Fireball (play)

By Norman McMillan

Premiered March 8, 2024, at Montevallo Main Street Players; Montevallo, Alabama

Directed by Gregory Wayne Martin

Starring Ingrid McGraw

Based on the book Fireball

By Hazel Lindsey and Julia McMillan Walker

GreyWalk Books, 2015

Paperback: $15.00

Genre: Memoir

The cover of Fireball is a photograph of a young woman smiling

Anyone who has had the opportunity to spend time with Norman McMillan knows that he is an engaging and skillful storyteller. McMillan, a long-time professor, department chair, and current Professor Emeritus at the University of Montevallo, has won awards for academic excellence as well as for his creative literary output. He is a past president of the Alabama Writers’ Forum and many other educational and literary organizations.

Distant Son: An Alabama Boyhood (2002) is McMillan’s compelling memoir of growing up in Alabama’s Black Belt. The Gold-Plated Scarab and Other Stories (2022) is a recent collection of McMillan’s short stories and other writings. His plays include Against a Copper Sky (2002), Ashes of Roses (2004), and, most recently, Fireball, which premiered in Montevallo in March 2024. Reviewer and critic Don Noble cites McMillan as an Alabama playwright whose plays “deserve to be revived.”

Fireball is based on the memoir of the same name by Hazel “Fireball” Lindsey (1931-2016), co-authored by Julia Walker, a former educator and writer for a publishing company. The book’s subtitle sums it up well: “The True Story of a Tennessee Plow Girl Who Survived Poverty, Abuse, and Eleven Husbands with Wit, Wisdom, and Tenacity.” Norman McMillan’s play nicely telescopes the events of the book into octogenarian Hazel’s reminiscences on the eve of another chapter in a wildly eventful life. Hazel always wanted her life story to be made into a movie – and that might happen yet – but I think Norman McMillan’s play would make her proud. Since each of McMillan’s plays is an adaptation, I thought it would be worthwhile to discuss his approach to adaptation and playwriting in general. His response to the first question surprised me. This discussion took place on April 16, 2024. 

EJ: Let’s talk about adaptations. Your play “Against a Copper Sky” is a one-man show based on the later years of Truman Capote and Ashes of Roses is an adaptation of short stories by Mary Ward Brown. Now, you have adapted Fireball, another play for one actor based on the autobiography of Hazel Lindsey by Lindsey and Julia McMillan Walker. What draws you to these materials for adaptation and what are the specific rewards and challenges of the form?

Norman McMillan: The three plays I have written and had produced were not my idea. In 2002, I was asked by the Alabama Writers Symposium to write a play based on the life and works of Truman Capote, who was the central figure of the symposium that year. Against a Copper Sky was the result.

In 2006, I was commissioned by the Weil Foundation in Montgomery to write a play based on Mary Ward Brown’s stories to be produced by the Auburn in Montgomery theater. They first asked Mary T. to do it, but she said no. As I understood, she suggested me, having seen Against a Copper Sky. The result was Ashes of Roses.

Julia asked me to adapt Fireball. She said she wanted to take Hazel’s story to a broader, perhaps a different, audience. Of course, Hazel wanted a movie made about her life, and I don’t think Julia has given up on that.

The one-person shows were easier to do than Ashes of Roses, which had five characters, but all presented challenges. As for Fireball, Julia gave me two great gifts. First, she gave me a sympathetic character to work with. For whatever faults Hazel had, Julia never employs caricature. Then she gave me Hazel’s wonderful language, which rang so true to me.

EJ: When I worked and taught in theatre, my colleagues or students and I often had a discussion whenever the theatre mounted a production of an adaptation from another medium. We focused on the question, “Why is it a play?” Hazel Lindsey and Julia Walker have done a lovely job of presenting Hazel’s story in book form. What was the impetus for turning it into a stage play?

NMc: I found Hazel such a fascinating character that it seemed quite natural to present her in a one-woman show. (Actually, we are now considering a version with three different actresses playing Hazel at different stages of her life, but there’s much work to do on that.) I think it was Hazel’s voice that made it seem almost inevitable that it be presented as a one-woman show.

EJ: Hazel Lindsey is a cantankerous and headstrong woman whose philosophy of not giving “second chances” persists through eleven marriages. Despite that, she comes across as likable and sympathetic throughout the book and the play. How did you choose the tone and the materials from the book that you included in the play?

NMc: I earlier mentioned Julia’s gifts to me that made my job easier, but there were still some challenges. First, I had to choose the vantage point from which Hazel’s story would be told in the play. I quickly concluded that I wanted Hazel to be an older woman when she looked back over her life. And soon it seemed appropriate to set the play on the night before she was making what turned out to be the last move of her life, a time at which she might reasonably be taking stock. Now came the matter of what to include and what to exclude. Inclusion was easy. In fact, when I finished the first draft, it would have required a series rather than a mere play. So I cut it considerably before it was produced in Montevallo and have continued to cut it since. I think the play has gotten better in the process.

EJ: Hazel’s sharp sense of humor comes through in much of her narrative. There are also moments of harrowing sadness or abuse. Some of Hazel’s story is so outrageous that it might elicit nervous laughter from an audience. Is it a problem if the audience perceives what is often a gut-wrenching true story as a quasi-comic turn? And how much of that is dependent on casting?

NMc: This is something that I thought about a lot. But I realized that the humor Hazel employed was a means by which she could handle the situations she found herself in (i.e., in her recounting the experiences). Judging from the response of the audience in Montevallo, the actress was able to mix the comic and the sad quite successfully.

EJ: On a similar note, Fireball is a short play. What motivated the choice to split it into three acts? The breaks make sense, but were they motivated by literary reasons or as a practical courtesy to the actor?

NMc: In Montevallo, it was done as a two-act play. The major motivation I had for making it a three-act was consideration of the actress. The play is very demanding emotionally, and it has a lot of lines to memorize and deliver. So breaking it up seemed reasonable.

EJ: Hazel Lindsey’s co-author Julia Walker credits you with helping her “to keep true to Hazel’s voice” on the page. That commitment to capture Hazel’s East Tennessee Appalachian dialect carries over into the play. The authentic presentation of dialect is a sometimes fraught challenge nowadays; some critic is always ready to pounce. How did you go about addressing those issues and sensitivities?

NMc: Dialect is a tricky matter. It can be overdone, especially when the author tries to spell out everything phonetically. I suggested to Julia that she should be careful so as not to seem condescending in the use of dialect, but we both knew her language should seem authentic for a person of Hazel’s place and circumstances. I hope we both have managed to accomplish that.

EJ: I know that your sister, Julia, the book’s co-author, was Hazel’s friend and spent considerable time with her. Did you ever meet Hazel in person?

NMc: Yes, I did meet Hazel on three occasions, twice at the flea market in Sweetwater and the other in Montevallo when Julia brought her down for a few days. I’m happy to have had a chance to actually hear her speak, as it gave me greater confidence that we were accurately capturing her voice.

EJ: Are you working on new projects that you care to share?

NMc: This is keeping me busy right now, though I do manage to write a short story every now and then.

EJ: And I’ll look forward to reading them.

Edward Journey, a retired university professor and theatre professional living in Birmingham, regularly shares his essays in the online journal “Professional Southerner” (www.professionalsoutherner.com). Visit his entry in the Alabama Authors Directory here.