Reviews
Mississippi-born actress-writer Christy McBayer certainly knows her roots. With minimal
costume changes, she effectively calls forth the colorful characters of her youth growing up in
Saltillo, which she refers to as the trailer park suburb of Tupelo. Staged with relaxed
efficiency by Rita Sheffield, McBrayer does not dwell on any one characterization for long as
she methodically moves from family to friends, punctuated by the adroit mystical offerings of
guitarist-singer Jim Leslie and backup vocalist-fiddler Mike Kelly. This generally lighthearted
memory piece only occasionally dips into the dark side and does showcase McBayer’s
captivating ability to lose herself within the personas of some truly memorable down-home
folk.
Arriving by way of the audience togged as a hard-working up and coming Hollywood glamour
queen wannabe, McBrayer suddenly sheds her evening gown and unveils the plain-talking
cutoff jeans/tank-topped hometown girl who “tied for homecoming queen” back in high school.
Sauntering around a crowed but serviceable set, McBrayer re-creates a prodigal visit back to
this Deep South town of 2000 to rekindle the relationships of her past. Along the way she
encounters the love and pride of those who admire her courage to leave town, as well as the
not-so-thinly veiled resentments and jealousies of those who wish her no good will at all.
McBrayer, backed by the duo of Leslie and Kelly, narrates herself into each character as she
dons whate4ver apparel will aid in her transformation. It’s an impressive array. Her widowed
grandmother Mamaw desperately tries to busy herself with family cooking and gossip but is
suffering from near-catatonic loneliness since the death of her husband. Chain-smoking Aunt
Ann can’t wait to unload some juicy tidbits about McBrayer’s former boyfriend while cluelessly
blowing cigarette some in her grandbaby’s face. The small-town tribulations of former high
school pals Belinda, Carrie and Glenda Rose offer comical and poignant reinforcement to her
decision to leave home.
The production is helped immensely by amiable musical contributions of singer-guitarist
Leslie, whose offering include “Amazing Grace,” the Eagles’ “Lyin’ Eyes” and Hank Williams
Jr. ditty “Family Tradition.” -Julio Martinez
Mississippi-born writer-performer Christy McBrayer tells us she’s not white trash-she’s debris
blanc. Her one-woman show is a wildly colorful gallery of fictionalized portraits of of her
childhood family and friends. Her characters are larger-than life small-town eccentrics, sharply
observed and portrayed with a rich blend of affection, nostalgia and cheerful malice. After a
loving portrait of her snuff-dipping grandmother, McBrayer moves on to detail her pugnacious
jail-bird sister, a zinfandel-sipping self- styled aristocratic neighbor, an alpine-hipped lesbian
athletic coach and a tone-deaf singing barmaid. They are all instantly recognizable types for
anyone who’s spent time in the rural South, and she plays them with zest. With the help of
Rita Sheffield, “script muse” Cynthia Ward Walker and a ively two-man country combo (Jim
Leslie and Like Kelley) McBRayer has concocted a slick, funny, tightly constructed show with
just enough sentiment and pathos to give it ballast.-Neal Weaver
She may hail from Saltillo, Miss., “a trailer park suburb of Tupelo”, but Christy McBrayer is
adamant that she is not white trash. She prefers “Debris blanc.”
Saltillo is the kind of place where a man named Cotton keeps running for public office with the
same slogan “Pick Cotton.” Everyone in Saltillo knows that you can’t make good barbecue
and comply with the health code at the same time.” And if you’re religious, you shop at Jesus
Christ Superstore, where a popular item is the “crown of thorns hair scrunchy.”
In “Southern Fried Chickie” McBrayer plays herself, a Hollywood actress of modest
achievement returning home were some where some people consider her a celebrity because
of her Sprite commercial and the fact that she knows Andrew Dice Clay and that Rosie
O’Donnell once borrowed a tampon from her in the ladies’ room.
McBrayer is a free-spirited blonde in her 30’s who’s casual and at ease onstage, where she
creates 14 down-home characters with a minimum of costumes and props, bounces around
singing and is irrepressibly likable, like a younger Jean Smart or Kyra Sedgwick.
Among the people we meet are her grandmother, whose lap is a place of comfort despite the
face that she chews tobacco and spits it into a Folger’s can; tough-tender twin sister Misty,
whose meth lab once exploded and who is now in prison; a Yankee neighbor who makes
macramé covers for all of her appliances “even the fridge, adding “that took awhile” and her
best friend’s mother, who married beneath her, but says that when her husband died “we
received a plethora of tasteful funerary arrangements from every truck stop across the
country.”
Then there’s her high school rival, superior as ever; hairdresser friend Tucker, a special in
“high hair” who tut-tuts “Your roots are redder than Paris Hilton’s kneecaps; and gal pal Carrie
Herndon, now the high school girls coach who observes “Out of our whole graduation class,
you and me is the only ones who never got married...wanna go out for a beer?”.
Best of all, perhaps, is waitress/aspiring country-western songwriter Glenda Rose Raspberry,
married four times and left with four kids and five songs, musing “I might have an album
soon.” We hear one of her compositions dedicated to her abusive second husband Rebel
called Don’t Leave me in this Trailer Tonight.”
McBrayer is a clever writer and beguiling performer who never gets too slick or serious on us.
“Southern Fried Chickie” is roadhouse performance art and as she dances off the stage, she
leaves us with a sense of joy. -David Cuthbert
Larry the Cable Guy has met his match in a busty, blond Tupelo, Mississippi princess. In her
entertaining one-woman show “Southern Fried Chickie” Christy McBRayer proves that she’s
become everything her daddy wanted her to be: a strong, beautiful woman who knows as
much as any man and can still drink him under the table. She’s even got the unholy white
trash-excuse me, debris blanc-trio of Jim Beam, PBR and a Tab chaser ready to go.
Transforming with ease into 10 different Southern chickies before a delighted audience,
McBrayer narrates funny, poignant and sometimes unsettling conversations with family and
friends during a rate visit to her trailer park homeland. Among the host of quirky relations are
chain-smokers, convicts, bitches and alcoholics, women with big hearts and bigger hair who
smoke Virginia Slim Menthol Lights and sip rose while quoting the Bible.
Though “Southern Fried Chickie” might ring true for Southerners, Yanks may wrinkle their
noses at its playful treatment of domestic abuse and racism. But to lighten things up, a
charming “redneck Greek chorus” accompanies McBrayer, strumming everything from Johnny
Cash to Alison Kraus to Poison. The only thing missing is “Freebird.”
There are two popular archetypes of the Southern women; polite marriage material and
delightfully tacky diva. One of these is far more interesting than the other and I’ll give you a
hint: The fun one doesn’t involve going to cotillion (at least not legitimately). Christy McBrayer
seems like she may have crashed a cotillion or two in her day, and makes no bones about her
seriously Southern upbring just outside of Tupelo, Mississippi. She sends up her big-haired,
menthol-smolin’ PBR-swillin’ frriends and family, playing 10 strong-willed ladies who will make
you laugh and since equally. Her Redneck Greek Chrus gives McBrayer’s Southern Fried
Chickie the soundtrack you’d expect-a little Hank Williams, a little Johnny Cash and a lotta
pickin’.