Dollywood

November 18, 2007

Sang two services, attended the senior reading, attended Cantaria rehearsal, and now await the fifth task of what is meant to be Sunday, a rehearsal here at the house. And this on top of arriving home at 12:30 this morning from Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. I’d had a visit to Dollywood at the back of my mind for a while, and when the occasion came up–an idea driven by Jack and Leland–I agreed, though it was the one free day in weeks and weeks on either side. The day began oddly: Jocasta was acting very strangely, sagging down on her legs, her eyes closing, apparently unable to stand. I thought she was dying, and my emotions were drained over that before anything else began. She sits on my lap now as I type, wondering what all the fuss had been about. Anyway, we gathered at All Souls in the early morning, Jack, Leland, Greg D, Steve, DJ, Amy and Bill, Kyle and myself and hit Dollywood just after opening. I don’t know what I thought it was going to be. I don’t know what I thought I’d find there. I know thousands of people enjoy it, but I found it little short of horrifying. It was steeped black in a false Americana, all nostalgia and self-satisfaction and all purchasable at the local shops. It pretended to history–the Appalachia of the greeting card–while prettifying history to the point of unrecognizability. I think they would have had cabins full of happy singing slaves had they dared. I wanted to see the stage shows, thinking they might not wholly disresemble theater, but the one we managed to see, Babes in Toyland, was appalling on multiple levels. Skill was not one of them, for it was well and expensively done, but the spirit was sealed in plastic, garish and glittering and dishonest. At one point the most important thing in the world was revealed. What was it? Being home for Christmas. What kind of people would suggest that as the most important thing in the world? The awfulness of it was largely on a spiritual level, and hence difficult to put into words. But the park was beautiful by night, all lit for Christmas. I liked that. I liked the one sycamore all wrapped in blue lights so it looked blue itself, strange and blue and paradisal. The people who rode the roller coasters had a better time than I did. I did ride one little one, and remembered the helpless horror of the sheer drop, which I thought I’d put behind me with the vow never to ride rides again. I can see how others find that sensation exciting. I don’t.

Good rehearsal of Hat in my front room, the actors fending off kittens as they worked.