ready to serve shrimp etoufée or maque choux in two homemaker sized cook pots and rice in another, soda and water in big red coolers Three bucks a bowl. Made this morning for the Mardi Gras crowd that would duck in and out all day long.

As soon as I put my bowl of shrimp etoufée down, the place empties out. Trucks carrying men and boys are slowly rolling down Duson Avenue, the very short main street of Iota.

In the countryside since early this morning, they’ve been re-enacting the centuries-old tradition of the Cajun Mardi Gras (“Fat Tuesday”)  "courir," begging for food and making mischief. In olden times, the food they gathered would be cooked up in a communal gumbo and be the last big meaty meal the Catholic Cajuns would eat for the next 40 days of Lent.

Today, the men and boys triumphantly show off chickens, roosters and one baby black pig. Luckily for them, the tradition of the communal gumbo has long been discontinued. They’ll be returned to their owners later today. And everyone in town has been feasting on gumbo and all sorts of Cajun food from vendor stalls along Duson Avenue all day long.

“I’ll be back!”  I shout, spilling some etoufée on my sleeve as I head for the door. This is the highlight of the afternoon. T
 
Two hours later, I return to a nearly empty space. First thing I look for is that bowl of food – and there it is on one of the only tables still in place, the rest and all the metal folding chairs having been stacked against the wall.

“Somebody said to toss it but I said no, I think he’ll be back,” says the woman who sold it to me. Country people in Louisiana don’t give up on you unless you give them a damn good reason.

Two other visitors are sitting inside. Of course, we begin to talk. They’re from San Antonio via New Orleans and Pascagula, Mississippi. The New Orleans fellow’s family immigrated to an area near the mouth of the Mississippi River (now Plaquemine Parish) in the early 1700s with a land grant from the King of Spain. Over time, they settled in New Orleans, been there for generations.

“We met at LSU in Baton Rouge when we were both working in administration. When we got a good job offer in San Antonio, we took it and have been there for 20 years,” says the wife. Talking about Cajun history, she says that Cajun country stretches over to Beaumont, TX because so many Cajuns moved west to work in the oil fields back in the day.

New Orleans question solved: "Is Monday still red beans and rice day?" I ask.
“Monday was laundry day for French women in New Orleans. They needed a meal they could prepare without monitoring it, slow cooked the beans during the day to serve over rice at night.  It’s still a Monday tradition. LSU still does red beans and rice on Mondays.”

The fellow opines that many of the local people here probably have never been to New Orleans, many of them haven’t gone too far afield from home, are in their comfort zone and stay put. A topic for me to talk up when I return to Iota next year.

Photos and videos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Warren Storm: Godfather of Swamp Pop

Bal du Dimanche: Warren Storm and Willie "Tee" and Cypress
Vermilionville Performance Center
Lafayette, LA
January 15, 2015

Every Sunday afternoon, the Vermilionville Performance Center in Lafayette, LA, holds a Bal du Dimanche (A Sunday Ball) from 1 PM-4 PM. For many, this is an extension of - or replacement for - religious services that may be scheduled in the morning.

Bands and performers of Cajun, zydeco and swamp pop persuasions light up the stage and there’s lots of action on the dance floor. This week’s performers – Warren Storm and Willie “Tee” and his band Cypress. Warren Storm is the godfather of Swamp Pop. Willie “Tee” Trahan has been along for most of the ride, performing with Storm for years.

Swamp pop was born in southwest Louisiana in the 1950s and 60s. Cajun teenagers and Creole kids heard rock 'n roll and began combining traditional French Louisiana Cajun and zydeco songs with country and western music filtering over from Beaumont, Texas and rhythm 'n  blues creeping in from New Orleans.

“I know it when I see it,” Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said of pornography in 1964. Well, just change the word ‘see’ to ‘hear’ and that’s the story with Swamp Pop. There’s no sound quite like it. It’s just as much a staple of popular music in Louisiana today as filé gumbo.

Most bands in Louisiana have at least a handful of Swamp Pop covers in their repertoire. Warren Storm and Willie Tee have a lifetime repertoire, Warren singing it and Willie wailing on his saxophone playing it. Both of these guys are in their seventies!

Whether on the dance floor or taking a break, dancers know how to have fun.

After the first few bars, you know damn well if you’re listening to Swamp Pop. Lyrics decrying spurned love, unabashedly emotional singing, often with bluesy, ultra-danceable or you-know-what-able grooves are backed with a gyrating saxophone. VIDEO

If you’re of a certain age, you remember making out in the car’s back seat to Phil Phillips’ “Sea of Love,”Jimmy Clanton’s “Just A Dream,” Joe Barry’s “I’m A Fool To Care”, Warren Storm’s ‘Prisoner’s Song,” and Cookie and the Cupcakes iconic barn-burner “Mathilda". Swamp Pop songs like Lloyd Price's "Just Because," and Little Richard's "Send Me Some Lovin'," made it to Billboard's Hot 100.

This is music for the eternal teenager that lurks in our hearts and loins.

When I heard songs like “Sea of Love” at the Boys’ Club Friday dances, I died a slow death - too shy to cross to the other side of the floor where the girls were standing, to hold a girl in my arms, to inhale the scent of the shampoo in her hair, and feel the warmth of her body pressed against mine. Some day, I vowed, I would cross that floor. I would lead with confidence, style, and grace.  

I’ve learned to dance my dream. Warren Storm and Willie “Tee” just gave me the chance cross that floor once again.

Photos and video by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.
 

Gerry Spanger's King Cake Party: 13 Years and counting

Gerry Spanger’s 13th Annual King Cake Party
Saturday Noon to 4 PM, February 14, 2015
321 Baldwin Avenue
Breaux Bridge, LA

It’s probably a southern thing but southwest Louisiana house parties are as common as roadside gasoline stations that sell everything from fuel to boudain, sandwiches, wine, candy, and an entire aisle of chips, pretzels, popcorn and Fritos to wash down the 20 varieties of cold beer stacked in a case that lines one entire side of the store.

House parties vary in size. During Mardi Gras they multiply like the fishes and loaves in the bible story. Gerry Spanger’s annual King Cake party in tiny Breaux Bridge nine miles from Lafayette is certainly one of the most inclusive.

Gerry came down this way as a visitor years ago, got smitten by the dance culture and the people doing it. Southwest Louisiana has a tendency to raise its eyebrows and give visitors a “Come Hither” smile and before you know it, you’re booking a reservation to return. Gerry not only returned but also bought a house in Breaux Bridge. Backstory here...

One year he and his friends invited a bunch of dancers who’d been working up a sweat at the Saturday morning (yes, morning) dance at the nearby Café des Amis to come by for socializing. Pretty soon a bunch of them started dancing in the yard. One thing led to another. Gerry’s been hosting a huge King Cake party on Mardi Gras weekend for the past 13 years.

Oh, in a covered patio he and his pal Don Walker built expressly for dancing. Gerry hires one of the best bands in the land, Geno Delafose and His French Rockin’ Boogie, to play from noon to 4 PM. The man’s fearless. Advertises the dance on a popular web site.  A couple hundred people show up toting food and camp chairs, pour themselves into that dance patio with a smooth concrete floor and carry on.

Some of them have come up the street from a morning’s dancing at the Café des Amis, some start here and finish the night on a dance floor in Lafayette or one of the surrounding towns. For some, Mardi Gras week is not complete unless they’ve met and mixed at Gerry’s famous King Cake party.
VIDEO1 The big picture

VIDEO2  Dancers in motion until the camera battery went poof.

VIDEO3 Dancers in motion again

VIDEO4 Zydeco dancing pair with big energy on the same wave length

VIDEO5 When Geno and his band put it into overdrive, so do the dancers

The "dance floor" was jammed from noon till 3 PM...after that it was only crowded.

Always time for photo opps...

Dick Brainard thanks host Gerry Spanger...and the dance goes on.

A guest "frottoir" player stands in with Geno Delafose and His French Rockin' Boogie; by 5 PM, Don Walker (brown t-shirt), Gerry's friend who led the first group over to the house years ago, and a small crew break camp. You'd never guess 200 people were packed into the yard a couple of hours ago.

Photos and videos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr

 

Krewe de Canaille Kicks Off Mardi Gras Week

The Krewe de Canaille 28th Annual Mardi Gras Ball
La Poussier Dance Hall
Breaux Bridge, Louisiana
February 13, 2015

Customs and traditions run deep and southwest Louisiana, none more revered than the ones associated with Mardi Gras. Small to large, they range from house parties to parades that rule the main streets for an afternoon or early evening to formal balls held by Mardi Gras Krewes. Krewes in New Orleans may have hundreds of members, stage elaborate balls and enter huge floats in Mardi Gras parades. Elsewhere in Louisiana, krewes are smaller, less formal, but no less energetic and dedicated to carrying on tradition.

The Krewe de Canaille in Lafayette has been celebrating a Mardi Gras Ball since 1987.

Let’s pause here for definitions:  a ‘Krewe’ to the rest of us is a crew, but, having its origin in New Orleans history, the spelling is an affectation. The main purpose of a Krewe is to organize Mardi Gras parades and balls. Many have private parties or dances during the year. Being Louisiana, it doesn’t take much prompting to throw parties at any time of the year for just about any reason.

“Canaille”? The group’s preferred definition is “rabble rousers” or “scoundrels.” Gives them plenty of latitude.

Although a handful of its members have been along for the whole ride, some, like this year’s special inductees, came as visitors six years ago, were enthralled with the music and dance culture, the pace of life and foremost, the friendly and engaging people who live here.

The annual ball is held at La Poussiere, a premier dance hall in Breaux Bridge that can comfortably hold 200 or so people and boasts one of the smoothest dance floors in Louisiana.

Cajun dancing is the focus of this krewe, founded in 1986 by Lafayette native Janine Dugas. Their general theme is to pass a good time on the dance floor and they manage that several times a year.

The 28th Annual Mardi Gras Ball gets underway at 7:00 PM. By 7:30 the band steps off the stage and tradition steps in. Rosa Henry, a Queen in 2011, commands all spectators to stand at the sides of the dance floor heralds the annual ritual of introducing the King and Queen.

Court Jesters playfully frolic ahead of the King and Queen, who ceremoniously and to general whooping and hollering, promenade toward the stage from the end of the dance floor.

2015 King and Queen Dwayne "Neggy" Trahan and his wife Linda Trahan. The identify of the "Duke" and "Duchess" for 2015, next year's King and Queen, is a secret till tonight.  The honor is given to Doug and Kathleen McLeod, who were passing by Lafayette six years ago, were swallowed up by Cajun ways, and never left!

Past Kings and Queens, in fabulously glittering attire, are announced and promenade to the stage.

A royal photo shoot precedes a jovial champagne toast. (The girls in their finery get a taste of tradition.) The King and Queen take to the burnished hardwood floor for the Royal Waltz, joined by the former royals and their court.

Formality goes out the window after the ceremonial dance when the whole court opens festive parasols and second lines (parades) around the dance floor with much un-royal joviality.

The lights dim. Kevin Naquin and the Ossun Playboys kick it up a notch and the whole crowd, locals and dancers from all over the country, kick up a storm with Cajun ballads, waltzes and the occasional swamp pop slow drag for the next several hours.

In the midst of this, a purple, green, and gold - the colors of Mardi Gras - layer cake the size of a small carpet is served.

The Krewe and many of the partiers are decked out in Mardi Gras paraphernalia. What others might call costumes are actually representations of colorful attire donned by celebrants from medieval times in Europe. Krewe members take pride in their outfits and the connection they feel with a tradition that is part of the Acadian culture that pervades the parishes of southwest Louisiana.

Combining royalty and mischief, The Krewe de Canaille continues a tradition handed down through centuries of Mardi Gras celebrations.

Photo gallery: Paul A. Tamburello, Jr. photos.

Assorted former Kings, Queens, and Jesters and one party crasher. Janine Dugas and Chris Trahan (photo at left), both former "Royals", are two of the four original members still active in the Krewe.

 

Janine Dugas, founder of the Krewe de Canaille. Janine has updated this banner every year since 1986!

Clear the way...the King and Queen command the dance floor for their waltz.

Rabble rowsers at play...

 
See you next year...

 

Crawfish Harvesting: Up Close and Personal on Highway 367

Thursday, February 12, 2015
Somewhere along LA Route 367
Eunice, LA

There’s another dance besides Cajun and zydeco that is a staple of life in southwest Louisiana. It’s the rice/crawfish shuffle. I’ve learned the moves on the dance floor but have yet to figure out the shuffle that goes on in miles and miles of fields all along the country roads around Eunice and Crowley.

I know the fields that stretch as far as the eye can see grow rice during some months and harvest crawfish in others. And that rice and crawfish are excellent dance partners, co-dependent partners at that.

My hosts in Lafayette tell me we’re in the midst of crawfish season, verified by the number of “Live Crawfish”, “ Crawfish Boil Today” signs along roads around Lafayette.

When I’ve been around here from January to March I’ve driven past huge fields flooded with water and have no idea what kind of partnership is going on between rice and crawfish.

Today I hit the jackpot. Driving along Louisiana Route 367, I spot a wide flat-bottomed motorboat with some kind of paddlewheel attached to its stern. Whoa Nelly! I pull over on the narrow soft shoulder of the two-lane country road. I manage to take a quick photo and video before the boat passes.

Fascinated and mystified, I watch the boat finish its pass and make its way into another field quarter of a mile down the road and stop. I quick march toward the boat. Carefully. Cars and large trucks were whizzing by me a few feet away at 50 miles an hour.

The two men in this boat contraption are taking a break. I wave. One of them waves back. The next 15 minutes are a fabulous introduction to crawfish harvesting 101.

I press the video button on the camera and begin asking questions, some of them dumb since I have no idea what they are doing or how the operation works. The near miraculous bonanza is a man who answers questions as if he were a regular on the History Channel.

The 6-minute video is choppy, it's hard to hear the man's responses so I repeat what he says in order to understand it. Toward the end of the video, Carlos, wearing his sky-blue work apron wades 50 feet from his boat to the roadside, a crawfish trap in his hands. This is fabulous.

I misunderstand some of this but here's the gist of what I learn in the first conversation.

Carlos says this is a daily operation. He pulls a trap from the shallow water, dumps the crawfish into a table on board, and drops the trap back in the water.  Between his Spanish accent and my ignorance of how the process works, the part of the conversation in which I try to understand how he stores the crawfish in the boat is pretty comical.

Part of our conversation is drowned out by the wind and part every time a big truck roars past about 6 feet behind me is a bit unnerving, but I am not giving up this chance to get a first rate glimpse of the goings-on. The information below is from the video – which is hard to hear and hilarious, a city boy trying to comprehend the pas de deux between aquaculture and agriculture.

How long does the season last? Carlos says it begins in January, sometimes December, and continues through May or June then shuts down until next December or January.

When I ask him how often he works the fields, his response is, "Every day, every day, every day, every day… " Unless it's too cold or too hot. Carlos says that since it's been cold lately, the crawfish don't crawl up out of the mud, the cold makes them sluggish even if there's a trap with tasty bait nearby. If it's too hot, he says they might die.

Then it gets great. Carlos, wearing his sky-blue work apron, wades 50 feet from his boat to the roadside, a crawfish trap in his hands.

With one big rubber gloved hand, he reaches in and pulls out a handful of crawfish. "It's cold today (around fifty degrees) so they're not moving much," he says. Crawfish 101 is off to a great start.

In the second video, Carlos takes off his work glove and pulls out a handful of crawfish. "When it's hot, they bite bite bite…" he says, pointing to their tiny claws. “This one is about one month old," he says holding a smaller pale brown crawfish.

Third video: what do you use for bait? Carlos reaches in and pulls out a fish head. “Fish," he says, “ oily fish, when too hot, they stink, the crawfish don't like that." I think he says that when it's warmer they use oily fish for bait and now they use less oily fish heads in the bait traps. Ahhh, the joy of learning this dance.

As the conversation winds down he tells me his name and that he's from Mexico. And that the price for crawfish is now three dollars a pound. Supply and demand. Since the weather is cold, the crawfish aren’t moving around much so there's not much to bring to market. Supply and demand. Carlos estimates that in a couple weeks it will be warmer, crawfish will be in abundance, and the price will go down.

If I manage to find another boat at work, the next question is how do the rice fields partner with the crawfish. And how those boats manage to float along in two feet or less of water and what that paddlewheel is for.

I never did get to the "Cajun Hall of Fame" a few miles north in Eunice, which was my original destination this afternoon. Instead, I barely passed Crawfish 101… and realize there’s way more to learn about the rice and crawfish shuffle.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Fields are in different stages of cultivation, some bright green with growth of ??, some dry and recently plowed, some more flooded than another right next to it.

A crawfish trap resting in the mud; the flat bottomed work boats can skim along in about two feet of water.

Another work boat in action, this reporter trying to get a grip on the procedure.

Photos and videos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

Chubby Carrier Pre-Mardi Gras Blast at Feed and Seed

Chubby Carrier & The Bayou Swamp Band
The Feed And Seed
106 N Grant St, Lafayette, LA 70501
February 12, 2015

To say that southwest Louisiana takes Mardi Gras seriously is gross understatement. From tonight right through Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras Day on February 17, there are over 200 (no typo) dances planned within a 50 mile radius of Lafayette.

Let's see... Lafayette, Eunice, Crowley, Carencro, Thibodeaux, Mamou, Ville Platte, New Iberia, Scott, Opelousas, Breaux Bridge, Iota, Basile, Egan, Erath...for starters. And I haven't even mentioned parades that each of these cities and towns proudly produces.

Chubby Carrier and His Bayou Swamp Band can get the party going any place from a former granary supply building to a big dance stage at Gator By The Bay in San Diego.

There are plenty of great musicians around here - accordion, fiddle, guitar, vocalists - whose music can turn you inside out with sheer glee. Chubby does all that with stage presence that connects with his audience and always invokes the spirit of his late father, Roy Carrier, one of the great old time zydeco players of the late 1900s, during his sets.

Feed and Seed has been sprouting music and dancing since it was purchased and re-purposed in 2005. Sheet metal roof, barn siding, sturdy wood rafters and a dance floor that can take as good a pounding as a couple hundred dedicated dancers can hammer down with boots and hard heels.

 

All dancers need is the propulsion provided by any one of scores of bands around here. Lafayette's no one-trick pony when it comes to music: cajun and zydeco may be big draws but they share the stage with  honky-tonk, country and western, western swing, rhythm & blues, swamp pop, and I might have missed one or two genres. 

  
Dancers don't care whether it's in a parking lot, outdoor city park, former farmer's exchange or an honest to goodness dance hall.  Lafayette, Louisiana, has them all covered.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Fantasy Fest 2009: Masquerade March, Cavorting to Duval Street

October 29,2009

Masquerade March devolves in early evening, replaced by cavorting on Duval Street.

"O, my dear sir! how shall I get spirits to tell you; you are undone, sir, and my poor lady's undone, and I am undone." Mrs. Honour says to Tom Jones in Henry Fielding's novel of the same name.

That about sums up the evening, except that everyone's a willing accomplice in the light hearted undoings.

 

Tarzan, Jane...and Cheetah!

Whether spectating or being spectated,the operative words are "Smile for the cameras."

Unless you're bad- asses...

Fantasy Fest lives up to its name and reputation - fantasies have no age or image restrictions. If you harbor any fantasies about taking your clothes off and parading down a main street in America, well...now you know where to activate it!

So much to see, a moveable feast of flesh and flashbulbs.

Does this look like Main Street on Halloween in your town? I didn't think so.

so many photo opps for the intrepid reporter...

 

 

  

Vampires,Firewomen,cavorters...

Permission granted!

Truth in advertising...

Bazoombas by the bra-full; I would love to apprentice to the body painters, an arty, creative bunch with a sense of humor, aesthetic sensibilities and exceedingly good perks.

The Glitterati and the Pashas...

 
Some come to do, others to be undone...as Henry Fielding might say...

What's not to love about Fantasy Fest. Once you get into the swing of it...

and why not shop for a pair of pasties?

Hands down (or out) the cleverest feel good idea of the night...

By 11 PM, the party hasn't lost steam...

Keep your eyes on the prize(s)!

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

SpeakEasy Stage Company's "A Future Perfect": GenXers Cross Into Adulthood

A Future Perfect
Roberts Studio Theatre, Boston Center for the Arts, Boston
Playwright: Ken Urban
Director: M. Bevin O’Gara
Set, Cristina Todesco; Costumes, Elisabetta Polito; Lights, Jen Rock; Sound, Nathan Leigh.

SpeakEasy Stage Company
Date closing: Feb. 7, 2015

Subtlety is not playwright Ken Urban’s style. His play “A Future Perfect” has an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink inclination to wrestle with a bunch of themes, all of them nailed down with a directness that leaves little to the imagination.

The first scene sets up comfy enough. Two couples who’ve known each other for years, meet at Max and Claire’s apartment in Brooklyn for dinner. Tranquility lasts two minutes. When Elena asks for water instead of her usual wine, Max joshes, “What, are you pregnant?” An awkward pause. Alex, trying to come to grips with becoming a father, fumbles around for a direct answer. Elena finally says "Yes.”

Brian Hastert, Marianna Bassham, Chelsea Diehl, Nael Nacer in world premier of "A Future Perfect"

A cheer, a toast, and general merriment usually ensue after such an announcement. Claire is clearly agitated. She manages to ask, “What about your job?" a seemingly insensitive response rather than the expected hugs and euphoria.

Max is clearly surprised but manages to offer a toast after what seems like an eternity of uncomfortable attempts. The party ends prematurely. Claire and Max’s muted response has clearly generated a rift between the couples. The decision to have a child?  Max and 38 year-old Claire have let that slide for years, holding on to a sense of youth for which they no longer qualify and career paths, especially for Claire, ascending the ladder in a high-powered advertising firm and the major bread winner.

The next 90 minutes are loaded with dialogue that fills in backstories, probes the stability and foundation of both marriages, and how two couples can be so close to each other and communicate so little. The play doesn’t offer any new insights into classic relationship impasses. The candor from each character, familiar to us from TV sitcoms, is often brutal and funny.

The dialogue treads its way through questions like how do you define yourself, what do you value, how do you make decisions (job, family, having a baby) that will change your life forever, what/who do you leave behind as you become older are considered head on. For Max and Claire, how do you nurture a relationship as you mature into your late thirties.

The play’s central questions are not new but are presented with enough dramatic force to have repercussions for us in the audoience. Decisions about career vs. family, maintaining friendships as we get older, and acknowledging that we're getting older, are familiar to any who’ve navigated the same shoals.That would be just about all of us.

Writer Ken Urban actually popped the “What…are you pregnant?” question as a joke to the wife of a friend a few years ago when she refused a glass of wine at a party. When she surprised everyone with a "Yes," the group celebrated. And another woman said, "I'm pregnant, too!"

Urban realized that their lives were changing. “A Future Perfect” was his way of turning over the questions that surfaced as he felt himself and his friends in transition, growing older.

It’s fun watching Marianna Bassham plumb the conflicting aspects of Claire’s character. Smart, commanding, and competitive, Claire defines herself (and even her friends and husband) by job title. She  values prestige and hides her need for love under an emotional core wrapped in chain mail.

Brian Hastert as her husband Max is Claire’s opposite and soul mate. An idealist, he has a job that appeals to his sensibilities but realizes his career path has hit a plateau. He’s willing to risk his tenuous position as a poorly paid writer for PBS when he pushes to have an anti-war message included in a puppet show he’s created. Developing a partner who meshes with Claire’s strong personality and seems credible is no easy job. Hastert is up to the task.

Nael Nacer and Chelsea Diehl as Alex and Elena are largely foils against which Claire and Max can work out their marriage and ideals. They seem a less likely couple than Max and Claire but hey, who knows what chemistry or circumstance makes a relationship work. And they each bring intensity to their roles.

The play’s final scenes reminded me of the O’Henry tale the Gift of The Magi.  Both Claire and Max give up something they prize - and become more committed adults. They just might make it for the long haul.

Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Photo: Craig Bailey

Marshawn the Martian? Think again...

February 1, 2015

One of the biggest stories all Super Bowl week long has been about a guy who won’t talk to the media. He’s been portrayed as rude, off-putting, and surly.  Uh uhhh.

Watch this video, dubbed the “Yeah” video, after his team the Seattle Seahawks defeated the Arizona Cardinals on November 23, 2014. Running back Marshawn Lynch is surrounded by media who lob questions at him one after the other. His  responses are hilarious…”Yeah”, “Maybe|” and “I don’t know” while he appears to be texting.

At the 1:00 mark he says he’s speaking in Oakland he has “a foundation meeting at the Edgewater on December 14, to help benefit the inner city youth  to try and build a youth center, so yeah…” No one asks him a follow up question.

At the 1:35 mark, the guy actually smiles and his eyes light up. He’s having a good time parrying the media, a few of them chuckle along with him. The same thing happens on this video where a team mate adds to the fun.

So, yeah…

Red Hot Patriot: The Kick–Ass Wit of Molly Ivins at the Lyric Stage Company, Boston

Red Hot Patriot: The Kick–Ass Wit of Molly Ivins.
by Margaret Engel & Allison Engel
Directed by Courtney O’Connor
Set, Katharine Burkhart; Costumes, Sarie Gessner; Lights, Chris Brusberg; Sound, Chris Kurtz.
Staged by the Lyric Stage Company, 140 Clarendon Street, Boston, MA,
Through January 31.

The kick-ass surprise of the night was to hear that star actress Karen McDonald is in the hospital. “She is fine, she wants you to know, and will be out of the hospital next week,” said a member of the Lyric Stage Board of Directors. The house lights had just dimmed. We were expecting the usual remarks (“If you love the play tell everyone, if you don’t, don’t say a word…” “Turn off your phones and that includes texting please” “The exits are…”) and were greeted with this bombshell.

I breathed a sigh of relief when the next thing he said was, “Paula Plum will be reading the part. She has agreed to do this on little notice (last Tuesday). Give her all the support you can.” I admire Paula Plum. But geez. I thought McDonald would fit in to the role of Molly Ivins like a well-worn glove. Just about every critic in New England had gone gaga over her performance.

House goes dark. Stage lights come up. There’s Molly Ivins, leaning back on a task chair, big red hair, blue denim shirt over a red jersey, jeans with a pair of well worn brown cowboy boots draped over a grey metal desk. The audience applauds. Ivins/Plum acknowledges with a conspiratorial grin and a slight wave… then picks up the script.

The play opens with Ivins trying for the umpteenth time to write a column about her authoritarian father who is dying. His presence as a motivating force in Ivins’ life resurfaces often.

I’ll tell you, not many actors in town could have done what Plum pulls off. She homes in on Ivins thick-as-grease on chicken-fried steak Texas accent and begins to chomp into the script.

Molly Ivins was born into privilege. Daughter of a powerful Houston oil man, cold, conservative, demanding, authoritarian, she traded in the silver spoon for a silver spur that sat like a burr under her saddle for the rest of her life.  Tall, big boned, a shock of red hair, and a big mouth, she always stuck out in a crowd, not always for the reasons another woman might want.

A key to the fact that Paula Plum can pull off the role as she pauses often to glance at the script is that Ivins was so damn funny. (So is Plum when she says, “Why don’t we try that one again…” when she messes up a line of dialogue.) Her wit was dry as tumbleweed and could bite like a rattlesnake. “God gave me all this material!” she gushed after getting a job covering the Texas legislature.

One fabulous example referring to U.S. Representative James Collins: “If his I.Q. slips any lower, we’ll have to water him twice a day.” Several advertisers and subscribers canceled their support for the Dallas Times Herald after that one. In her defense, her editors rented billboards that read: “Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She?” The slogan became the title of the first of her six books.

When Ivins describes a “community chicken killing festival” in New Mexico as a  “gang pluck” you get the idea that she could not help tweaking authority, in this case the New York Times, which was paying her salary (“I was miserable, at five times my previous salary…”).

She may have been able to trade in her Texas drawl for one more suited to her Smith College education but her sensibilities were pure Texas…rough and tumble, irreverent and often fueled with alcohol.  She fearlessly and rambunctiously skewered Iraq war President George W. Bush, with whom she’d been in school in Houston as a kid.

Molly was a populist much like Mark Twain, with whom her humor and dry observations about America and its citizens is often compared. Both manage to sandwich contempt and ridicule with a sense of humor that softened repugnance for their targets. Of the six newspapers for whom she wrote for from 1970 to 2006, four were in Texas. Whether she wrote in Minneapolis or New York, her sensibilities were always deep in the heart of Texas.

Ivins would be an anachronism these days. The well-rendered set, with its file cabinets, bundles of newspapers, gray metal desk and humongous bulletin board with curled pages of newspaper columns pinned to it, won’t resemble today’s newsroom, even in remote regions of Texas. It’s hard to imagine a commentator with her populist, opinionated voice commanding an audience again. It’s also hard not to wish someone would rise to the occasion.

The play is written with fond purpose by twin sisters Allison and Margaret Engel, both journalists. The images projected over the bulletin board behind Ivins’ desk of her father, family and friends, and targets during her career give her narrative a feel for the people person Ivins was and a welcome visual context to go with the torrent of Ivins' words.

Her opinions course through the dialogue like waves continually lapping onto a beach. Her feelings though… “I’m one of those people out of touch with my emotions. I treat my emotions like unpleasant relatives — a long-distance call once or twice a year is more than enough. If I got in touch with them, they might come to stay.’’ As is clear from what the dialogue insinuates, Ivins certainly heard them knocking.

In 2006, she reported that her breast cancer diagnosed in 1999 had recurred. “First they mutilate you; then they poison you; then they burn you,” she wrote. “I have been on blind dates better than that.” Pure Ivins. Born in 1945, she died a year later at 62.

The play closes as Ivins pounds on the keys of her manual typewriter to finish that piece from the opening scene after learning of her father “The General”’s death.

After 75 minutes, whether channeled by Karen McDonald who knew the script inside out or Paula Plum who reads it, I realize we need Molly Ivins kick-ass words, attitude, and admonishment more than ever.

As usual, she has the last word. It’s not “What would Molly do?” It’s “What would YOU do?” Ivins tells us as the lights dim and she walks off stage.