July 31, 2009

J and I drove to the Parkway Playhouse in Burnsville for the premiere of JM’s play Esley: the Life and Musical Legacy of Leslie Riddle. The drive through all that green land is, by day, very beautiful, and by night, haunting. I’ve performed at the Parkway, so there was little excuse in my getting as lost as I did. I think I frightened J with the violent level of my not-getting-there-fast-enough frustration. After all my swearing and veering around slowpokes, we arrived with 15 minutes to spare. The playhouse situation reminded me of Penguin Rep in New York– dark wood, golden-agers tottering up and down an easy rake, re-made barn-- except the dress, behavior and, I suppose, life stories of the audience were as different as could be imagined. I think it’s an excellent idea to remember local heroes in plays. The task for a playwright or a producer is to tell the story with a minimum of summary, as though it really were a story. It requires an imaginative re-visioning, and a courageous disregard for received pieties. Esley did not achieve these things. The man was never allowed to tell, or have, his own story. J described Riddle as being presented by the play as the Carter family’s “house nigger,” which I am certain was not the intent, or the historical truth. JM brought on what one thought was a completely superfluous “reporter” to utter big chunks of exposition, until one saw the second act, which was, except for the interruption of songs already heard in act one, entirely made up of this “reporter” reading Riddle’s biography off a sheet of paper. Had Rob not memorized his lines? Was this the way it was actually planned? Incidental matter such as the accidents which robbed him of leg and fingers, courtship and marriage, indeed anything which threatened action or discovery, were left out. I’d guess this was in the name of decorum, so Riddle could come of as a humble and talented colored man, lifted up by the attentions of a famous while family. If he went whoring or got plastered or lay in wait for an enemy or fell in love or snapped back when he was turned away from a lunch counter, it was not told of. I did enjoy the evening after all-- the music and the pretty girl playing Maybelle Carter and the opportunity to investigate another playwright’s skills-- which I suppose is the final judgment.

Finished This Paradise Apart for Black Mountain.