Shakespeare & Co., Lenox, MA, USA, August 3-September 4, 2011

By Shel Horowitz

I've been a fan of columnist Molly Ivins and her enormously funny skewerings of Texan and American politics all the way back to the late 1970s or early 1980s. And I've been a fan of actress Tina Packer, Founding Artistic Director of the wonderful Shakespeare & Co., in Lenox, Massachusetts, all the way back to the early 1990s when I saw her as "Shirley Valentine"—still one of the best one-woman shows I've ever seen.

So when I found out that Packer was doing a one-woman show on Ivins, and that the subtitle stressed Ivins' "kick-ass wit," I had to go.

And certainly, there were a number of great examples of Ivins' hilarious writing. A few favorite lines (among many):
. "Reading the Texas Observer at Smith College [in the early 1960s] was like slipping Mad Magazine into the Episcopal hymnal."
. Describing George W. Bush (Ivins knew him since they were high school students together and followed his career closely; she was the one who dubbed him "Shrub"): "Instead of 1000 points of light, we have one dim bulb... he's not bilingual, he's bi-ignorant."
. On Texas Representative Jim Collins: "If his IQ slips any lower, we'll have to water him twice a day."
. "We are a nation undeterred by reality... that's how we got to the moon—and to Iraq."

And I loved her calls for American liberals to be activists, and to be proud of what we've accomplished.

However, I felt the subtitle of the play was a lie. The script was way too dominated by her challenged relationship with her conservative father, much more about angst and rage than about wit, and this was a deep disappointment. Packer seemed to like those angsty parts the best, and I felt like she forgot that she wasn't playing a Shakespearean ogress like Lady Macbeth, and downplayed Ivins' amazing intellect. I would love to see the play recast to focus much more on the public Molly Ivins. What we got was just one more neurotic heroine, instead of the fresh voice that changed lives.

Also, although other critics have praised her Texas accent, on the night we saw the play, she simply couldn't wrap her arms around it. Packer is from England, and British speech patterns kept pushing through. She didn't sound like any Texas accent I've ever heard, even when she was successfully disguising her origins. I had the privilege of hearing Ivins speak at Smith College a few years before she died (a wonderfully funny and inspiring afternoon), and Packer on the night we saw the play sounded nothing like her.

That said, I'd still recommend seeing the play; just go in with realistic expectations about the content and the delivery. Ivins, even as played here, is still a wonderful character—and there's one silent scene—I won't spoil the surprise—that is one of the best moments of theater I've ever seen, and which I'd have much rather seen play out to its full conclusion.

Shel Horowitz is Editor of Global Arts Review. His latest book is Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green: Winning Strategies to Improve Your Profits and Your Planet.