Butterfly in the Typewriter Read Online Free PDF Page B

the “stentorian voice” of the principal lecturing and reprimanding the student body, Thelma saw in her son a natural born actor.
    It must have pleased her immensely when in 1948 he joined a youth theater troupe offered through the parks and recreation department. The Traveling Theatre Troupers was a rather large group of children and adolescents that performed plays on stages throughout the town. Thelma eagerly supported her son’s interest in acting. When he was cast to play the minor role of a Chinaman cook in a performance of A Leapyear in Arizona around Mardi Gras season, Thelma had a Chinaman suit made for him to serve as both his costume for the play and his
Mardi Gras attire. Made of eye-catching lavender sheen, he proudly wore the costume in the production and paraded it through the streets of New Orleans during Carnival. He donned heavy makeup on his face to make his eyebrows look long and dark and his eyes appear almond in shape. When in character, he raised his cheeks, pursed his lips, and squinted his eyes, making all “the farcical expressions of the Asian face.” The production took place at an outdoor theater in a park, and Thelma recalled how children playing in the distance looked at her son gesturing at the back of the stage. “Look at the Chinaman!” she heard them exclaim. For a moment, he had stolen the show. He took this character to Charity Hospital to entertain the elderly, a performance that was broadcast on the radio.
    Racial stereotypes in performance art were despairingly common in Toole’s day, especially in the Jim Crow South. In Mystery at the Old Fort , Toole played Dick Bishop, “a boy . . . full of adventure”; and of course there was Chief Charley Horse, “an old Indian,” surely played by a white youth. And in a summer production of Crinoline to Calico , much of the entirely white cast, along with Toole, performed in blackface. Granted, blackface has an elaborate history in theater performance, especially in New Orleans where the krewe of Zulu, comprised of African American members, satirically parades in blackface every Mardi Gras. The musician Louis Armstrong even appeared as the King of Zulu in 1949. But in Uptown, the young actors were playing the traditional role of minstrelsy, one that would die away with the civil rights movement.
    Whether her son gestured as a Chinaman, danced in blackface, or played more conventional roles, Thelma felt that the directors at the Traveling Theatre Troupers underappreciated her son’s talents. So in the summer of 1949, when Toole was eleven, she started her own youth theater troupe, the Junior Variety Performers. She put together variety shows of music and dramatic interpretation, as opposed to full plays. Members of the group do not recall feeling Toole was given undue preference. However, in Thelma’s own recollection, she intended to place him center stage from the first rehearsal to the last performance. When the troupe was to give a gala at the U.S. Marine Hospital to the theme of “romance in words and music,” she searched the library for material, but ultimately decided to write it herself with her son cast as the star:
    I composed various lovers for him, very quickly. When he came home . . . I said, “Son, you are going to do this for our gala performance.” It was in two weeks. I said, “I am going to read it to you, and tonight you study and give it back to me tomorrow.” He could memorize as I could. So he gave it back to me. It was a little better than my rendition. He was the star. It was a beautiful production.
    Theater was serious business in the Toole home. Between the ages of eight and twelve, there were many photos of him taken that appear staged, almost professional, as if they might serve as headshots or promotional material to land much larger parts in theater or film. The newspaper featured his photo to promote performances. He appeared on