Artist Insight
Get Up, Stand Up: Stand Up for Your Rights!
Bob Marley’s famous lyric is an apt motto for Academy Award-nominated actress Kathleen Turner, legendary journalist Molly Ivins, whom Turner currently is portraying in Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins at Arena Stage — and the playwrights who brought them together.
On Thursday, September 20 at 9:00 pm, theatreWashington will present a special performance of Red Hot Patriot, followed by an exclusive reception to benefit our community building programs.
Red Hot Patriot is the first play written by twin sisters Margaret and Allison Engel. Margaret (a former reporter for The Washington Post and Des Moines Register) is the director of the Alicia Patterson Journalism Foundation and serves on the Board of Directors of theatreWashington. Allison (formerly a reporter for the Des Moines Tribune and San Jose Mercury) is associate director of the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities at the University of Southern California.
According to Margaret, when fellow journalist Ivins passed away in 2007, the Engel sisters thought it was “very important to capture” her voice and thought it “would be best amplified by a play because she truly was larger than life — one of those rare, iconic Americans who come along every so often.” So they embarked on the three-year long process of writing, re-writing, testing, revising, finessing, and finalizing.
Those old enough to remember Ivin’s writing (her syndicated column appeared in roughly 350 newspapers) instantly relate to the goal of preserving her fiery, rabble-rousing voice and her brand of satire that often took aim at politicians, especially those in or from Texas (including her famous nickname for George W. Bush — “Shrub”).
Margaret and Allison also want the audience “to think about [Ivins’] courage and perseverance and how that should transfer to individual lives. [Ivins] had the opportunity to have her career be Number One in her life but she put that second to her need to write the truth.”
When the Engel sisters secured the involvement of celebrated actress Kathleen Turner to preserve Ivin’s iconic voice, together, they began a collaboration that gave rise to a developmental reading at Arena Stage, a world premiere at Philadelphia Theatre Company, a run at LA’s Geffen Playhouse, and now Arena Stage. The fortuity of mutual connections at People For the American Way (where Turner serves on the Board) provided the introduction. And after an “unbelievable” response in LA, Turner says she wanted to perform the piece in Washington before the election because, “I am tremendously concerned and frightened about the threat to women in this election. I think the choice is so damned important. A lot of what the play says is ‘get involved.’ You’re a citizen. You have political rights and responsibilities. I want to make people get off their asses.”
Turner adds: “[Molly] makes me laugh. And it is just the most funny evening. It’s a 75 minute monologue and it literally flies by. Because of the nature of the play and because of Molly’s character, it has to be a very personality-oriented piece. It’s me, not just Molly, trying to charm the shit out of the audience. And that’s always fun. It’s just like flirting. I have fun with that.” Interestingly, the way Turner describes Ivins’ choice of words — “they’re short, they’re sharp, and they’re quick” — suggests that the language will be equally appreciated by the Twitter generation.
Red Hot Patriot is no lecture, but a relevant and irreverent observation of the timeless political process though the eyes of one of our most colorful commentators at an important moment in our country’s history.
Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins performs at Arena Stage through October 28th.
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