REVIEW: ‘Peacocks and Porches’ offers fresh and intimate look into woman’s search for grace

The cold winter rain pervading the evening seemed out of place on a night set aside for stories of hospitality and community set in the South. However, as writer, actor and director Rebecca Walker explains on the back of the “Peacocks and Porches” program, “I set out to make a show about grace and hospitality, about porches and family and history. Along the way, I also realized I was making a show about grief.”

That juxtaposition of fond remembrance in the midst of the great sadness that comes with having loved and lost, not to mention Walker’s frank and open way of communicating these difficult emotions to the audience, seemed to suit the weather just fine.

Walker introduces herself to the audience as “Rebecca,” wandering unhurriedly onto the stage in jeans and a white button-up, barefoot and open in a way many of us remember from our childhoods.

“This is a story about me,” Walker said to the audience. “About what I’m thinking about, about Alice Walker, about neighbors… But, mostly, about a peacock.”

And, like a peacock, Walker commands attention on the stage. The set is minimal. A bench on a risen dias to stand in for a front porch, a fence surrounding a podium to indicate emotional and physical separation, and a coat rack for Walker’s “feathers.”

She uses these set pieces and a small bag of accessories to transform herself and the story, going through the patient lessons of Flannery O’Connor, to the realizations of Alice Walker, to personal memories of her childhood summers spent on her flashy, gaudy and love-filled grandmother’s front porch.

There is whimsy and nostalgia in Walker’s voice as she wonders: If she had a front porch now as she had then, would she be more connected with her community? Would she be more inclined to invite people over to talk about nothing as the evening sky grew darker and the stars came out? Would she be happier?

The solo performance held at the Bayou Theater on Jan. 31, left the audience with those unanswered questions, but Walker stuck around after the show ended to answer some other ones and try to provide insight to a refreshingly enthusiastic audience.

One of the first questions asked during the post-show Q&A session was if Walker currently had a front porch and if having or not having one has made a difference in her life. She doesn’t have a front porch, she responded, but she doesn’t think a front porch is the only way to gain that sense of community and hospitality that she alludes to missing so much in her show.

An associate professor of communication studies at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Walker spoke hopefully of her approach to making room for that type of connection to grow through creative communication with her students.

“I want to create a space for my students so that we have a chance to build the types of connections that I built with my professors in school,” Walker said, mentioning efforts to include her students in out-of-class activities and inviting them to dinner or celebrations. “As teachers are asked to do more and more, it becomes difficult to give time over to creating that space. But, it’s still important.”

That effort, to go the extra mile, to give a human connection a chance to grow, is what really matters, Walker added. She ends on a teaching point, saying, “You get out of community what you put into it.”

For information regarding future Bayou Theater performances, including the first full musical production presented by the theatre in over 20 years, “Roald Dahl’s Willy Wonka,” scheduled for April, visit https://www.uhcl.edu/bayou-theater/events-tickets/.