In his book “Dangerous When Wet” (2015), which also became a solo show, consummate storyteller Jamie Brickhouse gave us a tell-all tale of his alcoholism and his larger-than-life Mama Jean. He has now followed it with a theater piece, “I Favor My Daddy,” focusing on his father and tellingly subtitled “A Tale of Two Sissies.” It had its Fire Island premiere at the Cherry Grove Community House and Theater on August 7, thanks to the Arts Project of Cherry Grove. Matt Baney and Alison Brackman were responsible for tech, sound, and lights.
Called Daddy-poo by his son Jamie, J. Earl Brickhouse was a Beaumont, Texas celebrity and a devoted husband, father, and stepfather. And beneath his staunch Republican Conservative exterior, there were undeniable signs of sensitivity and, perhaps, hints of more, could he have lived his life more like Jamie has. This parent “who liked showtunes” was full of surprises.
On the beach at Acapulco, when Jamie was 15, his father found him being photographed by two men in bikinis and warned him about them. Jamie would open the envelope containing J. Earl’s copy of Playboy before his father saw it and finally found what he was looking for in the February 1981 ‘Year in Sex’ issue—a glimpse of frontal male nudity—and he stashed that Playboy where he could find it. His mother caught him reading a gay novel, ostensibly left behind by his gay half-brother, snatched it away, and brought it to his father, which touched off a bout of parental bickering.
Jamie dreaded having his father read “Dangerous When Wet,” but ultimately presented it to him a year before it was published. His father praised it and particularly loved the portrait that his son painted of Mama Jean, already deceased, in it.
After J. Earl died, Jamie found, in addition to the continuing barrage of mail from the rightwing organizations, the Christmas cards from George and Laura Bush, that dramatic secrets were to be revealed: about the treasured magazine; the gay novel; a flashy Mexican shirt; an orange bikini; and an unexpected nickname. Was Jamie’s father more like him than he knew?
Jamie delivered “I Favor My Daddy” as if he was confiding in his dearest friends. And here in Cherry Grove, he was.
|
