Interview: Betsy Kruse Craig Channels Molly Ivins in One-Woman Show at Invisible Theatre

Inasmuch as everyday heroes carry on without capes, some couldn't care less about optics, unruffled by the trouble they cause while doing a good deed.

Molly Ivins was that breed of champion: a trailblazing journalist who pulled no punches in condemning the unscrupulous politics of the right. A wily provocateur, she managed to poke the proverbial bear with acerbic humor and her signature wordplay.

To wit, Ivins skewered the powerful while advocating for the common citizen: "When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel; it's vulgar." She was an unabashed liberal in deep-red Texas and a constant thorn in George W. Bush's side (whom she nicknamed "Shrub"). She was a New York Times best-selling author and a syndicated columnist whose work appeared in nearly 400 newspapers across the country. Despite her fatal struggle with breast cancer, Ivins remained a risible spitfire who laughed in the face of adversity.

RED HOT PATRIOT is a one-woman play based on the life and times of Molly Ivins. Written by twins Margaret and Allison Engel, both journalists, it premiered off-Broadway in 2012, starring Kathleen Turner (why, of course!). Nancy Davis Booth directs.

True to its progressive distinction, Invisible Theatre is mounting the show as the second production of IT's 51st season. And who better to play the role of salty tigress than the company's very own artistic associate, Betsy Kruse Craig?

I'm probably not the first to acknowledge our good fortune for having Betsy back in Tucson after nine years in the Bay Area, some of which were spent running a theater company. But flattery aside, her return didn't come with the trumpet call she probably deserved. To say she's a local treasure is an understatement; that she's the ideal vehicle for channeling Molly Ivins on the stage is accurate.

I sat down with Betsy on a midday break from work. Not a minute passed before I recognized the palpable glee from an actor who can't wait to showcase a material that's right up her alley.

BWW: Talk a little bit about your connection with Invisible Theatre and how you came to be an integral part of the company's artistic decisions.

BETSY: I did my first show at IT in 1992. I was in grad school at the U of A. I did THE REAL INSPECTOR HOUND, with Jim (Blair). I had seen Suz [Susan Claassen, founding artistic director] do THE SEARCH FOR SIGNS OF INTELLIGENT LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE and was blown away. She did it here and I. WAS. BLOWN. AWAY. I'd been obsessed with the script; in fact I used pieces of it for my graduate performance. She was wonderful in that piece. I ended up doing a show here, and that was before I lived in New York. And when I moved back from New York, I just kind of came back in and did some shows while I was doing other things...teaching at Pima and at the university.

BWW: I get that intelligent plays are a staple at IT. So how did RED HOT PATRIOT come up as one of your choices for the season?

BETSY: It was a piece that Suz had had around for a while. She hadn't told me about it when I was in California but when I came back she threw it my way and she said, "You've got to read this. It's perfect for you." And I read it and went, "Oh, pffft...YEAH! A six-foot-tall redhead who's politically interested, snarky and intelligent." And then when I started diving into Molly Ivins, what you don't get when you read the surface of her work, is how incredibly intelligent she really, really was. And how she absolutely paved the way for the form, for the political journalism that includes a level of humor... she's the one who kind of started that form.

BWW: Tell me about the structure of the play itself.

Betsy: It's a very interesting piece of work, in that it encompasses the whole scope of her life. You get her history, you get her politics, you get a taste of her relationships (the most important of which was her antagonistic one with her father). You follow her all the way to the end of her life in this play. My hope -- the way I feel about it as an actor -- is that you're really sad when it comes to an end. You think about the political scene today and it would have been great fun to watch she would have done.

BWW: What do you want the audience to know about the show -- particularly those who've never heard of Molly Ivins?

Betsy: You HAVE to hear about her. You HAVE to. It's unbelievble that this woman, in the 70s through the 90s (she died in 2007), was incredibly prescient. She was so incredibly intelligent -- reading her book(s) was incredibly difficult. You have to go back and read it again and mine it because there is so much there. She has a way of writing, which is very funny, but in between the jokes...like she talks about: Jokes are a means to an end. When you make people laugh, they open up their ears and they hear you. They tried to put her on TV; she had a gig on 60 minutes for a while. She hated it. She worked at the New York Times, and she got fired. She walks in with her dude and her bare feet in the news room. It didn't quite fly.

BWW: She was quite the iconoclast.

Betsy: Absolutely. She talked about how if she didn't have a Texas accent she would have been lynched by now for saying the things she said. She was ruthless to some of the Texas politicians. There's a great cartoon with two famous female politicians where [it says] "Can you imagine what Molly would do on Twitter to Trump?" Because she was the queen of the one-liners. And a master of that short form.

But it's also interesting -- just like most good stories, there's the impression that you get from her writing, or from seeing her interviews (and what I think is wonderful about this piece) is that you really get to know her. You get to know some of her vulnerabilities and some of her motivations.

BWW: She was probably a tough one to live up to as a partner.

Betsy: Very. She was an alcoholic. She talks about how that stood in the way of being close to anyone, permanently. And she was married to her work. She worked non-stop. She had breast cancer, went through 3 rounds of it. It was about 7-8 years dealing with that, and trying to get sober during that time.

BWW: Is it fair to say she'd be a progressive by today's standards?

Betsy: Definitely. I was just reading yesterday -- because I wanted to know if she had written anything about abortion. And she wrote a really wonderful essay the day that Roe V. Wade was passed, and it just made incredibly emotional because it would just be heartbreaking...

BWW: ...if she had to write a new piece about it.

Betsy: Exactly. She wrote -- and was a huge fan of the Texas Observer, which I'd never heard of before I started this piece. Very left-wing paper, and it's still there. And it's still there. She left the Observer and the ACLU in her will.

I think that there are some beautiful things in this piece about encouraging people to realize that no matter what you do in life, you have another job, which is being a citizen! You have to be responsible and make sure that your voice is heard to use the political power that you have as a citizen. That's incredibly inspiring! Her non-stop commitment to making sure that people were informed and motivated, by any means possible.

RED HOT PATRIOT will play November 1-13, 2022

Photo Credit: Kathleen Dreier - Creatista

For tickets, visit: https://www.invisibletheatre.com/

The Invisible Theatre
1400 N. First Avenue (at Drachman), Tucson, AZ 85719

RUNNING TIME:
75 minutes with no intermission
AGE RECOMMENDATION:
Mature ages 18 and up. Mature language.

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