Images courtesy of the University of Louisiana-Lafayette Press.
A scene from the original production of Carolyn Nur Wistrand's play, "She Danced with a Redfish," at Dillard University. Women of Vieux Carré: Kasey King, Jocilyn Johnson, Cierra Brown, Loreal Armstead, Sydney Jack, Jada Williams; Destani Smith as Sanité Dédé; Rashella Mariá Marie Laveau; Sterling Miller as Bras-Coupé.
In St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 on Basin Street in New Orleans, Marie Laveau’s tomb is the City of the Dead’s biggest draw. The site is so popular that the Catholic diocese controlling the cemetery has imposed strict limits on even approved tour groups coming through to see it. They must take turns, patiently waiting for the prior group to snap their photos before getting a closer look. When they finally face the oft-vandalized brick and stucco tomb, it is covered in scrawled “x”s and littered with offerings: liquor bottles, cosmetics, cigarettes, hair ties, flowers. What is left of Laveau’s bones may be interred here (though even that is up for debate), but this place also serves as a reminder of the way she persists in the living world of New Orleans myth.
It is these two distinct-yet-inseparable versions of Laveau as human and legend whom Carolyn Nur Wistrand depicts in her two-act play She Danced with a Redfish, which had its world premiere in 2017 at Cook Theater at Dillard University, New Orleans, where Wistrand is a professor of drama and English. The story centers on Laveau’s spiritual awakening as she becomes the “Widow Paris,” losing her husband and unborn child while simultaneously accumulating the power which would eventually lead to her status as the “Voudou Queen of New Orleans.”
[Read more about designating Marie Laveau's tomb with a Legends and Lore marker.]
Some plays are best performed on stage and never read; thankfully, this is not one of those, and earlier this year UL Press published it in book-form. Even with relatively minimal stage directions, Wistrand manages to depict Laveau’s world on St. Ann Street viscerally, leaning into drama and magical realism to let the audience’s imagination fill gaps intentionally left vague. Photographs from the original production at Dillard assist in filling in the vision, as well. It is easy to imagine how a theatre director might be drawn to producing She Danced with a Redfish, assuming they could guarantee a strong cast of Black or Creole actors to carry it: the setting is relatively simple and fixed at Laveau’s home, and historical accuracy would likely be the biggest hurdle for the otherwise simple staging.
The “Women of the Vieux Carre”—named Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday—act as a chorus, establishing the scene and forwarding the narrative throughout. Wistrand’s use of a chorus conjures the feel of a Greek or Roman play, which draws interesting parallels between the mythology and theatre of New Orleans and that of ancient Greece. A devotee of both, I was inspired by this play to consider connections I never before noticed, depicting Laveau with raw human emotion, tragedy, and power not unlike Sophocles’s Antigone or Euripides’s Medea.
Image courtesy of the University of Louisiana-Lafayette Press.
Cover of "She Danced with a Redfish."
Of course, this play is not set in ancient Greece—it takes place in early nineteenth-century New Orleans, a time and place that is subject to a great deal of mythologizing itself. Wistrand takes care to weave in references that glimpse what that world might have been like for a free woman of color in Laveau’s position. It’s a world that remembers Saint-Domingue, where the Haitian Revolution occurred and where Laveau’s husband, Jacques Paris was born; a world shaped by the Code Noir, which governed enslaved individuals in French-owned New Orleans. There are references to the 1811 German Coast Uprising, the largest rebellion of enslaved people in American history; to Congo Square, where enslaved people and free people of color gathered on Sundays to chant, drum, and trade goods; and to Bayou Road, which was and continues to be a stronghold of Black and Creole communities. Pere Antoine, Spanish priest of St. Louis Cathedral at the time, makes an appearance in conversation; as do placage balls, where it’s said married European men would go to find Creole mistresses.
Those looking for a historically accurate telling of Laveau’s life in She Danced with a Redfish will be disappointed; offended, even. In the process of praising the work, author and UNO professor Niyi Osundare called it the product of an “audacious imagination,” and this rings true. But those who have studied Marie Laveau know better than to expect a realistic biography in the first place, because too little is known about Laveau’s life for that to be possible.
The play is character-driven, and these subjects are addressed through imagined members of Laveau’s orbit. One is her friend, Colette, who is mistress to a French captain and has Laveau style her hair for placage balls. Another is Dr. John, Laveau’s more sinister Voudou priest counterpart who was also a real person, purportedly entombed in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, not far from Laveau.
Those looking for a historically accurate telling of Laveau’s life in She Danced with a Redfish will be disappointed; offended, even. In the process of praising the work, author and UNO professor Niyi Osundare called it the product of an “audacious imagination,” and this rings true. But those who have studied Marie Laveau know better than to expect a realistic biography in the first place, because too little is known about Laveau’s life for that to be possible. Though she was a real person—a flesh and bone free woman of color who lived in a cottage on St. Ann and was baptized at St. Louis Cathedral, and who (at least allegedly) is interred in St. Louis Cemetery—our lack of information and surplus of mythos relegate and elevate her to the position of legend. It is within these confines that Wistrand contributes to Laveau’s ever-expanding tapestry of lore by vividly presenting her for the stage.
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