Dixie Longate's Tupperware Party
A Solution for Tough Times
By: Susan Hall - Aug 12, 2011
Dixie’s Tupperware Party
By Kris Andersson
Return Engagement by Popular Demand
Garner Galleria Theater
Denver, Colorado
Dixie Longate Dixie Longate
Patrick Richwood Director
Richard Winkler Lighting Design
Christopher K. Bond Sound Design
Through August 21, 2011
I spoke with Dixie Longate before her Tupperware Party in the Garner Galleria Theater, a cabaret setting in the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. Dixie comes from Mobile, Alabama and has three children who have been 3, 10 and 16 since 2004. I have spent a lot of time in Alabama, but was not born there, which I sort of lied about as we began to talk.
While I may know more about sitting under the pecan tree in front of the courthouse and talking about history as though I had a PhD from Hawvud, about telephoning catfish, and Lummie Jenkins, the sheriff who called in criminals by simply shouting out their names, Dixie knows a lot more about being a single Mom who works as a Tupper party lady to keep the Gulfstream’s roof over the heads of her demanding kids. Her oldest Wynona is so appreciative of Mom that she built a seashell path right in front of the trailer even though she was drunk. They begin doing everything early in the South.
Dixie came to the Fringe Festival in New York in 2004 and has not stopped giving Tupperware parties on stage since then. Reviewers often remark on her colorful, bawdy language, but I was struck as the party progressed by Dixie’s wisdom, her feminist ardor and her wish to convey hope to anyone who felt downtrodden. Brave men come to these parties too and seem to have an awful good time.
Don’t worry that the serious side of Dixie squashes a ribald evening. On Wednesday, some gentleman named Steve really got it as we all howled. Dixie can be merciless, but always you sense the big heart behind the taunts. There was a suggestion of Philip Roth’s liver being put in a Tupperware container for just the purposes Roth imagined in Portnoy’s Complaint, of possible uses of Tupperware products as sex toys, and a raffle in which the audience is called up to the stage to participate.
At one point we were all asked to hold hands. Dixie pointed out that you can’t do this online. She is pro work, pro women and pro contact out of the ether. And pro joy.
During the course of the evening, Brownie Wise, who came up with the idea of Tupperware parties, was celebrated for her vision. Women had of course gone to work during the Second World War because they could not be recruited by the military and the men were off fighting. Like 17th century Holland when women ran everything because the men were off at sea, this was a wonderful time for women’s empowerment. It ended when the men returned to claim their jobs. If you were lucky enough to become a Tupperware saleswoman, you could turn to people who tried to put you down, and say, “Fuck you,” just the way Dixie taught a prim member of the audience to say it, loud and clear.
Tupperware parties were the legitimate successor to Rosie the Riveter, whose symbolic muscle display is still hung on the walls of young women in college dorms. Dixie could be hung right beside her.
Avon and Mary Kaye took up the party idea of Wise and Dixie’s shows us why the parties work. They are great fun. If this way of empowering women is not your style, you will still enjoy a touching and raunchy performance by Dixie. Garner Galleria Theater is the perfect venue for reality theater.
Dixie’s Tupperware party is what reality shows are at their best. Dixie seemed to be thinking about another type of party to present in this format. I for one can’t wait to see what she’ll come up with next. PS. You can buy Tupperware at the party if you need some. The little balls are irresistible.