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“Greater Tuna,” “Horton Foote,” and “Little Whorehouse” tell us about Texas

Does a particular play or musical tell us something essential about Texas?

I ask for a reason: The Think Texas column and newsletter will soon celebrate their fifth anniversary. That means about 250 stories about the state's people, places, history and culture.

To define this culture, I looked at the most exemplary Texas foods, songs, films, books, television shows and other signs and symbols of our state. In any case, I have presented the territory and you, the readers, have responded with recommendations and explanations.

Today's question isn't as obvious as some of the previous ones: Does a play or musical about Texas reveal how we see ourselves? Let me know at [email protected].

Historically, Texans have always hosted performances, from Native American mitotes (dances) and Spanish religious plays to mounted actors, amateur theater and professional troupes that traveled across the state on transcontinental tours. In the years following World War II, powerful theaters flourished in cities, as did fertile alternative performance scenes. And that is still the case today.

But just as some Texans think that “history is something that happened somewhere else,” even avid theatergoers tend to think that “theater is a cultural asset that thrives best somewhere else.”

I have selected a few examples of theater about Texas that might stimulate divergent discussion on this topic.

Laughing at ourselves with “Greater Tuna.”

If you want to bottle small-town Texas while honing in on all its idiosyncrasies for the biggest laughs, perhaps the purest product would be “A Tuna Christmas,” the best of the “Greater Tuna” stories. Born as an improvised party skit in Austin, the loosely structured “Greater Tuna” grew into an alternative theater phenomenon, followed by tours of the state's largest and grandest theaters, with a village of characters led by Jaston Williams and Joe Sears, who also have one who wrote most of the series were brought to life.

The second show, “A Tuna Christmas,” tightened the story, deepened the characters and gave audiences by now accustomed to affectionate but razor-sharp parodies of small-town life an opportunity to be candid about the residents of tiny Tuna, Texas giggling and laughing. When the play ran on Broadway, Sears was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play. However, the following two scripts of the series did not live up to the expectations of the project.

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Separately, Williams and Sears have explored other aspects of Southwestern culture and pieces that have little to do with Texas, but those of us who remember the waves of love and joy that flowed through each sold-out performance of “A Tuna Christmas” are lucky to have been there — and to understand our state a little better.

The exquisite pieces of Horton Foote

There are few things as perfect as a Horton Foote piece. The son of Wharton, Texas, had just the right ear for dialogue, a rock-solid feel for Texas – or other Southern – locales – and the empathy necessary to see into the hearts of his otherwise ordinary characters. Partly due to the film adaptation starring Oscar winner Geraldine Page, his best-known drama is “The Trip to Bountiful,” which was re-staged decades later with Cicely Tyson in the lead role.

Foote's “The Young Man From Atlanta” won the Pulitzer Prize in 1995, and of course he won Oscars for “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Tender Mercies,” but the core of his work remains short, grouped pieces in series like ” The Orphans' Home Cycle,” which is set in the fictional Harrison, Texas, which stands in for his hometown of Wharton.

One of the greatest privileges of my career—and of my life—was spending an afternoon with Foote at his childhood home in Wharton. The walls were covered with pictures of his ancestors, who later appeared as characters in his plays, and any of the anecdotes he told that day could have been conceived as a fleeting scene for the stage.

Musical delight: “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas”

It was an unusual subject: A rural brothel near La Grange was shut down by a passionate Houston television reporter and an evasive Texas governor. Thanks to the Texas creative team, which included director Tommy Tune, songwriter Carol Hall, and playwrights Peter Masterson and Larry L. King, the material was transformed into Broadway gold. A West Texas journalist and author with a biting wit, King wrote other Texas plays without much success, although “The Night Hank Williams Died” deserves a repeat performance.

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The film adaptation of Whorehouse, starring Dolly Parton and Burt Reynolds, does a good job of bringing the Texas soul of the stage show to the screen, but less is said about the ill-fated Broadway sequel, The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public. “The better. Little-known fact: A post-Broadway performance of the original musical at the Tower Theater in Houston, not far from Tune, where Tune had attended Lamar High School, led to a profitable tour associated with the founding of Pace Theatricals, which became the today's top provider of Broadway.

“A Texas Trilogy”: Transitioning to a Regional Trend

During the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, as Texas novels and screenplays proliferated, various authors attempted to introduce Texas plays to a wider audience. Among the most successful films to gain national attention was Preston Jones, whose “A Texas Trilogy” included “The Oldest Living Graduate,” “Lu Ann Hampton Laverty Oberlander” and “The Last Meeting of the Knights of the White Magnolia.” which were jointly produced in Washington, DC and New York City.

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Other candidates from this period included “Patio/Porch” by Jack Heifner and the hugely popular “Vanities”, “Lone Star” and “Laundry and Bourbon” by James McLure, “Ladybird, Ladybird, Fly Away Home” by Mary Rohde and “Ladybird, Ladybird, Fly Away Home” by Oliver Hailey. Who’s Happy Now?” Screenplays from this period are clearly summarized in “Texas Plays,” edited by William B. Martin (SMU Press).

Two that followed this thematic pattern were Edward Graczyk's “Come Back to the Five and Ten, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean” and Mark Harelik's “The Immigrant.”

The titles alone suggest that these playwrights have made a serious attempt to explore Texas history and culture. Did they succeed? Will these plays endure? Only time will tell.

'Texas!' and the open-air theatre movement

The first dramas of ancient Greece were performed outdoors in theaters carved into the mountainside. Many of the open-air theaters built in this country since the 1930s, which were then seen as a populist response to the elitist urban theater, have a similar form to these Greek amphitheaters.

In Texas, the outdoor theater movement has been hampered by age-old challenges such as heat and humidity. Oh, people attended the shows, especially when they were free. Still, the experience was usually not ideal.

The longest-running show of its kind is “Texas,” which chronicles the Panhandle’s early settler days and is performed each summer under the stars at Palo Duro Canyon State Park. Unlike other outdoor shows in Texas, like “Lone Star” in Galveston, this one benefits from geography. In the dry Panhandle, it's not very humid – or there aren't many mosquitoes. Another winner in dry climates is “Viva! El Paso,” performed at the McKelligon Canyon Amphitheater.

As a theater, are they accurate Texas history? Let's just say it's a kind of Texas story that's educational in itself.

Shimmer of deeper waters

Among the plays and musicals I've seen that permeate Texas culture, I'd start with a few about larger-than-life political figures: Holland Taylor's “Ann,” Margaret Engel and Allison Engel's “Red Hot Patriot: The.” “Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins,” and Robert Schenkkan's award-winning pair about LBJ, “All The Way” and “The Great Society,” all magnificently staged at Austin's Zach Theater.

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If I think about it long enough, dozens of titles pop up, but I'll leave you with a few breadcrumbs: Steve Moore's lyrical “Nightswim” about Texas writers J. Frank Dobie, Roy Bedichek and Walter Prescott Webb, Eugene Lee's “East Texas Hot Links “, Raúl Castillo's “Knives and Other Sharp Objects” and Terrence McNally's “Corpus Christi,” which is not about the “sparkling city by the sea” but a once controversial drama that conveys the story of Jesus and his gay apostles to the Texas coast.

Please add your insights.

Michael Barnes writes about the people, places, culture and history of Austin and Texas. He can be reached at [email protected]. Sign up for the free weekly digital newsletter “Think, Texas” at statesman.com/newsletters or at your local USA Today Network newspaper page

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