The Bayou

The play is set in "an open, fluid space evocative of the swamps of a burnt-out bayou." Quite literally, the word "bayou" refers to the marshy land surrounding the off-shoots of lakes and rivers in the southern areas of the United States (OED). But the term is also used in association with the rich culture that has grown up about the bayou areas in Southern Louisiana, Northern Florida and Eastern Texas. The following resources should shed some light on the geography and culture that inspired Svich's theatrical world.. . . . .

Photographs of the Bayou

The Louisiana Heritage Network has created an excellent database of photographs from the Atchafalaya Basin. In this database, one can find detailed images of the cypress trees that populate the bayou (Cypress Garden, Spring Green, Bald Cypress Trunk) as well as silhouettes of the swamp landscape at different times of day (Foggy Morning, Silhouettes, Dusk, Sunset over the Atchafalaya).

Visitors to the bayou can take a swamp tour for a first-hand experience of this terrain and several swamp tours provide useful online resources. The website of Alligator Bayou Tours includes a nature gallery with some great insight into the color pallette of the swamp. McGee's Landing also provides photographs of the Atchafalya Basin from the deck of a sightseeing boat. Super Gator Tours offers a virtual swamp tour for an online bayou experience.

Paintings of the Bayou

The Louisiana State Museum's online collection of landscape paintings demonstrates some ways in which nineteenth century painters depicted the scenery of the bayou. Click on the small image on each page for a larger view of each painting. Louisiana Bayou conveys the haze hovering over the swamp. Bayou Scene provides a rustic view of a rural dwelling at water's edge. Louisiana Swamp Scene is a dark, brooding silhouette of trees against the water and Morning in the Swamp, Bayou Teche shows workers gathering the moss that is so plentiful in this region.

Contemporary artists have also been inspired by this terrain. Cajun folk artist Hilda Kilmer Gallessero creates hand-painted woodburnings of old houses by the water's edge. Waven Boone captures images of the bayou on old cypress roof shingles which were saved when a house in Louisiana was torn down. New Orleans artist Miriam Ragan protrays the natural life of the bayou in watercolor and oils. Norva Mestayer's online gallery also includes paintings dominated by the massive cypress trees which grow right out of the water in the swamps of Louisiana.

Bayou Culture

From Zydeco to Swamp Pop to Cajun music, the region is associated with a range of unique sounds. Check this page later for some more thoughts about the music of the bayou. Writer Kate Chopin has created vivid depictions of the people of the bayou in many of her short stories. Thanks to the nice people at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries, the entire text of Chopin's collection, entitled Bayou Folk, is available online.