Stars and Bars
Hazard County confronts Southern images
The uproar over changing Georgia's state flag marked only the latest skirmish in the never-ending civil war over the South's cherished images. Do the Stars and Bars or the song "Dixie" express regional identity and pride, or serve as coded calls to racism? Can you even separate the two passionately held interpretations?
Allison Moore's play Hazard County encompasses that debate by focusing on the most harmless Southern icon it can find: "The Dukes of Hazzard" TV series. In its production at Actor's Express, Hazard County uses the cornpone CBS action-comedy as a jumping-off point to discover Southern culture's contradictions and the mass media's distortions. As a vehicle for powerful statements, Hazard County grabs your attention like the General Lee, the Duke boys' Confederate-painted muscle car. But as a new play, Hazard County's story needs a little tune up.
Hazard County's primary plot follows Ruth (Amy Lynn Stewart), a young, bankrupt widow in a Kentucky factory town forced to move in with her outspoken cousin Camille (Shelly McCook). Neither Ruth nor her rambunctious twins, Quintin (Jen Apgar) and Quinn (Justin Welborn), have fully recovered from her husband's murder, a bizarre episode that exposes the fault lines in Southern class and color. The more we learn about her husband's death, the more it emerges as a social flashpoint, like the race-based campus scandal of the Pulitzer-prize winner Spinning Into Butter, only relocated below the Mason-Dixon Line.
At a local bar, Ruth and Camille meet Blake (Brik Berkes), a self-conscious Los Angeleno who ingratiatingly quizzes the women about their lives and ideas. At first Blake claims to represent a vague, rural-oriented political group, but he gradually reveals that he's traveling the South to advance his career in TV journalism. As Ruth and Blake open up to each other, he believes her story could be his ticket to respectability.
What does Ruth and Blake's budding relationship have to do with "The Dukes of Hazzard"? On the surface, not much, although her children watch the show, and the program has a tenuous connection to her husband's death.
Hazard County repeatedly cuts away from the Kentucky story to present monologues from other characters (some Southern, some not) about what "The Dukes of Hazzard" means to them. Many prove amusingly obsessed. A college professor points out the "high camp" of Daisy Duke fetching eggs while wearing short-shorts, pantyhose and high heels. A Canadian fan enthuses about her website and recounts an imaginary adventure of the Duke cousins taking on Internet pornographers. Are Bo and Luke Duke modern-day Robin Hoods who embody economic populism, or Confederate-loving vigilantes who place themselves above the law? Which is the real South?
Directed by Meredith McDonough, Hazard County is energized by its competing points of view. Fiercely opinionated Camille argues against the national marginalization of her country home and maintains that the Shiloh Civil War battlefield should be as respected as the Auschwitz site, not treated as a tourist picnic attraction. Ruth's twins prove especially vulnerable to cultural forces. Hyperactive Quintin has a lemming-like attraction to television, while aggressive Quinn wields a realistic cap gun and seems eager to live up to the violent reputation of Southern males.
With McCook, Apgar and Welborn (who'll be replaced by Charlie Burnett beginning June 27), Hazard County features three of Atlanta's funniest, most dynamic actors, yet their characters don't do very much. The plot relies less on action than the drawn-out disclosure of secrets. If Ruth more quickly 'fessed up about the murder and Blake about his career, there'd be no play.
Stewart warms up as Ruth gradually enters a romance with Blake in the first act, then slowly reveals her rage and grief in the second act. Emotions come to a boil when Blake "playfully" patches his video camera through Camille's living room television set. Hazard County may have an escapist TV show at its center, but its conclusions prove surprisingly dark.
Most of the play's humor comes from Blake's city-slicker discomfort. In his dialogue-free first scene, he gradually unbuttons and untucks his trendy shirt to be less conspicuous at a rough roadhouse. Berkes proves disarmingly effective with Blake's apologetic manner, to the point where you're never sure if he's genuinely nice, or subtly manipulative. In Hazard County's first half, Blake seems clearly too good to be true, making the play's outcome feel preordained. Blake makes so many 180-degree turns, it's as if the playwright puts the dramatic responsibilities of two characters on the shoulders of one.
Like the cult films of Ray McKinnon, Hazard County confronts clichés to offer an up-to-date portrait of the South. With a little tinkering, the script could really go places - Moore proves that such forces as regional pride, racial politics and media motivations can devastate individual lives like tornadoes tearing through a trailer park. In the South of Hazard County, a cry of desperation can be mistaken for a rebel yell.