Molly Ivins had an impeccable laugh and sense of humor. Ask us, we'd say: "It's pretty kick-ass."
Red Hot Patriot Director David Esbjornson, who directs James Earl Jones and Vanessa Redgrave in Driving Miss Daisy on Broadway, is doing a kick-ass job directing actress Barbara Chisholm in New York this week for the Texas premiere of Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins — which opens on ZACH Theatre’s Kleberg Stage in three very short weeks.
Here’s what The Austin Chronicle has to say about this Austin theatre actress: “Barbara Chisholm is a director’s dream in a siren’s body. With talent to burn, this effervescent performer has proven to be one of the greats! An enduring association with ZACH showcases her talents like the setting on a Tiffany diamond.”
Barbara can’t wait to be back home in Austin to toast the town, the show and Molly Ivins herself on Champagne Opening Night (Saturday, Jan. 29), but in the meantime everyone from the set designer, artistic staff and crew, friends of Molly’s and even the writers themselves — twin sisters Margaret and Allison Engel — are reworking, rewriting and revamping the show for an Austin audience.
There’s a lot about this city we all love, but remember the days when Ann Richards and Molly Ivins would head on over to Magnolia Cafe to skewer the lege and have a grand old time doing it? Molly Ivins is an icon in this town, and would undoubtedly have a field day laughing about the current Texas and national political scene. And her greatest mantra has always been: “Ordinary Americans are going to save us.”
It’s ironic looking at this play and revisiting the prolific life and writings that Molly left behind just how extraordinary Molly Ivins really was.
Barbara Chisholm stars as Molly Ivins in RED HOT PATRIOT: THE KICK-ASS WIT OF MOLLY IVINS
Here are some gems compiled in the blogosphere:
- The first rule of holes: when you’re in one, stop digging.
- What you need is sustained outrage…there’s far too much unthinking respect given to authority.
- The thing about democracy, beloveds, is that it is not neat, orderly, or quiet. It requires a certain relish for confusion.
- Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful.
- There are two kinds of humor. One kind that makes us chuckle about our foibles and our shared humanity — like what Garrison Keillor does.
- The other kind holds people up to public contempt and ridicule — that’s what I do. Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful. I only aim at the powerful. When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel — it’s vulgar.I believe that ignorance is the root of all evil. And that no one knows the truth.”]
- You can’t ignore politics, no matter how much you’d like to.
- It is possible to read the history of this country as one long struggle to extend the liberties established in our Constitution to everyone in America.
- What stuns me most about contemporary politics is not even that the system has been so badly corrupted by money. It is that so few people get the connection between their lives and what the bozos do in Washington and our state capitols.
- Politics is not a picture on a wall or a television sitcom that you can decide you don’t much care for.
- There’s never been a law yet that didn’t have a ridiculous consequence in some unusual situation; there’s probably never been a government program that didn’t accidentally benefit someone it wasn’t intended to. Most people who work in government understand that what you do about it is fix the problem — you don’t just attack the whole government.
- I believe in practicing prudence at least once every two or three years.
- I still believe in Hope – mostly because there’s no such place as Fingers Crossed, Arkansas.
- One function of the income gap is that the people at the top of the heap have a hard time even seeing those at the bottom. They practically need a telescope. The pharaohs of ancient Egypt probably didn’t waste a lot of time thinking about the people who built their pyramids, either. OK, so it’s not that bad yet — but it’s getting that bad.
- It’s like, duh. Just when you thought there wasn’t a dime’s worth of difference between the two parties, the Republicans go and prove you’re wrong.
Click here to read more Molly-isms.
What would Molly Ivins have to say about politics today?
