Beneath the Sweetgrass Moon
NOTES FROM THE PLAYWRIGHT
Beneath the Sweetgrass Moon has been in development for a long time. It began as a commission from the South Carolina Arts Commission in 1975 for a statewide tour. It was then called Tales of Carolina South. Because of artistic differences between the director and the (brash 22 year old) playwright, that script was never produced. In 1978 when I founded the Young Charleston Theatre Company (now Charleston Stage), this show—then with the improbable and unpronounceable name of CaroliniAntics! became the second show of the company’s very first season. My fiance, Jenny, arranged beautiful exhibits and demonstrations in the lobby that featured Mary Bennett’s sweetgrass baskets, shrimp net weaver Scrape Nelson from Edisto, patchwork quilts from John’s Island Quilters, and the work of legendary blacksmith, Philip Simons. The show incorporated children’s songs and rhythm games which Jenny had learned from Mrs. Janie Hunter on John’s Island. It was a true Lowcountry celebration.
A lovely young girl by the name of Evie McGee, who had grown up next door to the Dock Street Theatre, played the Brown Rabbit. She is now Mrs. Steven Colbert.
Although modestly successful, that premiere production was in many ways an incomplete script, and I put it aside. In the summer of 2003, however, I returned to that early draft and revisited the original source materials. Along the way, I discovered a few new sources for South Carolina folk tales, songs, and spirituals. Using these, I created a new script and retitled the show Beneath the Sweetgrass Moon. It was first performed in the fall of 2003.
A Note On Sources
While we shall never know the actual author/composer of these folk tales, songs, and rhythm games we are greatly indebted to these imaginative and often anonymous writers and storytellers. Quite probably there were many generations of authors and composers who remembered, and often creatively re-imaged, these songs and tales with each retelling.
The present generation is especially indebted to those who remembered and those who recorded and wrote down and transcribed these unique tales. We all owe an enormous debt to these folklorists, writers and activists.
For this reason, I gratefully acknowledge the following people and sources for their inspiration, in my own retelling of these classic tales of Carolina South:
South Carolina Folktales, Stories of Animals and Supernaturual Beings. Compiled by workers of the Writers’ Program of the Works Progress Administration in the State of South Carolina. University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina. The South Carolina Writers Project which collected numerous tales during its program with the WPA in the 1930’s. Some were published in this volume others are available in manuscript at the South Carolinian Library at USC in Columbia.
Ambrose Gonzales’s With Aesop Along the Black Border and The Black Border, Stories of the Carolina Coast (both out of print) contain a number of interesting tales.
Slaves’ Songs of the U.S., this book with transcriptions from St. Helena’s Island is one of the earliest recordings of SC spirituals. It was created by the Freedman’s Bureau in 1867.
The Society for the Preservations of Spirituals of Charleston whose society still gives concerts each spring with songs they have handed down from generation to generation. They have also published many of these spirituals in “The South Carolina Lowcountry”.
The Stoddard Collection of Folktales at the Library of Congress. Arthur Stoddard (1872-1954) grew up on Daufauskie Island where he recorded a number of these tales. The Library of Congress has a number of other unpublished field recordings of South Carolina Folktales and songs in their Folk life collection. (www.loc.gov/folklife/ndl.html)
Elsie May Parsons, whose article “Folk Culture of the Sea Islands, SC” in the Journal of American Folklore, has some of the best of tales and riddles.
Guy B. Johnson whose "Folk Culture on St. Helena’s Island" is also filled with fine retellings of tales and riddles.
Guy and Candie Carawan’s Ain’t You Got a Right to the Tree of Life is an excellent chronicle of life on John’s Island in the 1960’s, which was not much different than life there 100 years before. Certainly, the rich culture of singing and storytelling were alive and well when the Carawans lived among the families around Moving Star Hall. The Carawans were among the first to transcribe many of the stories and songs and games of Janie Hunter and other living repositories of Sea Island songs, games and tales. Their excellent recordings are available on Folkways Records including the still available Been in the Storm So Long.
The late Janie Hunter who lived her life on John’s Island and shared these songs, games and stories, was an amazing repository of these tales. Without her, many would not have survived. My wife, Jenny Hane met with Miss Janie a number of times to learn some of the songs and games. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to hear her as well.
Bessie Jones, whose book Step It Down which is by far the most complete rendering of the children’s African-American rhythm games and songs heard all across the South Carolina and Georgia Sea Islands, was also a prime resource. Her renderings are often unique and splendid. She and Janie Hunter were the two living legends of this kind of music. Fortunately many of the songs, stories and games Bessie Jones and Mrs. Janie Hunter kept alive through oral tradition have been captured through recordings and transcriptions.
Julian Wiles,
Playwright