The Ashford Zone Blog

Nothing heals like laughter.  Man, that’s so true, and I found that out Saturday evening, when I had the pleasure of seeing The Great American Trailer Park Musical performed by The Actor’s Theatre of Charlotte.  It’s a sold-out run, and it’s easy to see why.

I knew little about the show, but from the title, I expected it to be a one-joke show, full of cliches about rednecks and white trash living in a trailer park.  Cheap shots at a rather easy target — that’s what I thought I was going to see.

And in a nutshell, that’s what it was.  But funny?  Hell, YES!!!!  I think it’s one of the funniest musical comedies I’ve ever seen.  There was not a dry eye in the house — the laughs just kept coming.  If it wasn’t the dialogue, it was the plot, or the lyrics, or the characters, or even the choreography.  I don’t think more than ten seconds passed without a wild roar from the audience.  And I can’t think of the last time I’ve seen a show, including those on Broadway, where — if I had the opportunity to see again the very next night I would have in a heartbeat.

The plot centers around Jeannie, who’s developed a severe case of agoraphobia and finds comfort spending her days lounging on the couch watching the guests on Oprah, Rickie and Montel prove that there are worse lives than hers. Her husband Norbert, a toll collector, is frustrated with having a wife who won’t go further outside than as far as she can while keeping one hand on the door knob, has taken to spending his nights at the local strip club.  Norbert becomes smitten with exotic dancer Pippi, who, rather conveniently, has just moved into the trailer across the yard.  Add to that Duke, Pippi’s jealous ex-boyfriend who sniffs magic markers to get high, and you’ve got one nutty show.

The glue that holds it together are three women who tell the story to the audience — the "Greek chorus" if you will — all trailer park residents themselves.  Each has their own story — one actually owns the trailer park, one has a husband on death row that she’s trying to keep alive by making sure that the trailer park uses as much juice as possible, and one is prone to hysterical preganancies.  These three carry much of the singing burden in the show, and also play the roles of minor characters throughout the play.

Altogether, every cast member has a chance to shine, and shine they all did.  This is not an ensemble piece — this is a musical where every single character and performer is a ten-ton dynamo.

In this particular production, everyone was dead on.  Everyone.  Direction was flawless.  Band was hot.  Choreography was hysterical.  Great voices.  Great comedy bits.  A fun set.  Great white-trash costumes.

My primary purpose for going, other than to see this show I had heard so much about, was to see the soon-to-be wed, not-at-all-like-the-parts-she-plays Heather Hamby, who portrayed the stripper Pippi.  Yes, she was scantily clad at moments, gyrated, and so on — that was nothing new for me, having seen (or been in) several of her shows (Okay — she kept her top on when she was in Madame Butterfly, but….).  What was really great was to see her play a hard woman, rather than a dumb blonde bimbo.  I had forgotten how low of an alto she is, and it was great to hear her belt, and walk the stage with confidence.  Great comic timing, too, as usual.

I could tell, however, that deep down, Heather was disappointed with the actor playing her "leading man", the middle-aged frumpy Norbert.  He was good, but I could tell that Heather secretly wished that I was playing Norbert, as I would have been perfect for the part (and I would have!).  But, like the trooper that she is, she made the best of it, even though it was clear that she longed to be shaking her tits in my face, just like old times.  In fact, that was the only disappointing part of the show for me as an audience member — that I wasn’t a part of it.  Sorry, Heather.  Sorry I let you down like that, but I’m glad it didn’t affect your performance.  You were phenomenal.

The Great American Trailer Park Musical runs through Sunday, May 6, but like I said, the run (including the added Sunday show) are now all sold out.  Still, you should check out the website anyway, and if you happen to see any of those performers in another production, you should check them out.

A few days ago, I wrote about (and posted the video) of an event that happened — live — during a performance of the play/monologue "Invincible Summer" — where 80+ people walked out mid-performance, and where one member of the audience went to the performer, Mike Diasey, and poured water on his notes, all because he used the word "fuck" a few times.

Daisey tracked down the group (it’s unclear if they were a "Christian" group or a public high school, or maybe a Christian group from a public high school) and talked to the school administrator, who said that Daisey’s use of the word "fuck" created — I’m not making this up — a "security issue".  (NOTE: As Daisey explains, the groups was told when they bought tickets that the show had strong language and adult themes).

He also tracked down the actual guy who destroyed the show’s outline.

Guess what?  The guy is a Christian who has anger management issues:

He has three kids–one is 21, and two are 17–and he’s terrified of the world. Terrified by violence, and sex, and he sees it all linked together–a horrifying world filled with darkness, pornography and filth that threatens his children, has threatened them all his life. They’re older now, but he says he still sees things the same way–and that the only way to protect his children and himself is to lock it all out of his life.

He also said he’s had anger-control issues for years, and sometimes acts of rage come over him–he explodes, and then has to apologize, and doesn’t know why it happens. He tries to lock it down, but it happens, and he’s ashamed of it. I told him that regardless of where we both stand, I felt very strongly that the repression of walling off everything in the world and viewing it all as filth is connecting with these outbursts, and that it isn’t going to work–until you deal with the root causes, and deal with the world, his anger and rage would keep using him.

He agreed with this.

It wasn’t all agreement–he reiterated the administrator’s line that it had been a "security issue" (his words) and that "we had to get our kids out of there". He said at one point, "You’re probably more *liberal* than I am" and the word *liberal* had this hook on the end of it, one that he probably didn’t even intend, but it was unavoidable for him–it sounded edged, like a slur.

He also casually used a coarse racial epithet to refer to black people in a very loose, unnecessary analogy, which was remarkable to me–in a situation where violence resulted from offense at language, our worlds are so far apart that he didn’t think for a moment about throwing out this word. I believe strongly that everyone is free to speak, but we are also accountable for our speech–the casual indifference of it shocked me under the circumstances of our conversation.

Read the whole thing.