About the Play: Happy and the River

In 2009, the City of St. Croix Falls commissioned an original play about the life of Gaylord Nelson to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Earth Day on April 22nd, 2010. Wisconsin author, David Rhodes, was asked to write a play about Gaylord Nelson, Earth Day's founder and resident of Clear Lake, just 20 miles down the road from St. Croix Falls. But when the community members met with Mr. Rhodes to discuss this new play, something very different evolved.

Carrie Classon, the show's producer explained, “From the very first meeting, when David asked our assembled group, 'What is this play about? Who is the hero?'  I knew this was going to be a different kind of project. The answer he got was not, 'It’s a play about Gaylord Nelson.' Instead, our community members said, 'It’s a play about the St. Croix River,' 'It’s a play about Wisconsin's history of conservation,' and 'It’s a play about this place and what it means to us.' David listened and took notes. Then he came back with something brilliant.”

“Happy and the River,” opened on September 17th at the Festival Theatre where it played both Friday and Sunday, then for a free student performance on Monday. The play then went on to perform in Chippewa Falls and ended its tour in Madison, where it was performed as the final event in the Wisconsin Humanities Council's Book Festival at the Overture Center. The production was also sponsored, in part, by the Wisconsin Arts Board and the Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Company.

David Rhodes is the author of “Driftless.” The Chicago Tribune described the 2008 novel as “the best work of fiction to come out of the Midwest in many years,” and said that “it re-creates the human condition as a condition of Wisconsin life.”

In “Happy and the River,” Mr. Rhodes has once again made the personal universal, as he follows the course of one fictional but very familiar family operating a small general store on the St. Croix River in  Wisconsin. The audience goes with them through the tumultuous times from the early trappers and traders, to a day in April in 1970 when Gaylord Nelson simply announced the first Earth Day and the world took notice.

Between these two points in history were the the decimation of the native population, the logging of the virgin white pine forests, the near extinction of the beaver for pelts, the world's largest log jam, the suffragette movement, and the creation of Wisconsin. In addition to Gaylord “Happy” Nelson, Walter Mondale, John Muir, and dozens of others populate the stage to tell the story of our changing attitude toward the natural world and our relationship within it.

But David Rhodes does not simply allow the story to be told from the perspective of the humans inhabiting the tale. A spokesperson for nature flows throughout the narrative—the St. Croix River herself. She recalls the 3 billion years that have transpired since the first life forms appeared. Her funny, affectionate, exasperated, and infuriated commentary on the “latest “newcomers to the watershed” move the action of the play and provide an even broader perspective for the changes that are transforming the landscape. She inspires Gaylord's efforts to create Wild and Scenic Rivers Act which made the St. Croix River the first river to be managed by the National Park Service and created a new template for conservation efforts in the United States.

For more information about Gaylord Nelson’s environmental legacy and Earth Day see St. Croix Conservation Study Center-CONSERVATION.