Sixteen SMU graduate students performed monologues based on the events of Hurricane Katrina on Wednesday in the Hughes-Trigg Varsity.
The “Katrina Monologues” were a tribute to the victims and survivors of the hurricane.
One monologue told the story of a mother, Ethel Friedman and her son. Officials sent them to wait for buses that were supposed to rescue the evacuees. When the buses didn’t come, the two were left with no food, water or clothing.
Friedman needed medicine, but she did’t bring it with her because she was told to evacuate quickly. She continually asked her son when the buses would arrive, but they came a day after Friedman died.
Her son was distraught because he had to leave his mother when the buses came. Officials said he couldn’t take her body with him.
He wrote her name, his name, and her address on a piece of paper and slipped it into her hand so people would be able to identify her. He left her in her wheelchair and put a poncho over her body.
Another monologue portrayed a young girl named Serena who was sent to spend the weekend with her father for her birthday three days before the storm hit.
Serena’s mother couldn’t reach her after evacuations started because there was no electricity.
Her mother said Serena came to her in a dream and said, “Mommy, I’m falling,” and all she could hear was water. Five-year-old Serena was found dead a few days later in the floodwaters of an industrial canal.
Between each monologue the classmates sang “Wade in the Water” a capella.
“This was so moving,” junior Segi Latinwo said. “I am glad that I came because it gave me a lot of insight of what really happened.
The media only showed us so much and never really gave the factual scenarios and conditions that people were forced to live with, but the monologues educated me even further. I was able to witness people’s real stories.”
The student monologue performers are part of SMU’s Master of Liberal Studies’ Interpretation of African American Folklore class, taught by Dr. Njoki McElroy.
McElroy has taught at SMU for 25 years. Her class puts on performances each semester dealing with various issues.
McElroy writes the plays or monologues and gives them to her students to review, and then she asks for their feedback. S
he said that she had a hard time deciding what she wanted for this semester’s performance, but she knew she wanted to touch on Hurricane Katrina.
McElroy visited New Orleans last December and interviewed people who had been affected by the Hurricane. This prompted her to put together the script for “Katrina Monologues.” She also gathered material from The New York Times, The New Yorker and Spike Lee’s documentary “When the Levees Broke.”
“The students rehearsed and critiqued each other during every Wednesday night class, and they also met three additional Saturdays to perfect the monologues,” she said.
Learning the script proved to be challenging for student Kathy Turbenson, but she said she enjoyed every bit of it. This was the first play she’d been in.
Turbenson said the class became a big community of people with a common interest.
“It was so rewarding because I got to know people on a different level,” Turbenson said. “It was amazing to build a bond between all of us. It was as if we were family.”
