Before granpappy Phil Robertson got hisself in some duck soup by shootin’ his mouth off about gays and atheists and other no good sumbitches, I was only vaguely aware of Duck Dynasty.
Even by my exceedingly low standards of crap TV watching – I’ll confess that I’ve watched Honey Boo-boo, Hoarders, and Extreme Couponers – this one was not for me.
While I do laud the the Robertson family for having built a fortune out of duck calls – good for them – I’m just not interested in a show about a bunch of guys who look straight out of Deliverance, shrewdly promoting their business by pretending to be just folks. I call BS. Make that DS.
Perhaps because I am not a fan, I was not aware that Clan Robertson had a musical based on their lives.
The Duck Commander Musical, “how faith, family and ducks built a dynasty:
…transports the Louisiana bayou to the stage in a captivating 90 minute show- seasoned with all the southern spirit and down-to-earth humor you’d expect from America’s most famous rednecks, the Robertson family. But while the true-to-life, rags-to-riches story behind A&E’s mega hit Duck Dynasty will surely please its most loyal fans, audiences unfamiliar with the Robertsons will also find themselves charmed- and even moved- by this surprising tale of faith, food and family. (Source: The Duck Commander Musical website)
I don’t know to you, but I suspect that my idea of down-to-earth humor has as much in common with Duck Dynasty’s idea of down-to-earth humor as Duck Commander Musical has with Lucia di Lammermoor.
And, although I’m not all that hard to either charm or move, I doubt I would have been charmed – or even moved – by this particular story. (On reflection, I might have been moved to the exit, but that would be about it.)
Plus, I have made it a practice throughout my life to avoid anything that has in its descriptor the word “hijinx.” Or at least that part of my life which has occurred once I stopped reading The Katzenjammer Kids in the Sunday funny papers.
I also tend to pass on anything touting the “southern spirit.”
I understand regional pride. Nothing wrong with loving where you’re from. But there are, unfortunately, a lot of negatives built in to that – at least to me. Maybe they just mean the good stuff, like not giving a shit what some snotty Northerner thinks of them. But too often that southern spirit involves waving the lost cause flag that wasn’t just a lost cause. It was a terrible cause. Folks can yammer on about ‘states rights’, but that state right that the Civil War was fought for was pretty much a state wrong.
Yes, I know it would be naïve to say North = Good; South = Evil.
Still, one of the war horses was worth backing; the other just plain wasn’t – which is not to say that Southerners shouldn’t honor their war dead. (Speaking of war dead, depending on who’s data you believe, the total – both sides – killed in the Civil War could have been 620,000. Or it could have been 750,000. Which is an awful lot of soldiers, given that the US population in 1860 wasn’t much more than 30 million.)
Of course, most of my reason for disparaging the Duck dudes is that I am an outrageous snob. I don’t imagine that I’d be gung-ho to see a musical about a bunch of Downeast rubes named Uncle Eph telling knee-slapping jokes about Bostonians, either.
No hee, no haw for me.
But if I were the type of gal who, if I found myself in Las Vegas with time on my hands, and between $60 and $155 left in my pocket, wanted to catch this show, I would be duck out of luck.
The Duck Commander Musical, which opened in early April to less than stellar reviews, is closing this coming weekend.
The last performance is scheduled for May 17th.
I’ll be in Boston and, outrageous snob that I am, I’ll be going to the Sunday matinee of Henry VI, Part 2 at the Actors’ Shakespeare Project.
"The production [and here we’re back to Duck Commander, not Henry VI] is thrilled to have had the opportunity to develop the 'Duck Commander Musical' at the Rio," the producers told theater magazine Playbill. "Much has been learned from this limited engagement, and from the great support from everyone who has come to see this first staging of this completely new musical. Duck Commander will now consider several possible opportunities for the next stage in the life of the show, including extended sit-down engagements in interested cities, as well as a national tour." (Source: MSN)
Sit-down engagements? Does that mean dinner theater? Will duck be on the menu?
I’ll never find out, as I suspect that Boston won’t be high on their list of potential tour dates.
Meanwhile, with respect to their first run, the people have spoken.
All I can say is Viva. Las Vegas!
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A tug of the camo bandana to my brother-in-law John for spotting this bit of news.
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