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SYRACUSE STAGE CAROLINE OR CHANGE STUDENT STUDY GUIDE 2011-12 The following articles are excerpted from a play guide to Caroline, or Change originally created for The Human Race Theatre Company, Dayton, Ohio By Rob Hartmann and David Buscher
“Caroline, or Change tells a story I’ve been thinking about for many years. It’s partly based on an incident from my childhood, grounded in memories from my early life. I wanted to write about race relations, the Civil Rights movement, and African-Americans and southern Jews in the early 1960s, a time of protean change sweeping the country – and to write about these things from the perspective of a small, somewhat isolated southern town. I grew up in Lake Charles, Louisiana during this period. Change was taking place in Lake Charles, of course, but in a more subterranean fashion, and at a different pace, than elsewhere in America.” – Tony Kushner, from the introduction to the published script of Caroline, or Change.
THE ORIGINS OF
IN LAKE CHARLES, LOUISIANA The city of Lake Charles lies in southwestern Louisiana, about 200 miles west of New Orleans. In 1963, when Caroline, or Change takes place, Lake Charles was home to approximately 63,000 people, with another 82,000 in the surrounding area (Calcasieu Parish). The population at the time was roughly 75% white and 25% African-American; today, it’s almost evenly split between white and black citizens.
“This is not a story that actually happened. My mother didn’t die when I was eight years old, thank God. But she did get very sick with cancer when I was twelve, [which] provoked a lot of difficulties in our lives. My mother was a progressive woman. I think she was uncomfortable having an African American woman doing her laundry in the middle of the Civil Rights movement. She grew up in great poverty in the Bronx. She believed that every nickel we left in our clothes was a treasure.”
Tony Kushner based the Gellman family in Caroline, or Change on his own family: eight-year-old Noah is a combination of Tony Kushner and his younger brother, Eric; Tony Kushner’s father, William, is a clarinetist, and his mother, Sylvia, played the bassoon...After marrying in 1948, they pursued their musical careers in New York, playing in the orchestra of the New York City Opera. Their daughter Lesley was born in 1954, followed by Tony in 1956. Two years later, the family moved to Lake Charles, where William’s parents owned a lumber business. Sylvia taught bassoon, while William eventually became the conductor of the local symphony. Their son Eric was born in 1961.
Ms. Davis, the mother of six, took the bus to the Kushner home five days a week, where she cleaned, cooked, and did the laundry. (Just as in the play, the Kushner home had a basement, which was rare for Louisiana.) Tony Kushner recalls, “I was impressed with her reserve, her incredible strength and dignity, and I guess a certain sense of courage.” Sylvia Kushner’s cancer eventually returned, and she passed away in 1990. Ms. Davis continued to work for William Kushner once a week in Lake Charles. In 2004, when Caroline, or Change opened on Broadway, Ms. Davis and her daughter Carolyn attended opening night. After the performance, Tony Kushner approached her for her reaction:
The Kushners lived near the lake, just around the corner from the fictional address of the Gellman home in Caroline, or Change, 913 St. Anthony Street (St. Anthony Street exists – but number 913 does not). In 1960, Mrs. Kushner hired a maid, Maudie Lee Davis, who would work for the Kushner family for the next 45 years, and who would eventually become the inspiration for the character of Caroline Thibodeaux. Tony Kushner is adamant that the story of Caroline, or Change is not completely autobiographical:
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“I asked her, ‘Do you think that character is anything like you? ‘She said that she loved ‘Caroline.’ It made her cry. And she told me that she liked Caroline, the character. But no, she said: They weren’t the same. But her daughter was standing right behind her, making faces at me! I understood. She thought that I had gotten her mother just right.”