IDA’S WISDOM
IDA’S HAVIN’ A YARD SALE
Written by Susan Poulin (with Gordon Carlisle)
Graphic and set design by Gordon Carlisle
At the Public Theatre in Lewiston, Maine
From November 3, 2006, to November 12, 2006
Reviewed by Laurie Meunier Graves
“The
wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the
humorist makes fun of himself, but in so doing, he identifies himself with
people—that is, people everywhere, not for the purpose of taking them apart,
but simply revealing their true nature.”
— James Thurber
Before
I start this review, it is only fair to make a full disclosure: I am a
friend of Susan Poulin’s and have been for several years. During the course
of our friendship, I have also become an avid fan of her theatrical work,
which ranges from poignant (Pardon My French!) to hilarious (Spousal
Deafness…and Other Bones of Contention). And then there is Ida LeClair,
the heroine of Poulin’s current production and her alter ego as well. But
more about Ida shortly. Let me conclude this confessional paragraph by
stating that when it comes to talent and snap and insight, all of which
Poulin has in abundance, friendship is more or less irrelevant. In other
words, I would admire Poulin’s work even if we weren’t friends. Being keen
on theater, I have seen many productions, good, bad, and mediocre, over the
years, and I have developed a fair sense of what works and what doesn’t. I
have also learned that friendship and affection cannot soften a poor
production, no matter how much we might wish otherwise. Just as good is
good, regardless of friendship, so it is with bad.
One
more bit of personal information, which actually is relevant to Ida’s
Havin’ a Yard Sale. On the night I went to Poulin’s play, I was so tired
that if I hadn’t already reserved and paid for the tickets, I never would
have gone. As far as I’m concerned, frugality trumps fatigue, and there was
no way I was going to let those tickets go to waste. Yet again, my frugality
paid off. Just ten minutes into the play, my fatigue fell away, and by the
time intermission came, I actually felt energized, enlarged even, by what I
had seen. Robertson Davies has written about alchemy in the theater, a
magical, almost transcendent experience, and that’s exactly what happened
the night I saw Ida. I came feeling so tired I could hardly stand it
and left feeling invigorated. Now that’s good theater!
Who
exactly is Ida LeClair, and what makes her so special? Well, she lives in
Mahoosuc Mills, a small fictional town in northern Maine. She’s married to a
man named Charlie, a hard worker who has a passion for his old Barcalounger;
she lives in a robin’s-egg blue double-wide; she works at the local A&P; and
she has five close friends—Celeste, Rita, Betty, Dot, and Shirley—with whom
she goes on field trips in “the Bonneville.” Childless, she dotes on her
niece Caitlin, who has a nose ring and has gone to school to study feng shui.
Ida shops at Wal-Mart and loves the Dairy Queen’s Peanut Buster Parfaits. We
first met her in Ida: Woman Who Runs with the Moose!, where we
learned about the affectionate and lively relationship she has with her
husband Charlie. Those of us who live in the country immediately recognize
Ida. She is the woman who lives down the street; she might be a neighbor,
but she also might be our aunt or even our mother. Yes, indeed, we know her
very well. She is a rural Everywoman.
But she
is also herself. In Poulin’s one-woman performance of Ida’s Havin’ a Yard
Sale, Ida mixes selling things with telling stories so that we get more
of a sense of how Ida fits in with her community and the larger world. As
Ida dickers with friends and customers, we meet Chip, her yuppie boss, and
his girlfriend “Dip.” (Ida’s nickname for her.) There is the friend whose
husband has just died. An anecdote about a trip to the spa. Most important,
there is the old Barcalounger that Ida has convinced Charlie to sell. She’s
trying to raise enough money to go to Las Vegas so that she can see her
newest enthusiasm, the singer Céline Dion. Charlie, of course, really
doesn’t want to sell his prized possession, but to please Ida, he has hauled
it onto the front lawn. There it sits, in its shabby glory, a rebuke to Ida
as well as a potential sale. (It is, in fact, a beautifully painted prop
done by Gordon Carlisle, who just happens to be Susan Poulin’s husband.) And
a question hangs over the entire play: Will Ida really sell Charlie’s
Barcalounger? She professes to hate it, but she also fondly tells the story
of when they bought it, and in describing her trip to Bangor, the big city,
we get the sense this woman and her husband had more fun buying the
Barcalounger than most couples have in an entire year.
This
joie de vivre, I think, is the key to Ida, and it is what makes her so vivid
and inspiring, even. Her world is the world of baked bean suppers, and she
likes it just fine. By American standards, Ida is not a wealthy woman, but
she has more than enough to be comfortable, and she has the good sense to
enjoy what she has. At first glance, this might not seem like a great
accomplishment. But think again. How many people do you know who have more
than enough yet who are not happy with their lives? If you’re like me, then
you know quite a few, and some of them might even be close to home.
In
thinking about Ida, I was struck by how she is a rebuke to Jeff Foxworthy,
Bill Engvall, Ron White, and Larry the Cable Guy, the four comedians who
make up the Blue Collar Comedy Tour. Their humor is based on a sense of
aggrievement, and their underlying message is this: isn’t it too bad that
uppity women and minorities have come along to spoil life for these good old
boys? By contrast, Ida is shrewd yet tolerant, secure enough to encompass
the feng shui of her niece and yet still enjoy the cheese dip at “the
Pilot’s Grill.”
This
makes Susan Poulin a first-rate humorist, someone who can make us laugh at
human foibles while maintaining an affection for those she lampoons. This
generosity puts me in mind of Christopher Guest, and through their humor,
they both attain the wisdom that comes from revealing human nature.
As for
the Barcalounger—find out for yourself when Ida comes to a theater
near you.
