Most days, Charlotte playwright Charles LaBorde wakes up in his home and walks to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. It’s a Cajun blend called “chicory.”
"It’s what they serve at Cafe du Monde in New Orleans — the beignet place," he says from his kitchen as the aroma fills the air.
In the hallway, he passes two black and white photographs hanging on the wall. In one of them, his father, still young in a Navy uniform. In the other, his father’s older brother, Joe.
Growing up, LaBorde didn’t know much about his Uncle Joe. Just that he was a sailor killed in World War II. But he decided to do some research before visiting Rome with his wife in 2022.
"My understanding was that my uncle was buried in the Sicily(-Rome) American cemetery just south of Rome, and we thought we would go there," he said.
As he searched genealogy sites and newspaper clippings, he made a surprising discovery. His uncle wasn’t buried in any cemetery. In fact, his body had been lost at sea when his ship was hit by an enemy torpedo, and there was something else that jumped out:
"He was on a ship that exploded Sept. 11, 1943, during the invasion of Italy, but his date of death is Sept. 12, 1944."
At that time, the Navy wouldn’t declare a sailor dead until they had been missing for a year and one day, leaving their families in a state of limbo.
"And that fact got me intrigued, by how do you spend a year with just a faint glimmer of hope, and what do you do to occupy that time?" he said.
The result is his new play, "One Year to Die," which debuted last weekend at Matthews Playhouse. It’s set in small-town Hessmer, Louisiana, with a character based on Laborde's grandmother, a white Cajun housewife named Edwina, and an imagined neighbor Ella, a Black housewife whose son is missing at war.
The two black-and-white photographs from LaBorde’s hallway now hang on the stage, in the recreated living room of his grandmother, who takes on a sewing project with her neighbor.
Nick de la Canal: Can you talk about this quilt that they work together on?
LaBorde: In the play, the quilt idea comes from the African American woman. She comes to the white lady’s house — my grandmother — comes to her house, knocks on the front door. Well, she gets treated very rudely at first. So she comes back a second time and presents the idea, and sort of assumes it will be a thing they will do. And it takes off from there, and the play is about how they very slowly build a friendship.
De la Canal: What makes you want to turn a story like this into a play?
LaBorde: I’m just fascinated. Most of my plays are about wartime. It fascinates me the sacrifices that people are called on to make. It really rattled around in my head about what it was like for my grandmother and grandfather to have children off at war. They actually had — in the play they have two sons. In reality, they had nine children. And all of them were involved in the war effort one way or another.
De la Canal: What do you think writing this play has meant to you personally?
LaBorde: Well, it’s really been a very personal play. More than any I’ve written, because it does involve — characters in the play are my uncle, my grandfather, my grandmother, who’s the lead character along with the African American woman, and my father.
It’s pretty emotional for me. But there are several emotional moments in the play, so I think it’s the kind of play where people are advised to bring tissues.
"One Year to Die" is at the Matthews Playhouse through Sept. 29.
