AN INTERVIEW THAT GOT THE BIG ISSUES RIGHT!

This past week, the Smoky Mountain News did an interview with yours truly which I have decided to post here. This one has the normal number of inaccuracies. For example, the radio in my bedroom was not a "transister," nor did my father drive an oil truck. That was my grandfather. And it was my great-great grand father that was shot by Kirk's raiders in Macon County. However, I am still pleased by this interview. Despite getting the minor facts wrong, Giles Morris got the message right. Thank you, Giles.




Carden wrestles with storyteller legacy
By Giles Morris • Staff writer

There are two voices inside Sylva storyteller and playwright Gary Carden. One belongs to the mountain man of letters whom author Lee Smith coined “the Appalachian Garrison Keillor.” The other belongs to an orphaned child who clung to a pink transistor radio to make it through the lonely nights on Rhodes Cove.

“I was a damned lonely little kid, and I’d turn that radio on and it was like a bright night light,” Carden said, his voice turned sweet on the memories of his favorite ‘50s radio shows.

Carden is one of the most recognized literary voices in Western North Carolina largely because of his ability to communicate the authentic experiences and cadences of a mountain culture that is nearly vanished.

As an artist, the tension in Carden’s work is grounded in the double-consciousness of a man who knows firsthand the feeling of being “found wanting” and who still expresses pride in his heritage.

“I kind of turned into a missionary of some kind because I felt it was my job to communicate my culture,” Carden said. “Can you tell people about mountain dialect and the way my granddaddy lived without communicating ignorance?”

For Carden, the question is personal and not abstract. His father drove an oil truck and played in a mountain band until he was shot dead in his own garage by a loafer drunk on wood alcohol.

“It was an accident that didn’t make sense. That’s the kind that bothers you forever,” Carden said.

His mother, only 18 at the time of the killing, left him with his grandparents and went to Tennessee.

While his story is the type of Appalachian biography that reeks of authenticity, Carden reckons what makes him real isn’t his personal tragedy so much as the shared pain of growing up ashamed of his own voice.

“My granny warned me –– and most mountain people know this –– when I got out of college,” Carden said. “’Garneal,’ she said. ‘When you get out of here, you’ll be weighed and you’ll be found wanting.’ And she was right.”

Last weekend, Carden staged his play “Nance Dude” at Western Carolina University’s Coulter Auditorium to benefit the Friends of the Jackson County Main Library. It was the second performance of the two-part library benefit featuring actor Elizabeth Westall in two one-act plays that draw a line between history and folklore.

“It’s a special category. It’s history becoming folklore,” Carden said of “Nance Dude.” “There comes a time when people start decorating the facts and at some point the history becomes folklore.”

The play showcases two of Carden’s innate gifts: his ear for Appalachian dialect and his ability to normalize the brutality of dark mountain history with humor and humanity. “Nance Dude” re-tells the true story of a Haywood County woman convicted for the murder of her granddaughter.

Carden rem-embers his own grandmother explaining to him why his grandfather “didn’t laugh much.” She told the story of Kirk’s Raiders shooting down his great-grandfather in cold blood and leaving the body on the front porch.

“When my grandmother told me that story, she’d pull me right to her face and say ‘Don’t you forget what they did to Bryant,’” said Carden. “And of course I think that’s one of our greatest flaws as a culture ... the way we carry grudges.”

But “Nance Dude” also gets at the root of why Carden, now in his 70s, still burns hot in quest of his defining work. Carden has won awards as a writer and a storyteller, and honorary degrees as a folklorist, but he has never gotten the one acclaim that would put to rest the prophetic fear his grandmother instilled in him.

“My work has never been considered significant enough to be published,” Carden said.

Carden wonders whether his identity as a storyteller hasn’t limited him.

“Playwrights have a hard time. Poets have it harder. And storytellers have it the worst,” Carden said. “What do you do with a literate Appalachian storyteller? A mountain storyteller is supposed to be a hick with a wooly beard who’s never read a book.”

But Carden’s not making excuses. Instead, he’s still searching for his defining moment as an artist. He recently finished a play called “Signs and Wonders” that casts a light on the damage Pentecostal preachers from Bob Jones University did during their student auditions in mountain towns in the ‘50s. But he thinks there’s something bigger brewing in him.

“I’m kind of in stasis,” Carden said. “I need to do something significant. I’m bored and I’m not content with what I’ve done. I’ve got about 10 plays that need to get done and I know they won’t be.”

Some of Carden’s best written works are published in a collection called Mason Jars in the Flood & other stories. The autobiographical “Harley stories” are his version of Hemingway’s Nick Adams stories, autobiographical tales about growing up that carry both the personal and cultural angst of a moment in time.

Carden grew up in the mountains when the world was turning modern, and the mountain folk were being shut out of their own home. He became a man of letters, earning two degrees from Western Carolina University. When he writes about his childhood, he does it in clear and beautiful prose that hints at a fundamental conflict.

“You have to live in two worlds,” Carden said. “Culture demands it of you.”

Gary Carden, the artist, is still looking for the perfect way to call the world to account for the wrongs visited on Appalachian people since the Civil War and on his heart since his childhood. Like many writers, his thirst for success is fueled by a drive to hold life accountable for the pain it dispenses.

“My strength is the same as my grandparents’ inability to forgive,” Carden said. “I can’t forget things that are wrong. I want to see justice done.”


See “Nance Dude” this week

A DVD viewing of Gary Carden’s “Nance Dude,” performed by Elizabeth Westall, will be held 2 to 4 p.m. on Tuesday, March 30, at the Waynesville Library Auditorium. Carden will offer time for discussion and question & answer following the play.

MY PLAYS AND THE DUBIOUS STATE OF APPALACHIAN DRAMA

I didn't set out to become a playwright; in fact, I would have been content to be an ardent fan of other people's theater. The first play I ever saw was in the 40's when some of Prof. Fred Koch's students down at Chapel Hill ventured into my region with some homemade sets in the back of an old truck for the purpose of "bringing the arts to the backwoods." I was among an audience of about one hundred mountain kids who sat gape-mouthed in a dark auditorium at Sylva Elementary and watched a group of travelers find the mysterious kingdom of Shangrila. The only memory that I retain now is the final scene in which the villagers waved at the departing plane that flew low over Shangrila, filling our little auditorium with the roar of its engines. Afterwards, I went back stage, amazed to see the village being dismantled (it was cardboard) and loaded on the truck. I asked about the plane, and a smiling young man showed me a piece of cardboard and a big electric fan. When he plugged the fan in and stuck the cardboard into the spinning blades, I again heard the roar of the plane as it dipped in farewell over the village of Shangrila. At that moment, I became a devoted fan of theater - an art that could transform a musty old room into an exotic realm filled with prophets, kings and airplanes.

When I was a teenager, I found myself backstage at "Unto These Hills" on a Saturday night where the cast of the outdoor drama were participating in "Canteen Night." I guess it was a party of sorts and the place was filled with music, illicit beer and "impromptu theater." On this particular night, the actors were producing a strange play called "Theater of the Soul" and when the curtain opened, I saw three actors sitting in bizarre chairs. I discovered that the action was taking place "inside a human heart" and two large drums (temponi) backstage mimicked the beat of the heart. Red crepe streamers that radiated from the ceiling were "nerves" and when the actors touched them, the heart beat faster. A telephone rested on a broken Greek column in the center stage and the actors could communicate with the brain by talking on the phone which also affected the heart's rhythm. The actors were called Reason, Emotion and The Eternal Self (who slept throughout the play). As I watched the actors argue and fight, wrecking the scenery and plunging the stage into darkness, I found that I had once more been transported - this time, to the interior of a human heart! My God! I remember that my friends at the Cherokee Canteen were not particularly impressed, but I was in a kind of religious stupor for hours. The next day, I rededicated myself to the theater and decided to go to college and become... a drama major.

My grandfather had his doubts about my going to college, and when he learned that I was interested in theater and the arts, he was alarmed. Over the next four years, he would repeatedly suggest that I change my major. "Be a bookkeeper," he said. "You wear a white shirt and sit in an office with a fountain pen in your hand. I'm not even sure that there are jobs for people who do that theater stuff." The college shared his viewpoint. "It is advisable to combine your interest in theater with something more .... realistic ... like teaching. I did that.

For thirty years, I taught English, speech and drama in high schools and colleges. I also directed in colleges and community theaters. I loved every minute of it and would have been content to teach/direct for the rest of my life. However, when I began to lose my hearing, I discovered that I could neither direct or act. I guess there was a bit of desperation in my decision to try to write a play. At least, it would maintain a connection with the theater. Because of my deafness, I gave up teaching and became a storyteller - an ideal profession for a playwright.

My first play was "The Uktena," a strange mime/ritual based on a Cherokee legend. It had a large cast, bizarre sets, complicated lighting and sound effects. I was lucky to finally get it produced in Atlanta at Horizon, and eventually, it was brought to the Cherokee High School.
Then, I did "The Raindrop Waltz" which began as a one-act and ended up as a two-act. It has been produced more than any play I have written (over 300 times). Next came "Land's End" which consisted of three dramatic monologues: "Nance Dude," "Jesse Racer" and "Coy." I soon discovered that "Nance Dude" had a life of its own and has been produced throughout this region with the actress, Elizabeth Westall in the title role. Next came "Birdell," another dramatic monologue that has ties to local history (Fontana Dam, the destruction of Hazel Creek, TVA, etc.) An actress named Bobbie Lee Curtis has been performing the title role for the past three years. "The Prince of Dark Corners" was an ordeal. Another dramatic monologue, it attracted the attention of a filmmaker, Neal Hutcheson and ended up on PBS as a film. The actor, Milton Higgins has attracted considerable attention for his portrayal of Major Lewis Redmond, the outlaw. At present, I am working on a dramatic monologue based on the life of Mother Jones and I am optimistic about its future.

Now, let me get to the point of this post. Folks, it is lonely being a playwright in western North Carolina. Now, I don't want to sound like I'm whining, but I'm looking for someone to talk to, especially another playwright. I guess it would be asking for too much to qualify that by saying that I'm eager to talk to another Appalachian playwright who writes about Appalachia. Now, I know a few playwrights who aspire to be Neil Simon clones and they are writing plays that are set in a New York apartment, or maybe a sidewalk cafe in Paris. That don't cut it. I'm looking to converse with a dramatist who sets his plays in the mountains and even has characters who talk in genuine mountain speech about mountain issues and dilemmas. Okay, I'm asking for too much, so let me compromise. I'll settle for someone who is interested in Appalachian drama, and just possibly might be interested in arranging for a production of one of my plays or .....at least seeing one. Hello? Anyone there?