mLive reviews a new one-act play by Jane Martin, performed at OutFest, that deals with a repressed librarian’s attempt to help a desperate Laura Bush. After videotaping a large number of Laura Bush’s television appearances, the librarian becomes convinced that the first lady is repeatedly blinking the words “help me” in Morse code.
Obviously, Martin’s over-the-top, silly but smart farce won’t be for everyone; it’s not meant to be.
For one thing, it invites the audience to wildly, even salaciously, imagine the secret inner life of a woman who is constantly under public scrutiny but who never reveals much about herself or her thoughts.
Though the play (to be performed around the country this fall) will doubtless inspire controversy, Martin clearly doesn’t expect audiences to believe any of her campy speculations about the first lady’s inner life; instead, Martin simply seems to urge audience members to give themselves lot and permission to wonder with utter abandon.
Update: 09/23 16:59 EST by B: “Laura’s Bush” is on the road and is coming to a theater near you (LA, Detroit, San Francisco, Houston, New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Seattle, Philly, etc.)…Laura’s Bush website
tacky
She’s free to do her thing but I was disappointed in Jessamyn for mentioning something this tacky and the same with LISNews.
Re:tacky
Credit where it’s due please, this was posted by birdie. Tacky is in the eye of the beholder.
I won’t be seeing this.
I’ll probably be working anyway. Or at the NRA convention.
Re:tacky
I think Greg meant that this story was also posted at Jessamyn’s site (librarian.net).
I’m somewhat confused at the flood of Laura Bush posts on LISNews recently. I mean, I know she was a librarian, but most of the stories seem pretty tangential to this site (except maybe the one where she talked about being a librarian, and how great reading is).
IMHO.
Re:tacky
I think Greg meant that no one is allowed to poke fun at Republican icons.
I wonder if Jessamyn posted the story to her site because she is not anal retentive about people poking fun at librarians even though she is one.
Re:tacky π
No no, it’s because she’s a leftist and she hates America.
Re:tacky
Hey, what about me? The best I can get is “classic liberal.”
Re:I won’t be seeing this.
How did the facial work out?
Re:tacky
No, what I mean is simple manners when in public. I don’t know if birdie is a man or woman but I don’t ask them about their genitalia, whichever version it is, and for all our arguements Fang I don’t ask about yours either.
Like I said this woman is free to do what she wants but for the rest of us to be acknowledging it is tacky.
And for those who might want to bring up Clinton, its one thing to discuss poor behavior in the White House, its another to promote a play someone wrote called “Bubba’s Tricky Dick”.
Re:tacky
Yeah, it’s one thing to try to completely destroy someone both personally and professionally, and it’s another thing entirely to just make fun of them.
Since I have little money right now…
I will worry about getting a job as a librarian now that I have my MSLS before I go way out west to watch a show such as discussed…
Re:tacky
Oh, please. Like you would’ve even mentioned how tacky it is if it were about a democrat? Yeah, I really believe that. Got some swampland or bridges you wanna sell me?
I don’t think it’s tacky…It sounds like quite an interesting play.
Actually, didn’t Kenneth Starr do a big ol report about Bubba’s Tricky Dick??? So we don’t really need a play about it….
This is a library news site and she was a Librarian.
s/
Re:tacky
Pubic hair is not genitalia, if you’re alluding to the slang term “bush”. The First Amendment admits of no heckler’s veto, including complaints about rudeness or crudity. Go see Vagina Monologues, then go see Puppetry of the Penis. Get in touch with your inner beauty and stop being so body conscious. Don’t be so anal retentive that you can’t laugh at comedy. Learn that comedy is not unpatriotic or unAmerican. Accept the fact that Laura Bush is a public person.
Re:I won’t be seeing this.
I have no idea, apparently I have to shave off my beard. I should glow next week though.
Re:tacky
Apparently she’s a pubic person, too.
Re:tacky
So because GregS* is a conservative, any time he criticizes someone else’s choices, it means that he wants to stifle their opinion. On the other hand, when you criticize someone (generally in more “colorful” terms than anyone else of whatever political stripe on LISNews), it is free speech. In sum, GregS* is not entitled to the presumption that what he is doing is merely exercising free speech. Instead, the presumption is that he is a closet censor, trying to stifle dissent.
That’s a reach. “Since I’m not anal retentive about people poking fun at librarians, I think I’ll post this. After all, Laura Bush was a librarian, and I’m not anal retentive.” This is not a criticism of Jessamyn, about whom I know next to nothing. This is a criticism of one of two things:
I don’t think you are being dishonest, so I’m going with the former.
Re:tacky π
But that’s a good thing. You are “classic”!
Re:tacky
The First Amendment does admit of GregS* criticizing something because he (as opposed to you) finds some fault with it. So get over it. Don’t be so anal retentive about the fact that others don’t have the same understanding of inner beauty and body consciousness and comedy as you. Don’t be so anal retentive that you have to tell people that they need to see the Vagina-Penis Dialogues. Let GregS* be GregS*. Don’t try to turn him into Fang-Face.
Re:tacky
Pretty much. You see, conservatives bitch and piss and moan about people choosing for themselves. Liberals tend to bitch and piss and moan about conservatives attacking our right to choose for ourselves. You didn’t say that you were offended by the idea of this show nearly as much as you intimated that you were offended because Jessamyn and LISNews found the idea funny.
If that is not the case, then GregS* should learn to use language properly while he busy is being GregS*, and he will come across as less anal retentive.
(Written communications are no more than fifteen percent effective.)
Re:tacky
“You didn’t say that you were offended by the idea of this show nearly as much as you intimated that you were offended because Jessamyn and LISNews found the idea funny.
If that is not the case, then GregS* should learn to use language properly while he busy is being GregS*, and he will come across as less anal retentive.”
However, that is the case. I accept the fact that there are people out there that will say and do almost anything to offend other people. I expect nothing of them. I expect something more of professional librarians.
If you can’t understand the difference between The Vagina Monologs, a play about feminism and women in general, and a specific attack questioning a person’s sexuality using what amounts to a vulgarity as the title, then I can’t help you. You’re free to do and say as you please but it is what it is: tacky.