1:00 p.m. Official opening by Alderman Dan Boyle, Lord Mayor of Cork.
Special appearance by the Kalyna Ukrainian Community Choir.
2:30 p.m. Adrian Kane “Union Renewal”
4:00 p.m. Fight Like Hell – The Testimony of Mother Jones.
Documentary written and performed by Kaiulani Lee.
Dance Cork Firkin Crane
7:00 p.m. Liz Gillis
‘Is This What They Fought For? Women And Independent Ireland”
Anne Twomey
“A Dauntless Spirit who went on to fight for women in a country where
they were treated like half-wits” Margaret Goulding Buckley.
Dance Cork Firkin Crane.
9:30 p.m. Cork Singers’ Club.
Kalyna Ukrainian Community Choir
Filipe Bustos SierraLord Mayor of Cork, Cllr. Dan Boyle with Cobh Animation TeamCork Singers ClubKaiulani Lee with Lord Mayor of Cork, Cllr. John ButtimerAdrian KaneLiz Gillis and Anne Twomey.
Portrait of Mother Jones by Lindsay HandKaiulani Lee as Mother Jones
Irish Premiere: Dance Cork Firkin Crane, Thursday 25th July at 4pm.
Kaiulani Lee as Mother Jones.
“We were never supposed to know her name. She was a poor Irish immigrant who survived famine and war, fire and plague. Unable to save her husband and four very young children, she dedicated her life to saving working families everywhere. The “robber barons” called her “the most dangerous woman in America” but the workers called her Mother Jones.”
And she asked the workers to pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living. This documentary has been adapted from Obie Award-winning actress Kaiulani Lee’s one-woman play “Can’t Scare Me” Kaiulani performed at the Firkin Crane Theatre back in July 2015 and visited Cork city for the inaugural festival in August 2012. Kaiulani lives Mother Jones.
The Lord Mayor of Cork, Cllr. John Buttimer meeting with Kaiulani Lee at the Lord Mayor’s Office in 2012.
Length: 55 minutes.
The performance is drawn from the 1925 autobiography of Mother Jones as well as her letters, speeches and interviews.
Kaiulani visiting Abbeystrewry Famine Graveyard in 2015.
“A Sense of Wonder”, a documentary by Kaiulani Lee about the life of Rachel Carson will be shown on Friday afternoon, 28th July at 2:30pm at the Maldron Hotel.
Rachel Carson, a marine biologist, published Silent Spring in 1962 which warned the world of the dangers of using pesticides on nature. The synthetic chemicals originally used during the Second World War were repackaged by some chemical companies for farmers to use on insects and weeds with little or no regulation. She highlighted the aerial spraying of DDT in particular.
Carson’s challenging and ground-breaking book resulted in a sustained and personal attack by the chemical industry on her findings and on her personally. However she faced down the industry, defended her work which subsequently led to a huge questioning by many scientists and citizens all over the world of the destruction of the environment through the use of pesticides and biocides in the natural environment. For her bravery, her work and her warnings Rachel Carson is regarded by many as the “Mother of the Environmental movement”.
Unfortunately in spite of growing scientific evidence of the impact of chemicals on birds, insects and vegetation the destruction has continued for the most part in spite of some governmental regulations. The ongoing loss of biodiversity and the growth of industrial agriculture is adding to the current mass extinction.
Carson quoted Albert Schweitzer as follows
“Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by destroying the earth”
We are honoured to show “ A Sense of Wonder” which was written and performed by Kaiulani Lee, with the help and guidance of many of Ms Carson’s friends and colleagues.
Kaiulani Lee.
Using many of Rachel Carson’s own words, Kaiulani embodies Carson in a documentary style film which depicts her in the final year of her life. As she battles the cancer, which was to take her life shortly afterwards, Carson tells the story of the attacks by the chemical industry, the government and the press as she tries to get the scientific evidence of destruction to be taken seriously by US legislators and people.
Kaiulani’s overreaching message in filming the documentary was to promote the interrelatedness of all life and the interconnection of all life. She says there has to be a shift in our consciousness and we have to know our place in the wider cosmos. We destroy life on the Earth at our peril.
Rachel Carson passed away on 14th April 1964, in Silver Springs, Maryland a few miles from where Mother Jones had died in 1930.
It is performed with humour, wit, sadness and anger by Kaiulani Lee, who has attended the Spirit of Mother Jones festivals in 2012 and 2015 and whose recent production of Fight Like Hell: – The testimony of Mother Jones is available to watch on Bullfrog Films.
Lord Mayor of Cork, Cllr. John Buttimer with Kaiulani Lee 2012.
The documentary will be introduced by Gerard (Ger) Mullally who is a sociology lecturer at University College Cork, specializing in the areas of environment, community, sustainable development and climate change. He also created the university-wide module in sustainability which is freely available to UCC students and staff as well as community members. This will be followed by an open discussion.
On Saturday 1st August the Cork Mother Jones Committee is privileged to present the film A Sense ofWonder with the kind permission of Kaiulani Lee. The film showing will take place at the Maldron Hotel at 2.30pm.
When biologist and author Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring in 1962, little did this quiet lover of the peace of the oceans and the tranquility of nature think she would be catapulted into a seething controversy which would make her name synonymous with the fight to defend the natural environment!Today she is regarded by many as the founder of the worldwide environmental movement.
Her book challenged the production by the multinational chemical industry of toxic chemicals for use in the countryside and which caused the widespread destruction of wildlife. She raised the fundamental issue of the “balance of nature” and how it had been altered by the use of fungicides, pesticides and herbicides. She asked specific questions about the DDT, which was used widely at the time, which does not break down in the environment and accumulates in the food chain.
The book was published by Houghton Mifflin in 1962, following the publication of a number of extracts in The New Yorker in June of that year, and had sold over 100,000 copies by December. There was huge controversy! The book was savagely attacked by the chemical industry and its many friends in Government and Big Science. Rachel and many of her colleagues defended her arguments and the debate convulsed America and the wider world.
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
The documentary A Sense of Wonder shows the private and human Rachel Carson in the autumn of 1963, portrayed by Kaiulani Lee, as she realises that the cancer she has battled so bravely cannot be beaten. She worries about her adopted son Roger and considers with a mixture of humour and resignation the many attacks on her book.
This film is heart breaking and poignant as she considers her final months, mired in controversy and yet she displays a steely determination to defend her book and the very future of the natural environment. It is shot by Oscar-winning cinematographer Haskell Wexler at Rachel Carson’s seaside cottage in Maine as she is about to depart for the final time.
Starring Kaiulani Lee, her performance has been described by Paul Brooks, Carson’s editor and biographer as “This is the Rachel I knew, brought to life with almost uncanny skill and understanding”. Ms Carson died on April 14th 1964.
Rachel Carson in later years
In 1973 Rachel Carson became one of the first members of The National Women’s Hall of Fame.Mary “Mother” Harris Jones and Blues singer Bessie Smith were admitted as members in 1973.
Ms Lee will present the film A Sense of Wonder and will be available for a question and answer session afterwards.
Mother Jones impersonator Kaiulani Lee begins a tour of Colorado next week. Kaiulani, who wowed Cork audiences at the inaugural Spirit of Mother Jones festival in 2012 is touring under the auspices of the United Mine Workers’ of America with her play “Can’t Scare Me, the story of Mother Jones”. We wish her all the best and hope she can return to Cork soon.
Kaiulani Lee is an author and actor with more than 35 years of experience in theatre, film and television, mostly in the United States. She has appeared in numerous films, television dramas and theatrical work, including her acclaimed stage performance in the role of Mother Jones in Can’t Scare Me, the Story of Mother Jones. Another award-winning play is A Sense of Wonder.
Kaiulani Lee has been nominated for the Drama Desk Award on Broadway and has won the OBIE Award for outstanding achievement off-Broadway.
Ms. Lee has guest starred on numerous television series from The Waltons to Law & Order. Her film work began with The World According to Garp and has continued through Civil Action, Stephanie Daley and A Bird in the Air. She portrayed “Martha Ballard” in the critically-acclaimed PBS film A Midwife’s Tale.
She taught in the film department at New York University’s Kanbar Institute of Film and Television and for the past thirteen years has taught acting at George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia. Ms. Lee is the recipient of an honorary doctorate from Bowdoin College for her contribution to and excellence in the arts.
Kaiulani Lee as Mother Jones (Photo Todd Messegee via DC Theatre Scene)
In Cork, Kaiulani will reprise her role as Mother Jones in excerpts from her stage show Can’t Scare me, the Story of Mother Jones. According to critic Terry Ponick of the DC Theatre Scene, “(Kaiulani) Lee speaks in Mother Jones’ native Irish dialect throughout and carries it on spectacularly well without breaking stride as some thespians occasionally do. She’s also at home with the character she embodies, behaving gently and solicitously when her labor union charges need grandmotherly advice, but then erupting into a full-blown radical rabble-rouser when she climbs the barricades. It’s an awesome performance, a phenomenal realization of a bigger-than-life historical character, impressive whether you’re on the side of labor unions or not.”
Her performance in Cork will add a sense of living history to the story of Mother Jones and we are sure that she will impress her audience and bring Mother Jones to life in our midsts during the Cork Mother Jones festival.
