Red Hot Patriot

The Philadelphia Theater Company describes Molly Ivins as the "famously brassy newspaper columnist and best-selling author."  Sister playwrights Margaret and Allison Engel titled their play about her Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins, which certainly indicates how they think about her.

The "world premiere" of this play happened right here in Philly.  I saw the play yesterday and it was very entertaining and educational.  Kathleen Turner performed in this one-woman show and she was amazing.  The critics have smiled on this play, too.  There is some speculation that it may go to Broadway.

Kathleen Turner resembles Molly Ivins, as seen in the advertisement to the left. (The real Molly is on the top and Kathleen Turner is on the bottom.)  It was a little eerie when Kathleen was on stage and they showed black and white pictures of Ivins in the background.
 
Turner performed by telling a story to the audience. At times, the storytelling became more like a conversation with the audience.  It was a wonderful way to learn about Ivins.  Her wit was caustic at times and most always funny.  For example, she was the first to refer to George W. Bush as "shrub."  She had a dog named "Shit;" she named it that because she said there were times she needed to go out side and say, "Shit!  Shit!"

Other Molly Ivins quotes and quips abound on the internet.  Google her to find them.  Some examples are:

• Being slightly paranoid is like being slightly pregnant - it tends to get worse.
• I still believe in Hope - mostly because there's no such place as Fingers Crossed, Arkansas.

Ivins was fired from The New York Times for referring to a group of poultry farmers as "gang pluckers."  When she submitted the story, her editor called her and said she was trying to have their readers think of "gang f--kers."  To this, she replied, "I can't get anything by you."  (Of course, she was being extremely sarcastic.) 

Turner/Ivins shared how she was upset the Times wouldn't let her take Shit to work and that she couldn't walk around the office without shoes.  She also thought it was ridiculous that, when she was writing Elvis' obituary, she had to refer to him as "Mr. Presley" as was (and still is) the Times tradition.
 
While she was Smith College educated and was glad to win the prize of working for The New York Times, she was happy to head back to Texas.  This is where she was born and raised and where she worked for many years for many different papers.  Her favorite topic was writing about the ineptitude of the Texas legislature.  A particularly funny topic in the play was when she skewered a politican for his malapropisms.  One that I recall is "...you should not fire people but do it through 'employee nutrition'.
 
This play inspired me to request an inter-library loan book by Molly Ivins.  It's called Molly Ivins Can't Say that, Can She?  After that, I want to read a biography about her. 
 
Ivins was a hard working and hard drinking woman.  She died of breast cancer in 2007 at the age of 63.  She was controversial but wanted to make people think about their most important role - that of citizen.  She was, in fact, a Red Hot Patriot.