Made Not Bought
Made Not Bought
By Laura Donaldson and Peter Newman
Music by Ruthie King
Directed by Angelyn Rhode
Princess Theatre, Sanford FL
I think this is the true heart of Community Theatre – local stories, local talent, and a production that mixes brilliance and pathos with awkward moments of heartfelt writing. One hundred years ago Sanford was a Big Deal – ships came up the St. Johns River, the local Luxembourgian Celery supplied roughage to America, and sharecropping blacks bailed out of Georgia to move to the area. The racism wasn’t that different but the pay was better and you could shop your labor to the highest bidder.
I missed the first incarnation of this local history exercise, but this second take is worth the drive up I-4. There’s somewhere north of 40 people on stage, all are locals and none are professional actors. They stumble from time to time but their triumphs make this as personal a snap shot as you’ll find. After the open Laugh-In style sequence of celery jokes and corny humor, we experience a series of vignettes that capture a memory of era gone by. The strongest segments were the ones dealing explicitly with the demise of Jim Crow. In particular, there’s a scene of a share cropping family sneaking out of rural Georgia – in their clever foam core truck they run the Underground Railroad in reverse and escape to economic freedom further south. Did they get out and how did they do down here? Another powerful tale introduces a woman never learned to swim because the town fathers preferred to destroy both the black and white pools in town rather than allow blacks to swim with whites.
Other elements of the show were more whimsical: we meet a man who lived on nothing but fried baloney and Karo syrup, a woman who buys the old fire house complete with ghost, and tails of kids hanging out in the Celery Crate, dancing and playing board games in the back of city hall. That was hot stuff back then. Only one scene didn’t work, it was a montage of jokes about Cleveland. How that tied in defeated me, and it wasn’t very funny. But those are nits, Celery Soup is a great piece of folk lore and found material pulled into a cohesive whole complete with music by local composer Ruthie King. You can tell the kids how hot the vinyl seats were was when you were their age, or you can take them to this show and let them experience it themselves.
For tickets and other information please visit http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/
October 22nd, 2012 at 3:02 pm
The scene in question relates to the entry of Slovakians to Seminole County, who were Lutherans from Cleveland, Ohio, not well-appreciated by their Catholic neighbors back home. It was decided to move southward to Sanford to farm the land around what is known as Slavia, a part of Oviedo. They founded St. Lukes Lutheran Church. With the Duda family leading the way, they helped to build the agricultural history of Seminole County before the Industrial Revoloution turned the county into a manufacturing-related economy.
This scene is intended to also inform patrons that the Sanford area was full of long-needled pine trees that were tapped and their sap used to produce turpentine products sorely needed in the days of wooden ships and iron men during the nineteenth century. Not a lot is known about that part of Sanford’s history; most folks who live around Sanford don’t even know about that part of its history. Black workers were paid just ten cents per day to do the heavy work of finding, tapping, collecting and refining pine sap into the needed products. They lived in hovels provided for them by the company and because their area was so rural, the only store available to them was the company store.
Remember the John Henry mining song, “Sixteen Tons…” made famous by Ernie Ford? Well that same theme describes the plight of these black workers under a white supervisor who received thirty five cents per day just for watching them carry on this menial, but necessary work day-in-and -day-out from sunup to sundown. Paid slavery is closer to describing their plight than paid workers properly treated and rewarded for their labors.
Today, paper companies provide these products as a side business to making paper products. It is a worthwhile subject to investigate if one cares to learn.
October 22nd, 2012 at 5:35 pm
I also enjoyed this play It makes history come alive in a very light manner not like the boring lectures of my day.
October 22nd, 2012 at 8:16 pm
Are you referring to the jokes about Cleavland segment?
October 23rd, 2012 at 9:48 am
Please note, our original songs were written by Ruth King, not Ruthie Kennedy. She is our local entertainment treasure.
Thanks for “getting” what Celery Soup, Florida’s Folk Life Play is all about-discovering a sense of place and fostering community pride.
Jeanine Taylor, Founder
Creative Sanford, Inc.
October 23rd, 2012 at 6:35 pm
Yes. I felt the reference to that scene was clear by using the name in my reply. I was the male of the three people in that brief scene and I have to tell you that I never felt good about that scene as written, but when we prepare for our next show this Friday, I hope to have the script correction reviewed and approved to ensure that others will better appreciate the points we were trying to make. Thank you for pointing it out and improving that scene should make it work. I am so glad you enjoyed the show!