Das Barbecü Brings A Taste Of Texas With A Wagnerian Ring

The off-Broadway hit Das Barbecü is a 20th-century reimagining of the five operas that make up Richard Wagner's Ring cycle. Playwright Jim Luigs condenses this monumental 15-hour-long epic into one, fast-paced, witty, country western musical comedy. The five-member cast performing thirty zany characters transports audiences deep into the heart of Texas. 

Das Barbecü opens this weekend at The Little Theatre of Winston-Salem. Luigs, a graduate of Duke University, spoke with WFDD's David Ford from his studio in New York.

Interview Highlights

On the show's early beginnings:

It was all the brainchild of the incredible Speight Jenkins who was at that time the general director of Seattle Opera. At that time it was rare for an American company to offer a new Ring cycle, and we were invited to create an entertainment for the festival guests. In brief, the idea was wide open. He wanted something with characters from the Ring and Scott Warner who wrote the music for the show was terrified of in any way attempting something on a Wagnerian scale — not that that would even be humanly possible — and he didn't want to invite comparison. So, it was his idea to go as far away from Wagner's music as possible and to write a country and western score which led us to Texas, and then I knew what to do from there. 

On the writing process:

The first reaction was absolute terror because I knew that the Ring cycle loomed as this chunk of Western culture. But I was not intimately familiar with it to say the least. And I flew out to Seattle to meet with Speight. He gave me the libretto. I got on the plane and I started plowing through them and I had a panic attack. I'd already taken the money and agreed to do it. So, I just thought, 'Oh this is so embarrassing. How in the world will I carve a musical comedy out of this?' And then when I solved the panic attack I realized that it [Wagner's Ring] was about feuding families on one level, and that was my guide. So, I decided to write about, you know, feuding Texas clans

essentially as the big bald outline. From there it came more easily than I would have thought. But I think that's because Texas and the topography of the Ring itself are connected. I mean, there are forests and mountains and water and rivers, and when I looked at Wagner's world and looked at Texas on a map, it all seemed to make sense to me, and that happened to be pure luck.

On the word "spoof" to describe the musical:

The word spoof has become attached to Das Barbecü in ways that were not intentional. But we certainly understand them. We were really trying to translate the ring — to transpose the Ring, to transport the Ring — to Texas. And the idea wasn't to spoof Wagner. But you find that labyrinthine plot, and it invited parody in a way that was not intentional. So, we really hope that actors who take on these characters, and of course they are aware that many of them are comedic characters, and the fact that five actors portray all of the characters is of course essentially comedic and leads

people to think of the play as a farce, but that rock scene with "Slide a Little Closer" is one of the felt moments in the play where real human beings with real problems, real emotions, and deep family connections are working their way through problems. So, it is comedic but I hope — and good productions of the play — capture both the parodic elements and the truly felt human moments.