Katori Hall’s Hoodoo Love sprung out of an assignment at Columbia University. The assignment was to write about a pair of people fighting over an object. She wrote about a couple of people fighting over a mojo bag in Memphis in the 1930s. The story revolves around Touloua woman who fled the cotton fields of Mississippi to pursue a dream of being a blues singer . . . this at a time when Robert Johnson was still alivethe dawn of the blues.I couldn't imagine anyone would've been looking for fame as a blues musician back then . . . it would've been an opportunity to escape form a life of labor into song. Sounds like an interesting atmosphere, anyway . . .
The play has been praised for its dialogue (if not its plot.) That dialogue lives on a local stage for one night only this month as Uprooted Theatre stages a reading of Hoodoo Love at 7pm on January 13th at In Tandem’s 10th Street Theatre. Uprooted’sdirects the reading. Tickets are $10.