Review: When Whippoorwills Call
The Chandler Studio, 12443 Chandler Bl., N. Hollywood, 818-786-1045
by Jim Berg
INCEST, ALCOHOLISM, STILL BIRTHS, spousal abuse, child abuse, murder. Mmmmm, sounds like the makin’s of good hick drama. Usually these things are set in the dry heat of the West Texas desert. Writer/director Michael Holmes chose instead to set his When Whippoorwills Call in a cold pine forest of East Texas. There’s something about the periphery of Texas that perverts its residents, or some writer’s view of its residents, for these kinds of plays are never set in Middle Texas. Perhaps its the redeeming presence of the cities in the middle of the state that forces writers to find the perversions of inbreeding at the state’s edges. Of course, that explains it. Inbreeding. In isolated places the species is doomed to perversion because of inbreeding! You know they kill baby girls out there, too. And watch out when they get all liquored up on moonshine, then they just might take to killin’ ya if you eat the last of the food, especially just before winter. And don’t tell ’em you’ve got a lot of money in your suitcase, enough to live for eight whole days, enough to be rich.
When Whippoorwills Call perpetuates perverse stereotypes of people who are disdainfully referred to as white trash—rural Southern white trash in particular. Here’s the story:
Marsha (Patricia Place) is giving birth in the bedroom while Grandpa (Borah Silver), Marsha’s husband Paul (Gibb Manegold) and Paul’s brother Oliver (Tom Ashworth) wait for her to get it over with. All the men are stressing out because she keeps moaning and screaming, and Paul says he’ll kill the baby if it’s a girl, because they already have a daughter, Anna (Stephanie Mcgurn), and girls are useless.
Cut to twenty years later and Marsha and Anna are hosting a stranger whose car has broken down some miles away. The stranger is a city slicker, a traveling entertainer. By way of conversation, he inquires about the family status and takes particular interest in Anna. Then Paul arrives home and bemoans the barrenness of the land, and views the stranger with great suspicion. The stranger has eaten the last of the food, and drank the last of the moonshine. Before retiring for the evening, he loans the family his gold watch (so that they will know what time to go to bed) and mentions that he has a lot of money in his suitcase and he will be very generous. Winter is coming and the family is desperate.
Cut back to twenty years previous, and the men are waiting for an old black man who is going to assist the difficult childbirth. Grandpa, who is blind, keeps hearing someone coming, but it turns out to be Anna playing. Paul and Oliver take some delight in tricking the blind old man. As Marsha gives birth to twin boys, one stillborn. Grandpa presciently screams bloody murder.
Cut back to present and everyone is moaning, screaming and crying over the plot twist that ties everything together and explains all the senseless stuff that went on before.
When Whippoorwills Call is written and directed by Michael Holmes. Judging from his bio in the program, he is capable of much better. The characters are only motivated by the playwright’s need to accomplish some plot point that is ill-conceived and completely contrived. One gets no sense of a real place for the setting of this play. Everything is based on the writer/director’s stereotypical conception of rural Texas, and one gets the sense that he has never been there, and certainly hasn’t lived there. ♦