Description
Product Description
It's rare to find West Virginia treated with such a combination of humor, environmental awareness, and acute human insight. Those
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tired, hillbilly stereotypes--the dumb young thing, the retarded youth, the incestuous kin--are yanked out of their literary doldrums, set on stage and made fresh, vivid, startlingly satirical yet individually real. And incidentally, the mature woman, the aging woman, is given the respect she deserves, though with a humorous twist or two along the way.
Review
Victor Depta, a West Virginia playwright, has produced a rare combination of humor, awareness and acute human insight with his work, Tales from Blair Mountain. Despite what notions or preconceptions you might have, you'll find that Tales from Blair Mountain is not your typical Appalachian play. Two one-act comedies with Appalachian themes, and written by an Appalachian writer, will be brought to life on Barter's Stage II. Everyone Who Thirsts and The Egg of the World combine to illustrate West Virginia mountain culture. Once you think you know these characters, you realize you don't. Everyone Who Thirsts explores each character's view on life, religion and love, which is prompted by a strange visitor to the Miltton's front porch. There are many revelations in this story; however, it is the characters' desire to change the path which life is taking them down, or a miracle? Audiences will appreciate the discovery of each character through humor, self-discovery and even levitation. The second comedy is The Egg of the World. As an artistic director and stage manager produce a video to hopefully receive grant money, they discover a deeper story than they ever expected. Go behind the scenes of two brothers and their older sister as they unravel family secrets and learn how to find humor and make do with what they have. This production is a great example of Appalachian literature and culture containing drama, tension, humor and heartbreak. Victor Depta's masterful writing is brought to life to entertain as only Barter Thestre can. --Esprit, The Newsletter of Barter Theatre Vol 10 Issue 1
The two one-act plays...don't attempt to de-mystify Appalachia but instead they accomplish something I have yet to see elsewhere; they bring together the myth and reality of Appalachia. It's not folklore and it's not documentary...they are something else, that doesn't have a name as yet. --John Hardy, Director, 2002 Season, Barter Theatre
An Appalachian sensibility, to put it mildly, rich with the harmonies of mountain speech, of depopulated towns and villages, strip mines, environmental raping by energy companies, with Bible quoted chapter and verse, strange doings in the holler. Basic, raw and totally honest. These plays depict an area mired in poverty, backward in so many ways, but with a crusty character that stands apart from the homogenized sameness of much of American culture. We all would do well to get away from those Li'l Abner images that are still so much with us in the national culture stereotypes. Depta's ear is right, capturing the tone of West Virginia folk as they stumble through a bare landscape of death, hopelessness, abandonment and unemployment with a healthy laughter in spite of it all. Superior regional theater. --Arnold Skemer, Small Press Review, Vol33, Nos 1-2
About the Author
Vic Depta has had published ten books of poetry (The Creek, The House, A Doorkeeper in the House, The Silence of Blackberries, Preparing a Room, Azrael on the Mountain, The Little Henry Poems, An Afterthought of Light, and The Dancing Dragon Poems), two volumes of comedic plays (Plays from Blair Mountain, Mountains and Clouds), four novels (A West Virginia Trilogy and the pseudonymous House of the Moon), a collection of essays (The Simultaneous Mountain), and 200 poems in the journals.
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