[Editor’s Note: The following contains excerpts from an original article by David Cuthbert in the (New Orleans) Times Picayune]

The Playwright’s THE thing!

Three original plays by three veteran New Orleans playwrights take insightful, perceptive looks at New Orleans’ idiosyncratic quoins (nooks and crannies).  Very different new plays set in different parts of town; but all with roots in the reality of this city.

Ricky Graham verily one-handedly got New Orleans theatre off the endangered list last century (I like saying that).  He, of course, would respond with, “that’s a lot of gahr-bahge, dawhlin”; however, he keeps winning awards at the Big Easy’s each year; and, his shows play to packed houses.

Sirs Wonk and O’Neal, now embedded in New Orleans themselves, have uprooted hidden nooks which even discerning, lifetime locals did not know existed.

The three of them are the proclaimed “voices” of New Orleans theatre. No, they wouldn’t say that…but we do!

Of their new plays: Dalt Wonk’s SPIRITUAL GIFTS takes place in a French Quarter piano bar; and, one of its characters was inspired by the legendary, eccentric Thelma Toole, mother of A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES author John Kennedy Toole.

John O’Neals’s LIKE POISON IVY: INDIGO VARIATIONS grew out of his Junebug Productions’ Environmental Justice Project of actual stories culled from community “storytelling circles”, and what it means to live over a toxic dump site.

Ricky Graham’s comedy WHEN YA SMILIN’ is the nostalgic evocation of 1958 New Orleans (ah, yes, I remember it well!), and the life of a stage-struck 10 year-old and his 9th Ward family caught on a succession of holidays. The wards/districts in New Orleans being similar to the Parisian arrondissements.

But there are also similarities: Each work finds actors playing multiple roles. All involve characters collected directly from local life; and all are being performed in downtown theaters. New Orleans’ playwrights are very much the thing these days.  And about time, too!

THEATRE

WHEN YA SMILIN’ at True Brew Café Theatre, 200 Julia St. Set in 1958, about a 10 year old boy given to fantasies and writing letters to his favorite movie and TV stars while enduring a year of holidays with his middle-class 9th Ward family. Opens October 5 at 8 p.m. with performances Friday-Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. through October 28.  Tickets $24.50 Telephone (504) 524-8440.

When asked for a word or two about the trials and tribs of local theater, Dalt Wonk commented, “It’s hard to sustain a theater run in New Orleans. In fact, Ricky Graham is the only one who’s been able to do it with any regularity.  He’s built up an audience that likes what he does, and he’s actually making a living at it!”  Graham will soon find out if the audience he keeps in his back pocket will come out for the quite different comedy WHEN YA SMILIN’.  He says, “It is more character-driven than anything I’ve done before.”  Longtime performing partner Becky Allen said, “It’s his most mature work.  It’s funny, but it’s not laugh-a-minute (see Becky far right in snapshot…and can she scoff down dem crayfish!  I was with her at my sister-in-law’s family July 4th gorge-a-thon.  She polished off quite a bit.  The pyramid shaped, cleaned out shells before her … yup, Becky sucks dem heads like we all do … well, let’s say they should have had their own light and laser show, ala for Cairo’s wee 3 - by comparison!).   Playing SMILIN’S leading role, Sean Patterson, when asked to give his opine, said, “Ricky really grows up with this play.  The subject matter is a little more touchy and touching.  It’s not raucous.  It’s a little slice of New Orleans Americana.” 

Graham on Graham and SMILIN’.  “Maybe it is a step forward.  The humor comes more from character than from out-and-out punch lines. It’s still intrinsically funny though, because it’s New Orleans.  Even in dire straits, I find New Orleans people so damn funny whether they know they are or not.  When prodded to fess up that it is autobiographical, Graham delivers, “The play is not necessarily autobiographical … it is personal.  It is really a fanciful combination of people that I knew and, of course, aspects of myself.  I think Paulie (Sean Patterson) is a bit of what I wish I could have been. He’s a catalyst for a lot of different things, but he is not just me having my say through Sean.”  Continuing when asked to expand that thought, “… more realistic than what I usually write.  These are very, very real people” … “stronger storyline than BALL (his monster hit AND THE BALL AND ALL). There are always two things happening at the same time.  There’s a linear story set in 1958, and there’s Paulie commenting on it to the audience.”

Questioned about the New Orleans “influence”/cultural identity, Graham said; “We have so much to draw on here!  Our jargon, our landmarks, attitudes, local products,; and the rich mix of people and personalities – they’re all interlaced in our lives. All of this is a part of a heritage, a common language that we share.”

Graham on his actors: “It helps to have actors who come from the same experience that you do.  They know when a character wouldn’t say a line you’ve given them … I’m really delighted to have been able to create an original role for an actor as good as Gavin (Gavin Mahlie, far left in shot) who’s never had a role written specifically for him before … it’s become a really good working relationship.  We all have an easy shorthand of references. We know what the other guy’s talking about almost before it’s out of his mouth.”

Graham on doing original works: “This is what we should all be doing. It’s great that people do these good productions of existing plays and musicals.  But the more original stuff we do the more we’ll be able to do. Excellence in any of the arts comes from doing something original.  I have a horror of sounding pretentious, but honestly, that’s true creativity!” Here-here, Ricky!!!

SPIRITUAL GIFTS written by Dalt Wonk, set in a French Quarter piano bar and revolving around its elderly, eccentric pianist, a character suggested by Thelma Toole (mother of the late Pulitzer Prize winning author, John Kennedy Toole A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES)  playing at Le Chat Noir, 715 St. Charles Avenue. Tickets $22.50 Friday-Saturday and $20 on Thursdays at Sundays.  At 8 p.m. except Sundays at 3 p.m. Telephone (504)581-5812.

Mr. Wonk muses; “The French Quarter has been a very important experience for me.  After 10 years of wandering and living out of suitcases, we (his photographer wife Josephine Sacabo live in an 1838 three-story French Quarter home) found a one-of-a-kind place where we could live and worked … and a fertile locale to set my contemporary, historical and musical plays I’ve written over the past 20 years. Although the play may have been inspired and suggested to Wonk by the unrelenting, often rude and offensive, determined, formidable Thelma Toole (yet Wonk declares, “… there was a dignity and hauteur; a fascinating individual.  I know she fascinated me.”) the play actually began as a series of one-act plays involving different characters.  Mrs. Tooles suggested character, Brenda Saenz, a down-on-her-luck, self-styled aristocrat reduced to performing at a Lafitte’s-Blacksmith-Shop type piano bar, has a brother upon whom she’s dependent, played by Randy Cheramie.  Bob Edes plays her soulmate, who hangs out at the bar, and Patricia McGuire Hill is a cleaning lady who had a brief moment of stardom in the ‘50s with a No. 3 hit son.  Says Wonk to that; “And when I did a play with music called SHANGRI-LA, I was surrounded by those people!”  Ms. Hill on Dalt: “What impresses me most about Dalt’s writing is how he accesses the psyche of the African-American world. For instance, he writes about that ‘color thing’ that still exists in the black community about degrees of skin color.  But then, he does such a good job depicting all these New Orleans characters striving to be what they used to be … or never were.”  Charlotte Schully, who plays Brenda, on Wonk: “I must say it’s nice to do a play where the writer emphasizes the spirit of his characters.  You feel that a lot of thought has gone into these people and this writing.”  Dalt Wonk on asked why he changed the ending entirely of SPIRITUAL THINGS: “Following its initial run in the mid ‘80s, the reviews were not good.  The play sat on a shelf, but stayed with me.  I went to a Tennessee Williams Festival and they showed some of his false starts on STREETCAR. I loved the idea that Williams would not give up on a play until it was the best he thought it could be.  I started thinking about this play again, which still held a charge for me.  This time I asked my new director, Perry Martin, what was wrong with my play.  I think I already knew deep in my heart – the ending wasn’t right.  It was ‘pretty good’, but ‘pretty good’ didn’t cut it for me anymore.  If you have 80 percent of a car, you’re still walking.”  Continuing, “In changing the ending, I had to go back and rethink the play completely.  I got rid of one character.  All the actors but Charlotte and Randy play double roles.  We find out more about the characters’ lives outside the bar; which gives us a new understanding of their lives in the bar. There’s a parent-child theme that runs through the play that’s become stronger in this version – the play is haunted by it, actually.

I now feel that this material has taken its final form and shape.  I think it takes you someplace.”  Completing the thought, “And, I remembered what Flaubert said to a friend who’d been allowed to read an 800-page novel he’d written. The friend loved it; and, then Flaubert said it was no good, that he was throwing it away.  The friend said, “How can you do that?  It has so many pearls in it!  Flaubert said, “It’s not the pearls that make the necklace, it’s the string!”

LIKE POISON IVY: INDIGO VARIATIONS.  A staged reading presented by Junebug Productions of John O’Neal’s new play, a storytelling drama about a man who unknowingly buys a home over a toxic dump..  Based on actual stories from local residents and community groups. Directed by Steven Kent at the Contemporary Arts Center 900 Camp Street.  Tickets $8. Telephone (504) 523-3805 or (504) 528-3800.

Powerful words right off the bat from Mr. John O’Neal, actor-director-playwright and STORYTELLER: “The best art always reflects its time; but, is not bound by its time.  What I'm looking for are good, strong stories and good, strong characters to tell them.”  Question about what is storytelling theater, he responds; “In LIKE POISON IVY we have characters who live out a story, playing multiple roles, but also stand outside the story as storytellers.  Storytelling has a way of punching through the fourth wall.  It’s a different, more complex style of theater that doesn’t just rely on the representational mode.  A story is being told by the actors, but as storytellers, they’re in the ‘here and now’, directly addressing the audience.”

What is the play about? Where/when did you conceive of it? O’Neal takes those bulls (I could see him doing that to real ones) by his hands and runs with them: “It’s basically about a man and his family, living in the Tremé (one of NOLA’s districts) community; and is pushed out by gentrification.  He buys a house on Agriculture Street, not knowing it is over what was once a dump; and which is now toxic.”  Continuing, “The play grew out of Junebug Productions’ Environmental Justice Project which paired up seven groups of artists with community activists. The aim was to create performance works relevant to the people of these communities.  All our Junebug productions work with storytelling circles that gather people’s experiences.  In Tremé, we learned what life there was once like – the generations of families that lived there, how much enjoyment there was.  The old ladies are the ones who really remembered.  And, of course, the effects on people who lived with environmental toxicity: high rates of cancer, miscarriages, memory declension, dementia.  The stories are told through characters such as a truck driver, a Dillard University professor who provides historical breath, a gay son whose father cannot accept his sexual orientation, a musican and a voodoo practitioner; and, of course, a Tremé Storyteller.

So you take these stories and you massage them into a play.”  Ending with; “As for myself, I want to do a lot more writing and a lot less performing.  I want to tell more stories that make an audience feel, stories that really smack ‘em!”

Playwrights … whoooo needs them, ‘eh what?!

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Winter 2001