A resident of Georgetown for decades, Mrs. Colette English returns to Richmond every other month to visit the community of friends and acquaintances she left behind there and to comment on the city’s creeping southernness and decay. The traffic is “interminable,” she broods, now accustomed to the assertive driving of Washington. Her French accent echoes with raspy, well-earned grandeur, a puff of smoke implied in each utterance.
The giant, cast-iron Indian that stands above the ticket box of the Richmond Coliseum and menacingly wields a tomahawk there is “insufferable,” a testament to something peculiar and American. We drive by the only monument to a black man that I have seen in the Richmond- a statue of a man named “Bojangles” (which is etched in stone). I drive. In the other seat, Mrs. English is immersed in needlework.
I met Mrs. English this summer through Georgetown’s employment website, which holds a hidden wealth of alternatives to office work. In addition to belonging to the university’s long tradition of society matrons, Mrs. English is also the director of Histrio, an area French theater company that is holding its annual performance at the French Embassy late in March. On the days I travel with her, she has a full schedule.
Last Tuesday at around 11 a.m., I held my hands in my pockets as a small crew of workers bent over a field of bricks in an industrial part of Richmond. Mrs. English, hair freshly cropped close to her head, stood twenty bricks short of a full walkway. She knew what she was after. The workers seemed to have no idea. Most of the bricks were too new, which meant that their powder did not dust off red in your hands, and were entirely the wrong shape. When she bent down and picked up a brick herself, a worker came over and compared it to the sample she had given him, commenting, “Hey, that’s pretty good. You have a good eye.” Mrs. English smiled, knowingly.
Spending a minute in her home, or a day with her on the road, it is hard to miss Mrs. English’s affinity for the inscrutable thingness of things. This may be the secret to her long run and her poetic outlook on the world.
Histrio is hosting performances of Tardieu T?t Ou Tard, by Jean Tardieu, at the French Embassy (4101 Reservoir Rd., N.W.) on Saturday, March 27 and Friday, April 2. Tickets are $12 for students. Mrs. English is also looking for a lighting assistant (no experience necessary) for these and other performances. For more information, call (202)-333-2666 or visit www.frenchtheater.com.
