“Part memory play, part eulogy, part concert” are the first seven words describing Thursday night’s performance description of Precious Memories. The play was written by Si Kahn and performed by Sue Massek as part of the 10th Annual Appalachian Festival. With convincing passion and conviction, Massek embraces the role of Sarah Ogan Gunning, an obscure folk singer and songwriter from eastern Kentucky during early to mid-1900’s. Through the play Gunning gives a biographical musical of her life and her relationship with her half-sister, displaying the many struggles of her life. Demonstrating both her rough, soulful singing and her classic bluegrass banjo prowess, with a projector of historical photos playing subtlety above, Massek illustrated a stirring and emotional insight into growing up in poverty in Appalachia.
The play begins on a somber tune played by Sarah on the banjo. As she pulls herself up and stares into the heart of the audience. “You’d think we’d have been closer,” she says as she wistfully looks up to the sky, and the monologue/musial becomes what Sarah yearns to say to her sister. She recalls growing up poor in a coal-mining camp, playing and singing songs with her sister, despite the fact they never really got along because Molly was “so disagreeable.” She explains the hardships she saw growing up, and how she watched many people die from the poor conditions. Music was the only thing the sisters truly shared. They sang to raise the spirits of the workers, and eventually Molly would move away on to raise money for the coal miner’s unions, and her talent quickly over shadows Sarah as they drift apart. Sarah confesses she was jealous of Molly for her success in music, and yet suggests she was just bitter about being left behind despite her own personal experiences with folk legends like Woodie Guthrie and Pete Seger. Sarah recounts a silly, hateful poem about how Molly once stole one of her songs, taking credit for writing it. As her story goes on, her frustration grows until she’s screaming at the ceiling of her empty apartment. Yet, Sarah comes to admit she truly couldn’t hate Molly, and that Molly had been far from a bad person. “Sometimes you were more of a mother than a sister to me,” she confesses near the end, coming to terms with Molly’s passing.
The play also gives a historically raw sense of realism to what growing up in during the era of the Coal Wars was like. Sarah mentions having watched many men die in the camps, whether from Black Lung or mining accidents. She also notes how many would lose an arm or a leg, but still go back to work in the mines so they could support their families, and how despite the amount of hours the miners worked they were some of the poorest in the country at the time. She also recalls seeing one of her childhood friends shot in the light of day by anti-Union “thugs”. She grew up and lived through tuberculosis as she watched it kill her first husband, and had buried two of her children. Sarah Ogan’s personal account of seeing such horrible, unfair events happen so often and casually reminds the audience keenly of the not-so-distant past of Appalachia.
As Massek played the final and somber hymn-like tune of Precious Memories, the crowd clapped enthusiastically. Afterwards musician Sue Massek, Si Kahn, a professional civil rights, labor, and community organizer (and also musician), and Dr. Gregory Wood, a professor from Frostburg State University, posed an open forum to the audience. While many of the questions pertained to general curiosity about the setting of the play and Sarah Ogan Gunning’s life, much of the response from the audience were remarks on Massek’s stirring and genuine performance. .. Between the moving memoir and the close-to-home setting, Si Kahn’s Precious Memories is a unique and thoughtful way start off to the Annual Appalachian Festival.
The play begins on a somber tune played by Sarah on the banjo. As she pulls herself up and stares into the heart of the audience. “You’d think we’d have been closer,” she says as she wistfully looks up to the sky, and the monologue/musial becomes what Sarah yearns to say to her sister. She recalls growing up poor in a coal-mining camp, playing and singing songs with her sister, despite the fact they never really got along because Molly was “so disagreeable.” She explains the hardships she saw growing up, and how she watched many people die from the poor conditions. Music was the only thing the sisters truly shared. They sang to raise the spirits of the workers, and eventually Molly would move away on to raise money for the coal miner’s unions, and her talent quickly over shadows Sarah as they drift apart. Sarah confesses she was jealous of Molly for her success in music, and yet suggests she was just bitter about being left behind despite her own personal experiences with folk legends like Woodie Guthrie and Pete Seger. Sarah recounts a silly, hateful poem about how Molly once stole one of her songs, taking credit for writing it. As her story goes on, her frustration grows until she’s screaming at the ceiling of her empty apartment. Yet, Sarah comes to admit she truly couldn’t hate Molly, and that Molly had been far from a bad person. “Sometimes you were more of a mother than a sister to me,” she confesses near the end, coming to terms with Molly’s passing.
The play also gives a historically raw sense of realism to what growing up in during the era of the Coal Wars was like. Sarah mentions having watched many men die in the camps, whether from Black Lung or mining accidents. She also notes how many would lose an arm or a leg, but still go back to work in the mines so they could support their families, and how despite the amount of hours the miners worked they were some of the poorest in the country at the time. She also recalls seeing one of her childhood friends shot in the light of day by anti-Union “thugs”. She grew up and lived through tuberculosis as she watched it kill her first husband, and had buried two of her children. Sarah Ogan’s personal account of seeing such horrible, unfair events happen so often and casually reminds the audience keenly of the not-so-distant past of Appalachia.
As Massek played the final and somber hymn-like tune of Precious Memories, the crowd clapped enthusiastically. Afterwards musician Sue Massek, Si Kahn, a professional civil rights, labor, and community organizer (and also musician), and Dr. Gregory Wood, a professor from Frostburg State University, posed an open forum to the audience. While many of the questions pertained to general curiosity about the setting of the play and Sarah Ogan Gunning’s life, much of the response from the audience were remarks on Massek’s stirring and genuine performance. .. Between the moving memoir and the close-to-home setting, Si Kahn’s Precious Memories is a unique and thoughtful way start off to the Annual Appalachian Festival.
More on Si Kahn's work can be found here.
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