From Hartford Courant
By Christopher Arnott
Jacques Lamarre wasn’t planning to make a stage show out of his recent trip to Florida. The local playwright was just going on one of what he calls his “craycations” (as in a cray-cray or crazy vacation), jaunts to odd tourist attractions with his husband or friends. He’d turned an earlier “craycation” to Missouri and Arkansas into a show called “Red State Road Trip” in 2018, but he doesn’t travel with the expectation of dramatizing his experiences.
When he made Florida a destination, he couldn’t resist the urge to make another show. “Florida: State of Confusion” will have two performances on Feb. 22 at 7:30 p.m. and Feb. 23 at 8 p.m. at the Carriage House Theater on Farmington Avenue. The piece is described as a “whirlwind comedy travelogue” that “will take you on a journey that includes a cult, mermaids, wax Presidents and a machine gun ‘shooting attraction’ just minutes away from the site of the Pulse Nightclub massacre.”
The show is a special fundraising event for HartBeat Ensemble, as was “Red State Road Trip.” While Lamarre is not a regular member of the HartBeat collective, he’s a longtime supporter of the company. “I’ve been friends with HartBeat almost since they started,” he said. He collaborated on projects with the theater when he was director of communications at the neighboring Mark Twain House and Museum. HartBeat Ensemble is now one of Lamarre’s clients at the Hartford-based marketing and public relations firm BuzzEngine, where he is a senior project manager.
HartBeat Ensemble was founded in 2001 by Steven Raider-Ginsburg, Julia B. Rosenblatt and Gregory R. Tate. The theater is currently overseen by artistic director Godfrey L. Simmons Jr. and managing director Rhoda Cerritelli. HartBeat has always specialized in shows about contemporary social issues that speak directly to Hartford audiences. They have done original historical dramas about Hartford residents, explorations of the city’s neighborhoods and dramas based on issues affecting Hartford’s Black and LatinX populations.
When Lamarre realized he needed to share his thoughts on his Florida jaunt publicly, the project took on the same format as “Red State Road Trip.” The playwright will read aloud from a lively text he wrote, while hundreds of actual photos he took on the trip are projected beside him. “Most eyes will be on the screen,” he predicts. “It’s a bit of a throwback to when people would come back from a vacation and show you their slides.”
The “craycation” tradition started when “I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti,” the play which Lamarre had adapted from a memoir by Giulia Melucci, was being given a production at the prestigious Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park in Ohio. Lamarre’s plays have been performed around the country, particularly in Hartford. Besides “I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti” and its recent sequel “Secondo,” TheaterWorks has staged another food-themed Lamarre play, “Raging Skillet,” and he is the largest single contributor to that theater’s annual “Christmas on the Rocks” holiday show.
Seven Angels Theater in Waterbury premiered Lamarre’s plays “Born Fat” (based on the autobiography by local entrepreneur Elizabeth Petruccione) and “Italian Mom Loves You” (which was co-written with its star Daniel Franzese). His work has been seen at Hole in the Wall in New Britain as part of the Hartford Fringe Festival and at numerous other theaters in Connecticut. He is also beloved in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where he crafted many routines for the drag queen Varla Jean Merman. His current projects include not just a new Varla Jean show but something for another top drag queen, Canada-based Miss Conception.
For “Red State Road Trip,” what made the story worth sharing in a theater during that time was that a travel advisory had recently been issued to Black drivers in that part of the country after a spate of discriminatory incidents.
“We were going to Branson to have fun, but we were going under this cloud,” Lamarre recalled. In “Florida: State of Confusion,” Lamarre explores what he describes as “his conflicted feelings about going to the most popular tourist destination in the United States and not liking what they do there. There was a certain disappointment. Weird feelings.” He shared those feelings online. “I went on Facebook and asked people how they feel about Florida. People have opinions. There was a lot of hate, but there were defenders as well.”
His general distaste for Walt Disney World in the play is offset by the enthusiasm of one of his two traveling companions, Mallory. She is an unrepentant “Disney adult,” the term used for mature fans of Disney shows and theme parks. “Mallory goes to Disney World once or twice a year,” Lamarre said. “Though she’d been there just weeks before, she said she couldn’t go to Orlando without going to Disney World.”
The show has some contemporary social commentary in it, he said. “As with anything at HartBeat Ensemble, it’s hard to avoid politics. Certainly, with Florida, it’s hard not to mention Ron DeSantis or Matt Gaetz.”
But “Florida: State of Confusion” is also about a fun trip to tourist traps throughout the Sunshine State. “If people are looking for bizarre places to visit in Florida, they have to go to Boyet’s Citrus Attraction in Brookville. It’s the craziest place we went to.”
Lamarre’s “travelogue” shows aren’t meant for touring or to be performed by anyone besides their creator. “I’m in the photos,” he said. “It wouldn’t work with anyone else.” Both “Red State Road Trip” and “Florida: State of Confusion” were created expressly as fundraisers for HartBeat Ensemble, but “Red State Road Trip” had a bit of an afterlife when Lamarre was asked to perform it at a couple of Unitarian churches.
“If it sells well,” Lamarre said, “I would be delighted to add more performances.”
The new show is “very relatable,” he said. “Most people go on a vacation of some sort. Many go to Florida. I have relatives in Florida and friends in Florida.
“I’m not wanting to berate Florida people or Disney adults,” Lamarre said, “but that might happen.”
