Just Ducky

Whilst living on the eastern shores of Wisconsin I enjoyed the yearly May performances of Heart-a-Rama. Pure fun, and good jokes mostly at the expense of various "locals."

The Ola Players of Ola, SD recently presented "Just Ducky" at the Ola Hall in Ola, SD, population 106.  A wonderful three-part farce replete with local jokes and innuendo.

A couple of my favorites.  A young actress is bemoaning her "too common of a name. " by repeating many, many times that she would stand out in the crowd if her last name was something like "Konechne" (ka-nich-knee). That statement brings the house down, folks are hooting and hollering and clapping.  I look at the couple sitting next to me. They say "Her maiden name is Konechne."  Now I get it:  She's really poking fun of her huge extended family, some of whom are in attendance.  Koneche is sort of the SD version of have a surname like: Smith.  If one is not a Konechne by birth, they are related by marriage to a Konechne. 

An even bigger laugh was garnered by Aunt Mary, a crotchety old lady played by Pam.  In the play Aunt Mary's (never seen) husband is Ted, as is her real-life husband, who is in attendance.  In one scene Aunt Mary is going on and on and on to her niece that "Ted won't like this. Ted won't put up with this. Ted is going to do something about this. Just wait till I tell Ted. Ted is going to do something about this."  Out of the darkness in the very back row comes a voice "NO HE WONT!"

We all recognized that voice as belonging to the real-life Ted shouting out to his wife.  That brought the house down, stopped the play, got a standing ovation and made us laugh so hard we cried and the actors needed a prompt to continue.