Sept. 9-11: Bayou Lafourche Antique Show & Sale (Thibodaux)
August 31, 2011Friday, Sept. 2
September 2, 2011
Ten years after the horrific events of Sept. 11, 2001, questions about the events of the day still linger.
Contemporary playwright Steven Dietz’s “Yankee Tavern,” LePetit Theatre de Terrebonne’s latest production, is chock full of conspiracy theories … on everything … from Oswald being the lone shooter in the JFK assassination, to the Bush/Gore election in 2000, to the moon landing and 9/11.
Fact or fiction, if the world ever discovers the truth at all, the speculation will stimulate post-play conversation, the show’s director Edwina Yakupzack predicts.
“Yankee Tavern” is equal parts comedy, drama and thriller. It teams LePetit thespians Scott Courville (doctorate student Adam), Ani Ashley (Janet, his concerned fiance), George Beaudry (Ray, the voice of unreason) and Carlisle Jukes (Palmer, the man who knows which of Ray’s theories hit close to the truth).
The play finds earnest doctorate candidate Adam running the Yankee Tavern, a crumbling New York bar he inherited from his father, whom Ray discovered dead from a possible suicide Sept. 12, 2001, as the dust was still settling from the Twin Towers’ collapse.
Like Adam, Janet tolerates Ray, although he intends to invite dead people, whom he talks to regularly, to her wedding.
Meanwhile, itinerant resident Ray lives in the otherwise-abandoned run-down rooms over the bar, certain “they” have bugged the place, and spews his theories to all who will listen on a call-in radio talk show and in the tavern.
Ray has his own theories, and questions, about 9/11. Questions to which there are no easy answers. Why did Building 7, which was not hit, implode? If jet fuel burns at a lower temperature than the melting point of steel, why did the Towers’ frames melt?
When Palmer, a mysterious stranger, appears at the tavern with a packet of evidence, the comedy surrounding bookworm Adam’s lack of attention to Janet’s wedding preparations and Ray’s endless suppositions turn into a fierce mind bender.
And when Adam reveals his own dark mystery, Janet’s fears he is having an affair with an old college professor are replaced by a much more ominous truth. And could Ray’s outlandish hypotheses be dangerous realities.
“It’s a great read,” Yakupzack said of the script.
Audiences take away from the show: “Open your eyes and change things,” says Jukes, who teaches law at H.L. Bourgeois. “It’s the same thing I tell my students.
“If three-fourths of the things in this play are true, we’ve got problems. I’m not saying this is the end of the world as we know it, but it does make you think. It should make you want to act, to learn more at the very least.”
Beaudry, a former LePetit board member and longtime stagehand, predicts audiences will be entertained by Ray’s endless conspiracy theories but agrees there’s plenty to consider.
“Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean people are not out to get you.”
‘Yankee Tavern’
Where: LePetit Theatre de Terrebonne
When: Sept. 15-25, at 7:30 p.m. weekdays, 2 p.m. Sundays, and dark Mondays
Cost: $12
For More Info: (985) 876-4278 or
With Sept. 11’s anniversary looming, ‘Yankee Tavern’ is set to take the stage at LePetit Theatre de Terrebonne. Pictured (from left) are actress Ani Ashley and actors Scott Courville, George Beaudry and Carlisle Jones, each of whom will be featured in the play, which will run from Sept. 15-25 at 7:30 p.m.
