THE FREEDONIA TRILOGY

THE FREEDONIA MARXONIA FESTIVAL

In 1987, Douglas Canham was a marketing major at the Fredonia branch of the State University of New York. As a devoted fan of the Marx Brothers, Doug wanted to acknowledge Fredonia’s connection to the team: The ruritanian kingdom in Duck Soup is called Freedonia, and at the time of the film’s release, a publicity stunt pitted the Marxes against the supposedly offended Mayor of Fredonia. (“Please change the name of your village,” Groucho wrote to him. “It’s hurting our picture.”) Doug’s enthusiasm led to the first annual Freedonia Marxonia Festival, an annual series of lectures, screenings, and other Marxian activites, on and around the SUNY Fredonia campus. Starting in 2010, administrative duties for Freedonia Marxonia were assumed by Cynthia Yochym, a reference librarian at SUNY Fredonia’s Daniel A. Reed Library.

My connection with Freedonia Marxonia began when I was invited to be the festival’s featured speaker in 2017. At the beautifully-restored 1891 Fredonia Opera House, I presented my illustrated lecture The Marx Brothers on Broadway.

THE TRILOGY

I was invited to return to Freedonia Marxonia with another illustrated lecture in 2020. But of course, the festival — like almost everything in 2020 — had to be reimagined as a virtual event. Cindy Yochym asked me to create a live-streaming presentation, which could be enjoyed by Marx Brothers fans everywhere, as a pandemic-era alternative to the lecture in Fredonia. This became Home Again: The Marx Brothers and New York City, a hybrid of lecture, performance, and documentary, which has now received over 30,000 views on YouTube.

In 2021, not yet ready to return to the in-person version of Freedonia Marxonia, Cindy invited me to produce a sequel, There’s Nothing Like Liberty: The Marx Brothers and America. And in 2022, we decided to make it a trilogy with If You Get Near a Song, Play It: The Marx Brothers and Music.

WATCH THE TRILOGY

All three programs are available to watch for free on YouTube. The live stream of Home Again, though quite well-received, had some problems with audio levels and other technical flubs, so in 2022 I released a “remixed” version, which corrected those flaws, and also applied some of the increased technical knowhow I developed while working on Liberty and Play It.

On YouTube, the live version of Home Again, as well as its two sequels, are followed by live Q&A sessions. For that reason, the running times look pretty daunting, but don’t worry: Home Again is about an hour and ten minutes, and Liberty and Play It are just under two hours each; all the rest is Q&A.

These projects are supported by a grant from the Carnahan Jackson Humanities Fund and the Hahn Family Freedonia Marxonia Fund, both of the Fredonia College Foundation. Freedonia Marxonia is supported by the Hahn Family Freedonia Marxonia Fund of the Fredonia College Foundation.

Learn about my other Marx Brothers projects right here.