WOODEN SCIMITAR
“The scimitar was used in theater-adjacent shenanigans.”
Drew Broussard might be persuaded to give up this significant object… but we’ll need your help. Read the following nonfiction story, then SUBMIT YOUR PERSUASIVE RESPONSE HERE.
I grew up a theater kid in a rambling Victorian full of antiques and oddities. My parents were magpies, often dragging my sister and me to interesting places full of curious things, many of which were ultimately for sale. Although none of us can exactly remember when it came into our lives, I’m confident that the large wooden scimitar came into my life via the Madison-Bouckville Antique Fair. My dad confirms that it came from Bouckville, a theater company in the Finger Lakes that folded and liquidated its assets at the fair. There’s a photo of it over my shoulder as the Pirate King in a driveway production (directed by my sister) in the early ’00s, so certainly we got it before then.
The scimitar was used in several of those driveway plays, and several other theater-adjacent shenanigans besides. For a time, it sat in the living room beside a prop elephant gun and the front fender of Greased Lightning, a trio of theatrical memories I thought I’d never forget.
I have carried this large wooden scimitar with me across more than a decade’s worth of New York City apartments. Before that, it sat in my last college dorm and since then, I have slung it over my shoulder and stood on the deck of my house like a pirate captain longing for the sea. It has served as a point of conversation, if not gentle ribbing, from friends new and old.
But slowly, it has moved to the margins of my life. Theater, really, has moved to the margins of my life: I have not acted in a play for the better part of a decade now. The call to perform is still present, still beating in me like a second heart, but at some point the passion waned. Too many callbacks, too few parts; too many late nights, too little money. A pandemic, a job change. Life moves on.
The scimitar has a pleasing weight, once you steady your wrist. It will spin you around if you try to swing it with any kind of force. It is a relic of an earlier time, in so many respects, and while it might not be a more elegant weapon for a more civilized age, it does put a smile on my face.
— DREW BROUSSARD
Please SUBMIT YOUR PERSUASIVE RESPONSE HERE.
You can commune in person with this object (and 10 others) at solo exhibits in Kingston (NY) from August 15–September 1, and at a group exhibit — at Camp Kingston — from September 3–10. The object essays will be read aloud, and the most persuasive responses announced, at the GIVE IT UP project’s wrap-up party (open to all) on September 10. Join us there!
To very loosely paraphrase Pee-wee Herman: you’ve got the photo, so you can get rid of the thing. Just think of how many kids out there would want, at an age similar to when you first acquired it, this wooden blade full of imagination-stoking potential. Pass it on to a friend’s kid, or put it up on Craigslist (your entry here could, with a little tweaking, serve as the ad), or donate it to a local elementary school’s theater department. The only thing better than fueling one’s imagination is encouraging that of a child. In this situation, it is literally your gift to give.
I know that this isn't playing by the rules, but I do not think that getting rid of the wooden scimitar is a good idea. What if a ship appears on the horizon and sails right up to your home and flings grapples across and then its crew of heavily weathered nautical figureheads and cigar store Indians and surly mobcapped garden gnomes and other such disgruntled wooden personages attempts to swing across on ropes and board your home? What if only your performing a piratical monologue assisted by suitable props will repel them?