"Lewis Grizzard Returns"

There were big doings on Front Street Friday night. Dozens of people hovered on the pavement beneath the Strand Theater marquee, while in the lobby more clamored around the ticket counter to get a seat. Inside the Strand, everything was about to kick off with what no one has seen live in five years: Lewis Grizzard on stage.

Grizzard, the popular author, speaker and syndicated columnist from Georgia, died in 1994. But Georgetown had the next best thing: Bill Oberst, Jr, who has made a name for himself in the Southeast with his one-man shows portraying the likes of Mark Twain, John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln.

Friday’s performance was a success by any measure. The house was filled to capacity, with folding chairs set in the aisles to handle the overflow and about 200 people on a waiting list for unclaimed seats.

And Oberst’s portrayal was marvelous. His makeup, thin physique, facial structure, stage mustache, shaggy hair and glasses completed an eerie representation. But Oberst’s handling of the material made the show. He focused on many of Grizzard’s most popular stories: about hemorrhoid commercials, preachers, University of Georgia football and the school’s mascot Uga. Grizzard could say that no matter how important a person thinks he is, the attendance at his funeral will be determined by the weather, and people understood. He could describe sitting up all night with the body of a dead relative, and make it funny.

In the show’s program, Oberst had included a famous Grizzard column about the death of his beloved black Labrador retriever, Catfish. After the performance, Grizzard’s manager, Steve Enoch (who created the show along with Grizzard’s widow Dedra) related a story about the day after Thanksgiving Day 1993. He had arrived at Grizzard’s house after a night of watching football, drinking, and a mishap with the fireplace that had filled the house with smoke. “There was soot all over the house,” Enoch said, “and Lewis just said, ‘Catfish died.’ and threw the column down.”

That (human) side of Grizzard is what Oberst wants to convey in his show, and part of the legacy Steve Enoch and Dedra Grizzard want to preserve.