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Charles Kerbs
Born: 8/8/1940 · Died: 3/4/2002
03/14/02 By David Cuthbert Theater writer/The Times-Picayune
BYE, BYE BLUES: New Orleans lost one of its most distinctive theater voices when playwright-director-actor Charles Kerbs died last week following heart surgery. He went out with a hit. Kerbs, who had only recently returned to theater work after a long absence, had ...Read More
03/14/02 By David Cuthbert Theater writer/The Times-Picayune
BYE, BYE BLUES: New Orleans lost one of its most distinctive theater voices when playwright-director-actor Charles Kerbs died last week following heart surgery. He went out with a hit. Kerbs, who had only recently returned to theater work after a long absence, had just scored a resounding success with the whimsical "Midgets From Uranus." It was a hit both at Dramarama and in a run at the Cowpokes' Barn theater space, where Kerbs had joined forces with DRAMA! the fledgling gay and lesbian theater troupe and started a theater workshop that was producing new works and training actors. Kerbs' first DRAMA! coup was to have discovered a late Tennessee Williams one-act, "The Travelling Companion," which was performed last year at the Barn and will be an official part of this year's Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Theatre Festival, an appropriate selection since it's a gay riff on Williams' "Sweet Bird of Youth," currently being performed on the main stage at Le Petit Theatre, festival headquarters. "Just having Charles work with us made people take us seriously," said Charlie Hayes, executive director of DRAMA! "Charles knew so much about theater, literature, art -- he was a great visual artist, as well. "He was the first professional theater person to work with us, and he brought other incredible people down here, such as Lyla Hay Owen and now Luis Barroso . . ." Kerbs was the resident playwright at Owens' People Playhouse, beginning in 1969. The People Playhouse, began in a Magazine St. building (since torn down) that was actually Nancy Staub's Puppet Playhouse in the daytime and the People Playhouse at night, where original plays and the classics were performed. This joint enterprise was one of the most active and adventurous theaters in town. "I don't know what kind of writer I am yet," Kerbs said in an interview. Kerbs said his work was "not well-behaved," and on the abstract side. Hs first, full-length play "Terrible Events," was described by this writer in 1972 as "a mad, merry, oddly sobering absurdist comedy-drama." The key to this work, I thought, was the line, "Some people actually try to say what they feel and usually screw it up -- but they get points for trying." "I first met Charles in 1964 in a Free Southern Theater acting workshop," Owen said. "He had just come back from New York where he had worked with Judith Malina, Sam Shepard, that whole crowd. He went back to New York and I asked him to return when the People Playhouse got under way. "I always tell people that anything I've learned about acting, I learned from Charles. At the People Playhouse, we both did everything: acted, wrote, directed, did workshops." "He was the last Renaissance man in New Orleans," said writer friend Jon Newlin. Kerbs' plays were also produced at Tulane University, the Provincetown Playhouse and the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. "Anyone who knew anything about theater had a lot of respect for what Charles could do," Barroso said, "because he could do it all. When they moved the People Playhouse to Apple Street, I directed a musical revue he and Lyla wrote and performed that proved very popular called ‘Looney Blues.' " Long overdue for revival, "Looney Blues" was a delightful entertainment on the subject of love: "It's like certain people you may know," a reviewer wrote, "bright and bustling on the outside, but with a tender, serious aspect they reveal from time to time." Now Barroso is directing Tennessee Williams' one-act "Auto Da Fe" for a DRAMA! double bill that will also include Williams' "Something Unspoken" March 22-30 at the Barn, 1030 Marigny St. "The Traveling Companion," will be revived March 22 and 23 at 2 p.m. at the Children's Corner at Le Petit Theatre. There will be a Charles Kerbs memorial service March 24 at 1 p.m. at the Barn, where friends are invited to speak and Cynthia Owen will sing "Amazing Grace." For more information, call 671-8232. "Above all," said Lyla Hay Owen, "he was a true artist, and a generous one."
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