Louisville, KY

If you read yesterday’s blog you would have seen my review of the Jazz Factory and their dining options. Today’s blog will be my take on the four writers that performed during the Jazz and the Spoken Word event on Wednesday night.

The Jazz and the Spoken Word is a form of entertainment that I do not normally go to see, but I really enjoyed the experience. Bassist Brian Vinson and saxophonist Drew Miller improvised jazz music during the four performances.

The first performance was an ensemble dramatic reading of the 10-mintue play, Permit to Conceal, by Mitch D. Fields. Fields is a student of Spalding University’s Master in Fine Arts in Writing program, and this was the first public reading of his work.

The play was about an Appalachian family’s struggle with a big coal company who wants to destroy their family’s land. The coal company was working towards obtaining a permit to perform mountaintop removal, which destroys the land in order to extract the coal cheaply. Meanwhile the main character has gotten a handgun in order to protect his family from the oil company, but his two-year old son finds the gun and almost shoots himself. After this near tragedy we find out that the coal company has bought its way through the legal system and has been granted the right to go after the coal. As the bulldozers tear through the mountain a large boulder falls down into the family house, crushing the toddler to death. The play ends with the head of the coal company wanting to appeal the $35,000 fine it has been charged for killing a young boy and ruining a family.

Mitch Fields and Melissa Combs read the parts of the Appalachian father and mother and both gave very emotional performances. Cameron Lawrence narrated and read the stage directions to give the audience an idea of how the play would be acted out in a regular performance. Fred Bogert and John Huffman played the lawyer and head of the coal company and showed how their characters cared more for money than people. Brady Miller, Linda Miller, Betty Keeling, and Amanda Matthews Fields read as a chorus and played the parts of the land, coal, and limestone. Overall the performances were very strong and I was so caught up in the story that I did not even pay attention to the fact that they were just reading the play. The jazz accompanist did a good job of matching their music to the play, although the volume was a bit loud.

The second performance was by Jeff Fearnside who is a Dorothy Norton Clay Fellow at the Mary Anderson Center for the Arts and a visiting assistant professor in Fiction at Western Kentucky University. He read a short story called, Accomplice to Tradition, that was based off of true events that happen in Kazakhstan.

The main character’s car is commandeered by a police officer that has him pick up several more friends including a beautiful woman. After a while the main character and the woman realize that the police office is kidnapping the woman to force her to marry him. This is an old tradition that is technically illegal, but if the woman does not stay married even after being forced she bring shame to her family in this culture. The main character struggles with interfering, but realizes that he probably will not be able to help, and the police officer could cause him a great deal of trouble. The story was well written and read and really made me think about the differences in cultures and the way woman are treated throughout the world.

The third performance was by Margaret Stewart who is a teacher and poet from Louisville. This was the only performance that I really did not enjoy Wednesday night. The poem was called Overburden and was about the damage mountaintop removal does to the land, plants, animals, and birds of Appalachia. I honestly found the work to ramble and did not find the long listing to be an effective way to bring attention to the problem of mountaintop removal.

The last performance was by Erica Licourt and she was supposed to have read from her collection of essays about Easter Kentucky and the removal of their mountains. However she choose to read a more upbeat essay about her trip to Paris and falling in love. The reading boarded on being too cute but the author did pull off an entertaining performance. I would have liked to hear more about her experiences in Eastern Kentucky.

Overall I had a great time and was introduced to some interesting works by some local authors. The musicians did a great job enhancing the readings and dining experience made it a complete outing. Jazz and the Spoken word is a reoccurring event at the Jazz Factory and I would encourage anyone to spend a Wednesday night checking out new works and writers.

The Jazz Factory, Louisville Writers, Mitch Fields, Jeff Fernside, Margaret Stewart, Erica Licourt, Spalding University