These days in Mississippi, it can be hard to admit that you’re, gulp, not conservative. And don’t even say the L-word in public. You might get summarily run over by a honkin’ SUV with a “United We Guzzle” license plate and several American flags in various stages of decay.
A few months after I returned to the state from the more liberal hinterlands, I was sitting in Hal & Mal’s downtown with a couple of folks from the entertainment and wellness industries—not exactly Trent Lott types, if you know what I mean. We were chatting about this or the other and I, without lowering my voice, dissed George W. Bush in passing for one of countless idiocies. One of my friends looked around quickly, leaned forward, looked me intently in the eye and whispered haltingly, “Aren’t, are you are a Republican?”
“Hell, no,” I laughed loudly, looking at her like she was nuts. “Why would I be a Republican?” She was visibly relieved; we apparently had shared a secret.
I thought of my friend when I recently attended a performance of Kos Kosmayer’s “The Western Swamp” in Millsaps’ Christian Center. Had she been there, my friend might have felt accepted, at least that night and in that audience and certainly by Kosmeyer, a playwright and visiting professor this semester at Millsaps College. (Kosmeyer lives in Vicksburg with his wife, the artist Martha Ferris.) Little known from the press release about the play—reprinted verbatim in several local papers—this show was damned liberal. It was in-your-face, quite radical and encompassed everything that would make Chip Pickering run home screaming to daddy—from gay rights to anti-capitalism to questioning religion.
In the play, Kosmayer uses the Greek myth of the murder of Clytemnestra by her son Orestes to hammer home moral dilemmas about institutions like the death penalty and wars. There’s nothing subtle here: In the experimental form, the four actors go in and out of various periods of history, talking about current events such as a possible war on Iraq, citing peacenik statistics, and blasting just about everything conservatives hold precious, while tying all the points together with often-amusing musical numbers written by New York composer Chris Beauchamp. At points, the play is nearly slapstick. For instance, Alex Bosworth, playing the murderer mother, comes out dancing around with a huge red, white and blue, er, male member that also looks suspiciously like a missile, recalling a scene from Vietnam when President Johnson unzipped to demonstrate to his staff “why we’re in Vietnam.”
That dance scene was, surprisingly, the only time I believe I saw someone stomp offended out the doors that night. In fact, many in the audience stayed around afterward to discuss everything from taking back patriotism to just what constitutes a revolution. Standing before the audience looking relaxed and in his element, Kosmayer said “revolution of some kind would be wonderful,” but added that “it doesn’t have to end at the guillotine.” He promoted grassroots action, saying that “if enough people would talk about it, that would generate some change.”
Kosmayer said a play like his needs to be performed at a college like Millsaps or in a big city (he hopes the show will be picked up elsewhere after premiering here). “You get such a medley of voices,” he said of Millsaps.
— Donna Ladd
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The Mississippi Free Press produced this story through the MFP Solutions Lab, supported by the Solutions Journalism Network. This series digs into Mississippi’s systemic issues and sheds light on responses to them in other communities. Beyond just reporting on problems, these stories interrogate their causes and inspect potential solutions.
