Profile: Jim Loucks and "Booger Red," Hyde Park Theatre, Austin, October 17 - 19, 2024, by Dr. David Glen Robinson
Jim Loucks returns to Austin after earlier visits and performances at FronteraFest and other venues in our region. He brings back Booger Red to Hyde Park Theatre October 17-19.
A native of the Southeast and current resident of southern California, Loucks is nevertheless becoming a familiar face and talent in the Austin theatre community. His appearances are always welcome and foretell marvelous storytelling in his one-man shows.
Loucks is the essential theatre artist who early on began writing his own material for stage performance. In our brief interview, he described his course into literary stage presentations. He gained B.A. and M.F.A. degrees from the University of Georgia, with his writing of short stories published from his undergraduate days and his fascination with stage acting grown like kudzu through his entire career. He cited his regular stage presence at Highlands Playhouse in Highlands, North Carolina, a facility and program support by the University of Georgia.
An artist’s residency at Mahr Park Arboretum in Madisonville, Kentucky held a requirement for a produced work for creative writing workshops there. But that led to a heavily inspired detour down the backroads of memory straight to Booger Red. And the rest is an as-yet unfinished series of one-man shows receiving awards around the country in conjunction with the linked stories “Cemetery Golf” and “Biscuiteater.” The presentation of Booger Red at Hyde Park Theatre (October 17-19, 2024) is one stop in that long series of performances.
Loucks’ promotional material says clearly that Booger Red is based on his father, who went by that moniker. When asked directly if the one-man show is biographical or autobiographical, Loucks cautioned, “I make sure that I say, ‘loosely based’.” He sets that shred of protective coloration in his interview discussion and in the show. And then he proceeds to explore the deeper truths of growing up with a “hellfire and brimstone Baptist preacher,” with theatrical byways traveled to create a satisfying theatre and literary experience.
With boldness and considerable literary skill Loucks paints a living picture of the youthful South, like Andy of Mayberry but in vibrant color, not B/W. The village created in Loucks’ work lives in his mind, and he articulates it beautifully on stage.
Loucks uses secular terms like “religion” and “finding his own voice” in his stories, but in harder usages his descriptions are of fundamentalist Christianity and the near-universal phase of adolescent rebellion in a family of doctrinal inflections, ancient Biblical moral guidance, and career participation in the Christian establishment of religion.
Growing up cannot really be easy for a preacher’s kid, or PK. Loucks goes easy on a sometimes-harsh father but doesn’t spare us some of the blows. When young Jim came home exulting in the energy and exaltation he felt from performing on stage, Booger Red was loving but did caution that the power and the energy “might be Satan himself leading you astray” (the line and the scene are in the presentation).
This interviewer, who has a fundamentalist background and considerable acting experience, observed that stage energy and fiery preaching manifest the same energy. Do they not? Loucks agreed, but said that Booger Red maintained that he, Booger Red, was not performing.
What, then, was it? Perhaps the show will explore the question more, but Jim Loucks offered no further illumination on that in our interview.
See Booger Red for yourself October 17-19 at Hyde Park Theatre, Austin.
Booger Red
by Jim Louks
touring company
October 17 - October 19, 2024
October 17-19, 2024
Hyde Park Theatre, 511 W. 43rd St Austin, TX 78751
Performances: 8:00 p.m. on Thursday Oct 17, Friday Oct 18, and Saturday Oct 19, 2024.
Tickets: $20, available at hydeparktheatre.org and www.jimloucks.com.
